, license,
suggestions of group marriage, polygamy and monogamy. Only polyandry is
missing;[8] that could be accomplished by men only. Even our next
relations, the quadrumana, exhibit all possible differences in the
grouping of males and females. And if we draw the line still closer and
consider only the four anthropoid apes, Letourneau can only tell us,
that they are now monogamous, now polygamous; while Saussure contends
according to Giraud-Teulon that they are monogamous. The recent
contentions of Westermarck[9] in regard to monogamy among anthropoid
apes are far from proving anything. In short, the information is such
that honest Letourneau admits: "There exists no strict relation at all
between the degree of intellectual development and the form of sexual
intercourse among mammals." And Espinas says frankly:[10] "The herd is
the highest social group found among animals. It seems to be composed of
families, but from the outset the family and the herd are antagonistic;
they develop in directly opposite ratio."

It is evident from the above that we know next to nothing of the family
and other social groups of anthropoid apes; the reports are directly
contradictory. How full of contradiction, how much in need of critical
scrutiny and research are the reports even on savage human tribes! But
monkey tribes are far more difficult to observe than human tribes. For
the present, therefore, we must decline all final conclusions from such
absolutely unreliable reports.

The quotation from Espinas, however, offers a better clue. Among higher
animals, the herd and family are not supplements of one another, but
antitheses. Espinas demonstrates very nicely, how the jealousy of the
males loosens or temporarily dissolves every herd during mating time.
"Where the family is closely organized, herds are formed only in
exceptional cases. But wherever free sexual intercourse or polygamy are
existing, the herd appears almost spontaneously.... In order that a herd
may form, family ties must be loosened and the individual be free. For
this reason we so rarely find organized herds among birds.... Among
mammals, however, we find groups organized after a fashion, just because
here the individual is not merged in the family.... The rising sense of
cohesion in a herd cannot, therefore, have a greater enemy than the
consciousness of family ties. Let us not shrink from pronouncing it: the
development of a higher form of society than the family ca