d nations (which in 1865 were often considered identical with
the tribes themselves), inside of which intermarrying was prohibited. In
consequence the men (or women) of a certain group were forced to choose
their wives (or husbands) outside of their group. Other tribes again
observe the custom of forcing their men to choose their women inside of
their own group only. McLennan calls the first exogamous, the second
endogamous, and construes forthwith a rigid contrast between exogamous
and endogamous "tribes." And though his own investigation of exogamy
makes it painfully obvious that this contrast in many, if not in most or
even in all cases, exists in his own imagination only, he nevertheless
makes it the basis of his entire theory. According to the latter,
exogamous tribes can choose their women only from other tribes. And as
in conformity with their savage state a condition of continual warfare
existed among such tribes, women could only be secured by abduction.

McLennan further asks: Whence this custom of exogamy? The idea of
consanguinity and rape could not have anything to do with it, since
these conceptions were developed much later. But it was a widely spread
custom among savages to kill female children immediately after their
birth. This produced a surplus of males in such a tribe which naturally
resulted in the condition where several men had one woman--polyandry.
The next consequence was that the mother of a child could be
ascertained, but not its father; hence: descent only traced by the
female line and exclusion of male lineage--maternal law. And a second
consequence of the scarcity of women in a certain tribe--a scarcity that
was somewhat mitigated, but not relieved by polyandry--was precisely the
forcible abduction of women from other tribes. "As exogamy and polyandry
are referable to one and the same cause--a want of balance between the
sexes--we are forced to regard all the exogamous races as having
originally been polyandrous.... Therefore we must hold it to be beyond
dispute that among exogamous races the first system of kinship was that
which recognized blood-ties through mothers only."[2]

It is the merit of McLennan to have pointed out the general extent and
the great importance of what he calls exogamy. However, he has by no
means discovered the fact of exogamous groups; neither did he understand
their presence. Aside from earlier scattered notes of many
observers--from which McLennan quoted--Latha