erms corresponding to them.

Before classifying the various forms of sexual relationships, it may be
well to say a few words on the definition of marriage in general. Dr
Westermarck has defined it from the point of view of natural history as
a more or less durable connection between male and female, lasting
beyond the mere act of propagation till after the birth of the
offspring.

It may not be possible to propose a better definition from the point of
view selected by Dr Westermarck, which is certainly the one from which
anthropology must regard sexual relationships. At the same time it is
not entirely free from objection. In the first place we are employing
the word marriage in a sense which has but little in common with its
ordinarily accepted meaning. Suppose, for example, we are dealing with
marriage in Europe, it is confusing to be compelled by our definition to
regard as a marriage the _faux menage_, not to speak of the not uncommon
fairly permanent unions in which there is no common residence. Such
monogamous relationships may be, technically speaking, marriages, in Dr
Westermarck's sense, but it seems desirable to make use of some other
term for them and reserve marriage for the unions sanctioned by legal
forms. Or take the union of two people, each of whom has prior
matrimonial engagements. Such a union may, as the records of the divorce
court show, be anything but impermanent; but it does not make for
clearness to call such an union marriage. Let us take a third example--a
New Hebridean girl purchased, or in Upa stolen, for the use of the young
men, who, of course, reside in their club-house. If any of the bachelors
there resident chooses to recognise her children, they are regarded as
his children; if not, they are supported by the whole of the residents
in the club-house. How are we to classify the position of the mother of
these children? The union is obviously fairly permanent, although some
of the group enter into sexual relationships of an ordinary type and
join the ranks of the married men, and others enter the club-house from
the ranks of those hitherto shut out from the enjoyment of the
privileges of the adult unmarried male. But the relationship established
with the whole body of unmarried men and indistinguishable, so far as
definition goes, from polyandry, hardly seems to be a permanent union of
the type which Dr Westermarck had in mind when he framed his definition,
much less a marriage in any ac