The Origin of the Family

Author(s): Kathleen Gough

Source: Journal of Marriage and Family , Nov., 1971, Vol. 33, No. 4, Special Double Issue:
Violence and the Family and Sexism in Family Studies, Part 2 (Nov., 1971), pp. 760-771
Published by: National Council on Family Relations

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/349449

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 The Origin of the Family
KATHLEEN GOUGH
Institute of Asian and Slavonic Studies, University of British Columbia

The trouble with the origin of the family hold. Some are extended families containing
is that
no one really knows. Since Engels wrote The three generations of married brothers or sisters.
Origin of the Family. Private Property and the Some are "grandfamilies" descended from a
State in 1884, a great deal of new evidence has single pair of grandparents. Some are matri-
come in. Yet the gaps are still enormous. It is lineage households, in which brothers and
not known when the family originated, al- sisters share a house with the sisters' children,
though it was probably between two million and men merely visit their wives in other
and 100,000 years ago. It is not known whether homes. Some are compound families, in which
it developed once or in separate times and one man has several wives, or one woman,
places. It is not known whether some kind ofseveral husbands. Others are nuclear families
embryonic family came before, with, or after composed of a father, mother and children.
the origin of language. Since language is the Some kind of family exists in all known
accepted criterion of humanness, this means human societies, although it is not found in
that we do not even know whether our every segment or class of all stratified, state
ancestors acquired the basics of family life societies. Greek and American slaves, for
before or after they were human. The chances example, were prevented from forming legal
are that language and the family developed families, and their social families were often
together over a long period, but the evidence isdisrupted by sale, forced labor, or sexual
sketchy. exploitation. Even so, the family was an ideal
Although the origin of the family is specula- which all classes and most people attained when
tive, it is better to speculate with than without they could.
evidence. The evidence comes from three The family implies several other universals.
sources. One is the social and physical lives of forbid sexual relations and marriage
(1) Rules
non-human primates-especially the New and between close relatives. Which relatives are
Old World monkeys and, still more, the great forbidden varies, but all societies forbid
apes, humanity's closest relatives. The second mother-son mating, and most, father-daughter
source is the tools and home sites of prehistoric and brother-sister. Some societies allow sex
humans and proto-humans. The third is the relations, but forbid marriage, between certain
family lives of hunters and gatherers of wild degrees of kin. (2) The men and women of a
provender who have been studied in modern family cooperate through a division of labor
times. based on gender. Again, the sexual division of
Each of these sources is imperfect: monkeys labor varies in rigidity and in the tasks
and apes, because they are not pre-human performed. But in no human society to date is
ancestors, although they are our cousins; fossil it wholly absent. Child-care, household tasks
hominids, because they left so little vestige of and crafts closely connected with the house-
their social life; hunters and gatherers, because hold, tend to be done by women; war, hunting,
none of them has, in historic times, possessed and a government, by men. (3) Marriage exists as
technology and society as primitive as those ofa socially recognized, durable, although not
early humans. All show the results of long necessarily lifelong relationship between indivi-
endeavor in specialized, marginal environments. dual men and women. From it springs social
But together, these sources give valuable clues. fatherhood, some kind of special bond between
a man and the child of his wife, whether or not
DEFINING THE FAMILY
they are his own children physiologically. Even
To discuss the origin of something in we must societies, where women have
polyandrous
first decide what it is. I shall define several the family
husbands, or in matrilineal societies,
as "a married couple or other group of adult where group membership and property pass
kinsfolk who cooperate economically and in through women, each child has one or more
the upbringing of children, and all or most of designated "fathers" with whom he has a
whom share a common dwelling." special social, and often religious, relationship.
This includes all forms of kin-based house- This bond of social fatherhood is recognized

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among people who do not know about the male that women and men have never had relations
role in procreation, or where, for various that were dignified and creative for both sexes,
reasons, it is not clear who the physiological appropriate to the knowledge, skills and tech-
father of a particular infant is. Social father-nology of their times. Nor does it mean that the
hood seems to come from the division and sexes cannot be equal in the future, or that the
interdependence of male and female tasks, sexual division of labor cannot be abolished. I
especially in relation to children, rather than believe that it can and must be. But it is not
directly from physiological fatherhood, al- necessary to believe myths of a feminist Golden
though in most societies, the social father of a Age in order to plan for parity in the future.
child is usually presumed to be its physiological
father as well. Contrary to the beliefs of some
PRIMATE SOCIETIES
feminists, however, I think that in no human
society do men, as a whole category, have only Within the primate order, humans are mos
the role of insemination, and no other social or closely related to the anthropoid apes (th
economic role, in relation to women and African chimpanzee and gorilla and the South
children. (4) Men in general have higher status east Asian orang-utan and gibbon), and of
and authority over the women of their families, these, to the chimpanzee and the gorilla. Mor
although older women may have influence, distantly related are the Old, and then the Ne
even some authority, over junior men. World, The monkeys, and finally, the lemurs
omnipresence of male authority, too, goes tarsiers and tree-shrews.
contrary to the belief of some feminists that Allin primates share characteristics withou
"matriarchal" societies, women were either which the family could not have develope
completely equal to, or had paramount author-The young are born relatively helpless. The
ity over, men, either in the home or in societysuckle for several months or years and nee
at large. prolonged care afterwards. Childhood is longer
It is true that in some matrilineal societies, the closer the species is to humans. Most
such as the Hopi of Arizona or the Ashanti of monkeys reach puberty at about four to five
Ghana, men exert little authority over their and mature socially between about five and ten.
wives. In some, such as the Nayars of South Chimpanzees, by contrast, suckle for up to
India or the Minangkabau of Sumatra, men may three years. Females reach puberty at seven to
even live separately from their wives and ten; males enter mature social and sexual
children, that is, in different families. In suchrelations as late as thirteen. The long childhood
societies, however, the fact is that women andand maternal care produce close relations
children fall under greater or lesser authority between children of the same mother, who play
from the women's kinsmen-their eldest broth- together and help tend their juniors until they
ers, mothers' brothers, or even their grown up grow up.
sons. Monkeys and apes, like humans, mate in all
In matrilineal societies, where property,
months of the year instead of in a rutting
rank, office and group membership are inher- season. Unlike humans, however, female apes
ited through the female line, it is true that experience unusually strong sexual desire for a
women tend to have greater independence than few days shortly before and during ovulation
in patrilineal societies. This is especially so in (the oestrus period), and have intensive sexual
matrilineal tribal societies where the state has relations at that time. The males are attracted
not yet developed, and especially in those tribal to the females by their scent or by brightly
societies where residence is matrilocal-that is, colored swellings in the sexual region. Oestrus-
men come to live in the homes or villages of mating appears to be especially pronounced in
their wives. Even so, in all matrilineal societies primate species more remote from humans. The
for which adequate descriptions are available, apes and some monkeys carry on less intensive,
the ultimate headship of households, lineages month-round sexuality in addition to oestrus-
and local groups is usually with men.1
absence of equality between the sexes" and notes that
There is in fact no true "matriarchal," as women were subordinate to men, ate after men, and
distinct from "matrilineal," society in existence that women (not men) were publicly whipped as
or known from literature, and the chances are punishment for adultery. Warleaders, tribal chiefs, and
sachems (heads of matrilineal lineages) were men.
that there never has been.2 This does not mean Women did, however, have a large say in the govern-
ment of the long-house or home of the matrilocal
1. See David M. Schneider and Kathleen Gough, extended family, and women figured as tribal coun-
eds., Matrilineal Kinship, Berkeley, 1961, for common
and variant features of matrilineal systems. sellors and religious officials, as well as arranging
marriages. (Lewis H. Morgan: The League of the
2. The Iroquois are often quoted as a "matriarchal." Ho-de-ne Sau-nee or Iroquois, Human Relations Area
society, but in fact Morgan himself refers to "the Files, 1954).

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mating, approaching human patterns more close- male, or a male-female pair, or several juvenile
ly. In humans, sexual desires and relations males, may travel together.
are regulated less by hormonal changes and Among mountain gorillas of Uganda, South
more by mental images, emotions, cultural Indian langurs, and hamadryas baboons of
rules and individual preferences. Ethiopia, a single, fully mature male mates with
Year-round (if not always month-round) several females, especially in their oestrus
sexuality means that males and females social- periods. If younger adult males are present, the
ize more continuously among primates than females may have occasional relations with
among most other mammals. All primates formthem if the leader is tired or not looking.
bans or troops composed of both sexes plus Among East and South African baboons,
children. The numbers and proportions of the rhesus macaques, and South American woolly
sexes vary, and in some species an individual, monkeys,
a the troop is bigger, numbering up to
mother with her young, or a subsidiary troop of two hundred. It contains a number of adult
male juveniles may travel temporarily alone. males and a much larger number of females.
But in general, males and females socialize The males are strictly ranked in terms of
continually through mutual grooming3 and dominance based on both physical strength and
playing as well through frequent sex relations. intelligence. The more dominant males copulate
Keeping close to the females, primate males intensively with the females during the latters
play with their children and tend to protect oestrus periods. Toward the end of oestrus a
both females and young from predators. A female may briefly attach herself to a single
"division of labor" based on gender is thus dominant male. At other times she may have
already found in primate society between a relations with any male of higher or lower rank
female role of prolonged child care and a male provided that those of higher rank permit it.
role of defense. Males may also carry or take Among some baboons and macaques the
care of children briefly, and non-nursing femalesyoung males travel on the outskirts of the
may fight. But a kind of generalized "father- group and have little access to females. Some
liness" appears in the protective role of adult macaques expel from the troop a proportion of
males towards young, even in species where thethe young males, who then form "bachelor
sexes do not form long-term individual attach-troops." Bachelors may later form new troops
ments. with young females.
Other primates are more thoroughly promis-
SEXUAL BONDS AMONG PRIMATES
cuous, or rather indiscriminate, in mating.
Some non-human primates do have Chimpanzees,
enduring and also South American howler
sexual bonds and restrictions, superficially monkeys, live in loosely structure groups, again
similar to those in some human societies. (as in most monkey and ape societies) with a
Among gibbons a single male and female preponderance
live of females. The mother-child
together with their young. The male drives unit off
is the only stable group. The sexes
other males and the female, other females. copulate almost at random, and most inten-
When a juvenile reaches puberty it is thought sively
to and indiscriminately during oestrus.
leave or be expelled by the parent of the same A number of well known anthropologists
sex, and he eventually finds a mate elsewhere.have argued that various attitudes and customs
Similar de facto, rudimentary "incest prohibi-often found in human societies are instinctual
tions" may have been passed on to humans rather than culturally learned, and come from
from their prehuman ancestors and later codi- our primate heritage. They include hierarchies
of ranking among men, male political power
fied and elaborated through language, moral
custom and law. Whether this is so may become over women, and the greater tendency of men to
clearer when we know more about the matingform friendships with one another, as opposed
patterns of the other great apes, especially of
to women's tendencies to cling to a man.4
our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. Present I cannot accept these conclusions and think
evidence suggests that male chimpanzees do notthat they stem from the male chauvinism of our
mate with their mothers. own society. A "scientific" argument which
Orang-utans live in small, tree-dwelling. states that all such features of female inferiority
groups like gibbons, but their forms are less are instinctive is obviously a powerful weapon
regular. One or two mothers may wander alone in maintaining the traditional family with male
with their young, mating at intervals with a dominance. But in fact, these features are not
4. See, for example, Desmond Morris, The Naked
3. Combing the hair and removing parasites with Ape, Jonathon Cape, 1967; Robin Fox, Kinship and
hands or teeth. Marriage, Pelican Books, 1967.

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 universal among non-human primates, including HUMAN EVOLUTION
some of those most closely related to humans.
Judging from the fossil record, apes ancestr
Chimpanzees have a low degree of male
to humans, gorillas and chimpanzees roamed
dominance and male hierarchy and are sexually
virtually indiscriminate. Gibbons have a kind of
widely in Asia, Europe and Africa some twelve
fidelity for both sexes and almost no male to twenty-eight million years ago. Toward the
dominance or hierarchy. Howler monkeys areend of that period (the Miocene) one appears in
North India and East Africa, Ramapithecus,
sexually indiscriminate and lack male hierar-
chies or dominance. who may be ancestral both to later hominids
and to modern humans. His species were small
The fact is that among non-human primates
male dominance and male hierarchies seem to like gibbons, walked upright on two feet, had
human rather than ape corner-teeth, and there-
be adaptations to particular environments,
fore probably used hands rather than teeth to
some of which did become genetically estab-
tear their food. From that time evolution
lished through natural selection. Among hu-
toward humanness must have proceeded
mans, however, these features are present in
through various phases until the emergence of
variable degrees and are almost certainly
modern homo sapiens, about 70,000 years ago.
learned, not inherited at all. Among non-human
primates there are fairly general differences In the Miocene period before Ramapithecus
between those that live mainly in trees and appeared, there were several time-spans in
those that live largely on the ground. The tree which, over large areas, the climate became
dwellers (for example gibbons, orang-utans, dryer and sub-tropical forests dwindled or
South American howler and woolly monkeys) disappeared. A standard reconstruction of
tend to have to defend themselves less against events, which I accept, is that groups of apes,
predators than do the ground-dwellers (such as probably in Africa, had to come down from the
baboons, macaques or gorillas). Where defense trees and adapt to terrestrial life. Through
is important, males are much larger and natural selection, probably over millions of
stronger than females, exert dominance over years, they developed specialized feet for
females, and are strictly hierarchized and walking. Thus freed, the hands came to be used
organized in relation to one another. Where not only (as among apes) for grasping and
defense is less important there is much less tearing, but for regular carrying of objects such
sexual dimorphism (difference in size between as weapons (which had hitherto been sporadic)
male and female), less or no male dominance, a or of infants (which had hitherto clung to their
less pronounced male hierarchy, and greater mothers body hair).
sexual indiscriminancy. The spread of indigestible grasses on the
Comparatively speaking, humans have a open savannahs may have encouraged, if it did
rather small degree of sexual dimorphism, not compel, the early ground dwellers to
similar to chimpanzees. Chimpanzees live much become active hunters rather than simply to
in trees but also partly on the ground, in forest forage for small, sick or dead animals that came
or semi-forest habitats. They build individualtheir way. Collective hunting and tool use
nests to sleep in, sometimes on the ground but involved group cooperation and helped foster
usually in trees. They flee into trees from the growth of language out of the call-systems
danger. Chimpanzees go mainly on all fours, of apes. Language meant the use of symbols to
but sometimes on two feet, and can use and refer to events not present. It allowed greatly
make simple tools. Males are dominant, but not increased foresight, memory, planning and
very dominant, over females. The rank hier- division of tasks-in short, the capacity for
archy among males is unstable, and males often human thought.
move between groups, which vary in size from With the change to hunting, group territories
two to fifty individuals. Food is vegetarian, became much larger. Apes range only a few
supplemented with worms, grubs or occasional thousand feet daily; hunters, several miles. But
small animals. A mother and her young form because their infants were helpless, nursing
the only stable unit. Sexual ielations are largely women could hunt only small game close to
indiscriminate, but nearby males defend young home. This then produced the sexual division
animals from danger. The chances are that our of labor on which the human family has since
pre-human ancestors had a similar social life. been founded. Women elaborated upon ape
Morgan and Engels were probably right in methods of child care, and greatly expanded
concluding that we came from a state of foraging, which in most areas remained the
"original promiscuity" before we were fully primary and most stable source of food. Men
human. improved upon ape methods of fighting off

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other animals, and of group protection in for wider cooperation in the struggle for
general. They adapted these methods to hunt- livelihood and the expansion of knowledge.
ing, using weapons which for millennia re- It is not clear when all these changes took
mained the same for the chase as for human place. Climatic change with increased drought
warfare. began regionally up to 28 million years ago.
Out of the sexual division of labor came, The for divergence between pre-human and gorilla-
the first time, home life as well as group chimpanzee stems had occurred in both Africa
cooperation. Female apes nest with and provideand India at least 12 million years ago. The
foraged food for their infants. But adult apespre-human stem led to the Australopithecenes
do not cooperate in food getting or nest of East and South Africa, about 1,750,000
building. They build new nests each night years ago. These were pygmy-like, two footed,
wherever' they may happen to be. With the upright hominids with larger than ape brains,
development of a hunting-gathering complex, it who made tools and probably hunted in
became necessary to have a G.H.Q., or home. savannah regions. It is unlikely that they knew
Men could bring meat to this place for several the use of fire.
days supply. Women and children could meet The first known use of fire is that of
men there after the day's hunting, and could cave-dwelling hominids (Sinanthropus, a branch
bring their vegetable produce for general con- of the Pithecanthropines) at Choukoutien near
sumption. Men, women and children could Peking, some half a million years ago during th
build joint shelters, butcher meat, and treat second ice age. Fire was used regularly in
skins for clothing. hearths, suggesting cookery, by the time of the
Later, fire came into use for protection Acheulean and Mousterian cultures of Neander-
against wild animals, for lighting, and eventu-thal man in Europe, Africa and Asia before,
ally for cooking. The hearth then provided theduring and after the third ice age, some
focus and symbol of home. With the develop- 150,000 to 100,000 years ago. These people,
ment of cookery, some humans-chiefly too, were often cave dwellers, and buried their
women, and perhaps some children and old dead ceremonially in caves. Cave dwelling by
men--came to spend more time preparing night as well as by day was probably, in fact,
not safe for humans until fire came into use to
nutrition so that all people need spend less time
in chewing and tearing their food. Meals- drive away predators.
already less frequent because of the change to aMost anthropologists conclude that home
carnivorous diet-now became brief, periodic life, the family and language had developed by
events instead of the long feeding sessions of the time of Neanderthal man, who was closely
apes. similar and may have been ancestral to modern
The change to humanness brought two homo sapiens. At least two anthropologists,
bodily changes that affected birth and childhowever, believe that the Australopithecenes
care. These were head-size and width of the already had language nearly two million years
pelvis. Walking upright produced a narrower ago, while another thinks that language and
pelvis to hold the guts in position. Yet as incest prohibitions did not evolve until the time
language developed, brains and hence headsof homo sapiens some 70,000 to 50,000 years
grew much bigger relative to body size. To ago.5 I am myself inclined to think that family
compensate, humans are born at an earlier stagelife built around tool use, the use of language,
of growth than apes. They are helpless longer cookery, and a sexual division of labor, must
and require longer and more'total care. This in have been established sometime between about
turn caused early women to concentrate more 500,000 and 200,000 years ago.
on child care and less on defense than do
female apes. HUNTERS AND GATHERERS
Language made possible not only a division Most of the hunting and gathering societies
and cooperation in labor but also all forms of studied in the eighteenth to twentieth centuries
tradition, rules, morality and cultural learning.
had technologies similar to those that were
Rules banning sex relations among close kinfolk wide-spread in the Mesolithic period, which
must have come very early. Precisely how or occurred about 15,000 to 10,000 years ago,
why they developed is unknown, but they had
at least two useful functions. They helped to 5. For the former view, see Charles F. Hockett and
Robert Ascher, "The Human Revolution," in Man in
preserve order in the family as a cooperative Adaptation: The Biosocial Background, edited by
unit, by outlawing competition for mates. They Yehudi A. Cohen, Aldine, 1968; for the latter, Frank
also created bonds between families, or even B. Livingstone, "Genetics, Ecology and the Origin of
Incest and Exogamy," Current Anthropologgy, Feb-
between separate bands, and so provided a basis ruary 1969.

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after the ice ages ended but before cultivation more advanced hunting societies, pottery. (Con-
was invented and animals domesticated. sidering that women probably invented all of
Modern hunters live' in marginal forest, these crafts, in addition to cookery, food
mountain, arctic or desert environments where storage and preservation, agriculture, spinning,
cultivation is impracticable. Although by no weaving, and perhaps even house construction,
means "primeval," the hunters of recent times it is clear that women played quite as important
do offer clues to the types of family found roles as men in early cultural development.)
during that 99 percent of human history before Building dwellings and making tools and orna-
the agricultural revolution. They include the ments are variously divided between the sexes,
Eskimo, many Canadian and South American while boat-building is largely done by men.
Indian groups, the forest BaMbuti (pygmies) Girls help the women, and boys play at hunting
and the desert Bushmen of Southern Africa, the or hunt small game until they reach puberty,
Kadar of South India, the Veddah of Ceylon, when both take on the roles of adults. Where
and the Andaman Islanders of the Indian the environment makes it desirable, the men of
Ocean. About 175 hunting and gathering a whole band or of some smaller cluster of
cultures in Oceania, Asia, Africa and America households cooperate in hunting or fishing and
have been described in fair detail. divide their spoils. Women of nearby families
In spite of their varied environments, hunters often go gathering together.
share certain features of social life. They live in Family composition varies among hunters as
bands of about 20 to 200 people, the majority it does in other kinds of societies. About half or
of bands having fewer than 50. Bands are more of known hunting societies have nuclear
divided into families, which may forage alone in families (father, mother and children), with
some seasons. Hunters have simple but ingen-polygynous households (a man, two or more
ious technologies. Bows and arrows, spears, wives, and children) as occasional variants.
needles, skin clothing, and temporary leaf orClearly, nuclear families are the most common
wood shelters are common. Most hunters do among hunters, although hunters have a slightly
some fishing. The band forages and hunts inhigher a proportion of polygynous families than
large territory and usually moves camp often. do non-hunting societies.
Social life is egalitarian. There is of course noAbout a third of hunting societies contain
state, no organized government. Apart fromsome "stem-family" households-that is, older
religious shamans or magicians, the division parents of live together with one married child and
labor is based only on sex and age. Resourcesgrandchildren, while the other married children
are owned communally; tools and personal live in independent dwellings. A still smaller
possessions are freely exchanged. Everyone proportion live in large extended families
works who can. Band leadership goes to containing several married brothers (or several
whichever man has the intelligence, courage and married sisters), their spouses, and children.6
foresight to command the respect of his Hunters have fewer extended and stem families
fellows. Intelligent older women are also looked than do non-hunting societies. These larger
up to. households become common with the rise of
The household is the main unit of economic agriculture. They are especially found in large,
cooperation, with the men, women and chil- pre-industrial agrarian states such as ancient
dren dividing the labor and pooling their Greece, Rome, India, the Islamic empires,
produce. In 97 percent of the 175 societies China, etc.
classified by G. P. Murdock, hunting is confined Hunting societies also have few households
to men; in the other three percent it is chieflycomposed
a of a widow or divorcee and her
male pursuit. Gathering of wild plants, fruits children. This is understandable, for neither
and nuts is women's work. In 60 percent of men nor women can survive long without the
societies, only women gather, while in another work and produce of the other sex, and
32 percent gathering is mainly feminine. Fish- marriage is the way to obtain them. That is why
ing is solely or mainly men's work in 93 percentso often young men must show proof of
of the hunting societies where it occurs.
For the rest, men monopolize fighting,
although interband warfare is rare. Women tend 6. For exact figures, see G. P. Murdock, World
Ethnographic Sample, American Anthropologist,
children and shelters and usually do most of the
1957; Allan D. Coult, Cross Tabulations of Murdock's
World Ethnographic Sample, University of Missouri,
cooking, processing, and storage of food. 1965; and G. P. Murdock, Ethnographic Atlas, Uni-
Women tend also, to be foremost in the early versity of Pittsburgh, 1967. In the last-named survey,
out of 175 hunting societies, 47 percent had nuclear
household crafts such as basketry, leather work,
family households, 38 percent had stem-families, and
the making of skin or bark clothing, and in the
14 percent had extended families.

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hunting prowess, and girls of cooking, before close kinsmen from another. They thought that
they are allowed to marry. only later still, and especially with the domesti-
The family, together with territorial group- cation of plants and animals, did the "pairing
ing, provides the framework of society among family" develop in which each man was married
hunters. Indeed, as Morgan and Engels clearly to one or two women individually.
saw, kinship and territory are the foundations These writers drew their conclusions not
of all societies before the rise of the state. Not
from evidence of actual group-marriage among
only hunting and gathering bands, but the primitive peoples but from the kinship terms
larger and more complex tribes and chiefdoms found today in certain tribal and chiefly
of primitive cultivators and herders organize societies. Some of these equate all kin of the
people through descent from common ances- same sex in the parents' generation, suggesting
tors or through marriage ties between groups. brother-sister marriage. Others equate the
Among hunters, things are simple. There is only father's brothers with the father, and the
the family, and beyond it the band. With the mother's sisters with the mother, suggesting the
domestication of plants and animals, the econ- marriage of a group of brothers with a group of
omy becomes more productive. More people sisters.
can live together. Tribes form, containing Modern evidence does not bear out these
several thousand people loosely organized intoconclusions about early society. All known
large kin-groups such as clans and lineages, each
hunters and gatherers live in families, not in
composed of a number of related families. With communal sexual arrangements. Most hunters
still further development of the productive even live in nuclear families rather than in large
forces the society throws up a central politicalextended kin groups. Mating is individualized,
leadership, together with craft specializationalthough one man may occasionally have two
and trade, and so the chiefdom emerges. But wives, or (very rarely) a woman may have two
this, too, is structured through ranked alle- husbands. Economic life is built primarily
giances and marriage ties between kin groups. around the division of labor and partnership
Only with the rise of the state does class,
between individual men and women. The
independently of kinship, provide the basis for hearths, caves and other remains of Upper
relations of production, distribution and power. Palaeolithic hunters suggest that this was
Even then, kin groups remain large in the probably an early arrangement. We cannot say
agrarian state and kinship persists as the prime that Engels' sequences are completely ruled out
organizing principle within each class until thefor very early hominids-the evidence is simply
rise of capitalism. The reduction in significance not available. But it is hard to see what
of the family that we see today is the economic arrangements among hunters would
outgrowth of a decline in the importance of give rise to group, rather than individual or
"familism" relative to other institutions, that "pairing" marriage arrangements, and this En-
began with the rise of the state, but became gels does not explain.
speeded up with the development of capitalism Soviet anthropologists continued to believe
and machine industry. In most modern socialist in Morgan and Engels' early "stages" longer
societies, the family is even less significant as an than did anthropologists in the West. Today,
organizing principle. It is reasonable to suppose most Russian anthropologists admit the lack of
that in the future it will become minimal or evidence for "consanguineal" and "punaluan"
may disappear at least as a legally constituted arrangements, but some still believe that a
unit for exclusive forms of sexual and economic different kind of group marriage intervened
cooperation and of child-care. between indiscriminate mating and the pairing
Morgan and Engels (1942) thought that fromfamily. Semyonov, for example, argues that in
a state of original promiscuity, early humans at the stage of group marriage, mating was
first banned sex relations between the genera- forbidden within the hunting band, but that the
tions of parents and children, but continued tomen of two neighboring bands had multiple,
allow them indiscriminately between brothers, visiting sex relations with women of the
sisters and all kinds of cousins within the band. opposite band.7
They called this the "consanguineal family." While such an arrangement cannot be ruled
They thought that later, all mating within the out, it seems unlikely because many of the
family or some larger kin group became
forbidden, but that there was a stage (the7. Y. I. Semyonov, "Group Marriage, its Nature
"punaluan") in which a group of sisters or
and Role in the Evolution of Marriage and Family
other close kinswomen from one band were Relations," Seventh- International Congress of An-
thropological and Ethnological Sciences, Volume IV,
married jointly to a group of brothers or other
Moscow 1967.

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 customs which Semyonov regards as "survivals" to serve economic and survival needs. In these
of such group marriage (for example, visiting societies, some kind of rather stable pairing best
husbands, matrilineage dwelling groups, wide- accomplishes the division of labor and coopera-
spread clans, multiple spouses for both sexes, tion of men and women and the care of
men's and women's communal houses, and children. Beyond the immediate family, either
prohibitions of sexual intercourse inside the larger family group or the whole band has
huts of the village) are actually found not so other, less intensive but important, kinds of
much among hunters as among horticultural cooperative activities. Therefore, the husbands
tribes, and even, quite complex agricultural and wives of individuals within that group can
states. Whether or not such a stage of group- be summoned to stand in for each other if need
marriage occurred in the earliest societies, there arises. In the case of Eskimo wife-lending, the
seems little doubt that pairing marriage (in-extreme climate and the need for lone wander-
volving family households) came'about with the ing in search of game dictate high standards of
development of elaborate methods of hunting, hospitality. This evidently becomes extended to
cooking, and the preparation of clothing and sexual sharing.
shelters-that is, with a fully-fledged division of In the case of sororal polygyny or marriage
labor. to the dead wife's sister, it is natural than when
Even so, there are some senses in which two women fill the same role-either together
mating among hunters has more of a group or in sequence-they should be sisters, for
character than in archaic agrarian states or in sisters are more alike than other women. They
capitalist society. Murdock's sample shows that are likely to care more for each others'
sex relations before marriage are strictly pro- children. The replacement of a dead spouse by
hibited in only 26 percent of hunting societies. a sister or a brother also preserves existing
In the rest, marriage is either arranged so early intergroup relations. For the rest, where the
that pre-marital sex is unlikely, or (more economic and survival bonds of marriage are
usually) sex relations are permitted more or less not at stake, people can afford to be freely
freely before marriage. companionate and tolerant. Hence pre-marital
With marriage, monogamy is the normal sexual freedom, seasonal group-license, and a
practice at any given time for most hunters, but pragmatic approach to adultery.
it is not the normal rule. Only 19 percent in Marriages among hunters are usually arranged
Murdock's survey prohibit plural unions. Where by elders when a young couple are ready for
polygyny is found (79 percent) the most adult responsibilities. But the couple know each
common type is for a man to marry two sisters other and usually have some choice. If the first
or other closely related women of the same kin marriage does not work, the second mate will
group-for example, the daughters of two almost certainly be self selected. Both sexual
sisters or of two brothers. When a woman dies and companionate love between individual men
it is common for a sister to replace her in theand women are known and are deeply experi-
marriage, and when a man dies, for a brother toenced. With comparative freedom of mating,
replace him. love is less often separated from or opposed to
Similarly, many hunting societies hold that marriage than in archaic states or even than in
the wives of brothers or other close kinsmen are some modern nations.
in some senses wives of the group. They can be
THE POSITION OF WOMEN
called on in emergencies or if one of them is ill.
Again, many hunting societies have special Even in hunting societies it seems that
times for sexual license between men and women are always in some sense the "second
women of a local group who are not married towith greater or less subordination to men.
sex,"
each other, such as the "lights out" gamesThis of varies. Eskimo and Australian aboriginal
Eskimo sharing a communal snow-house. In women are far more subordinate than women
other situations, an Eskimo wife will spend theamong the Kadar, the Andamanese or the
night with a chance guest of her husband's. AllCongo Pygmies-all forest people.
parties expect this as normal hospitality. Fi- I suggest that women have greater power and
nally, adultery, although often punished, tendsindependence among hunters when they are
to be common in hunting societies, and few if important food-obtainers than when they are
any of them forbid divorce or the remarriage of mainly processors of meat or other supplies
divorcees and widows. provided by men. The former situation is
The reason for all this seems to be that likelier to exist in societies where hunting is
marriage and sexual restrictions are practical small-scale and intensive than where it is
arrangements among hunters designed mainly extensive over a large terrain, and in societies

November 1971 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 767

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where gathering is important by comparison use weapons against women, they possess them
with hunting. (or possess superior weapons) in addition to
In general in hunting societies, however, their physical strength. This does give men an
women are less subordinated in certain crucial ultimate control of force. When old people or
respects as they are in most, if not all, of the babies must be killed to ensure band or family
archaic states, or even in some capitalist nations.survival, it is usually men who kill them.
These respects include men's ability to deny Infanticide-rather common among hunters,
women sexuality or to force it upon them; to who must limit the mouths to feed-is more
command or exploit their labor or to control often female infanticide than male.
their produce; to control or rob them of their The hunting of men seems more often to
children; to confine them physically and pre- require them to organize in groups than does
vent their movement; to use them as objects in the work of women. Perhaps because of this,
male transactions; to cramp their creativeness; about 60 percent of hunting societies have
or to withhold from them large areas of the predominantly virilocal residence. That is, men
society's knowledge and cultural attainments. choose which band to live in (often, their
Especially lacking in hunting societies is the fathers'), and women move with their hus-
kind of male possessiveness and exclusiveness bands. This gives a man advantages over his wife
regarding women that leads to such institutions in terms of familiarity and loyalties, for the
as savage punishments or death for female wife is often a stranger. Sixteen to 17 percent
adultery, the jealous guarding of female chas-of hunting societies are, however, uxorilocal,
tity and virginity, the denial of divorce to with men moving to the households of their
women, or the ban on a woman's remarriage wives, while 15 to 17 percent are bilocal-that
after her husband's death. is, either sex may move in with the other on
For these reasons, I do not think we can marriage.
speak, as some writers do, of a class-division Probaby because of male cooperation in
between men and women in hunting societies. defense and hunting, men are more prominent
True, men are more mobile than women and in band councils and leadership, in medicine
they lead in public affairs. But class society and magic, and in public rituals designed to
requires that one class control the means of increase game, to ward off sickness, or to
production, dictate its use by the other classes, initiate boys into manhood. Women do, how-
and expropriate the surplus. These conditions ever, often take part in band councils; they are
do not exist among hunters. Land and other not excluded from law and government as in
resources are held communally, although many agrarian states. Some women are re-
women may monopolize certain gathering spected as wise leaders, story tellers, doctors, or
areas, and men, their hunting grounds. Theremagicians,
is or are feared as witches. Women
rank difference, role difference, and some have their own ceremonies of fertility, birth
difference respecting degrees of authority, and healing, from which men are often ex-
between the sexes, but there is reciprocity cluded.
rather than domination or exploitation. In some societies, although men control the
As Engels saw, the power of men to exploit most sacred objects, women are believed to
women systematically springs from the exis- have discovered them. Among the Congo
tence of surplus wealth, and more directly, Pygmies, religion centers about a beneficent
from the state, social stratification, and the spirit, the Animal of the Forest. It is repre-
control of property by men. With the rise of sented by wooden trumpets that are owned and
the state, because of their monopoly over played by men. Their possession and use are
weapons, and because freedom from child carehidden from the women and they are played at
allows them to enter specialized economic and night when hunting is bad, someone falls ill, or
political roles, some men-especially ruling class death occurs. During the playing men dance in
men-acquire power over other men and over the public campfire, which is sacred and is
women. Almost all men acquire it over womenassociated with the forest. Yet the men believe
of their own or lower classes, especially within that women originally owned the trumpet and
their own kinship groups. These kinds of malethat it was a woman who stole fire from the
power are shadowy among hunters. chimpanzees or from the forest spirit. When a
To the extent that men have power over woman has failed to bear children for several
women in hunting societies, this seems to spring years, a special ceremony is held. Women lead
from the male monopoly of heavy weapons, in the songs that usually accompany the
from the particular division of labor between trumpets, and an old woman kicks apart the
the sexes, or from both. Although men seldom campfire. Temporary female dominance seems

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 to be thought necessary to restore fertility. development of horticulture (which was prob-
In some hunting societies women are ex- ably invented and is mainly carried out by
changed between local groups, which are thuswomen), those tribes in which horticulture
knit together through marriages. Sometimes,predominated over stock raising were most
men of different bands directly exchange their likely to be or to remain matrilocal and to
sisters. More often there is a generalized develop matrilineal descent groups with a
exchange of women between two or more relatively high status of women. But where
groups, or a one-way movement of women extensive hunting of large animals, or later, the
within a circle of groups. Sometimes the herding of large domesticates, predominated,
husband's family pays weapons, tools or orna- patrilocal residence flourished and women were
ments to the wife's in return for the wife's used to form alliances between male-centered
services and later, her children. groups. With the invention of metallurgy and of
In such societies, although they may be well agriculture as distinct from horticulture after
treated and their consent sought, women are4000 B.C., men came to control agriculture and
clearly the moveable partners in an arrangement many crafts, and most of the great agrarian
controlled by men. Male anthropologists havestates had patrilocal residence with patriarchal,
seized on this as evidence of original male male-dominant families.
dominance and patrilocal residence. Fox and
CONCLUSIONS
others, for example, have argued that until
recently, all hunting societies formed out- The family is a human institution, not foun
marrying patrilocal bands, linked together poli-in its totality in any pre-human species. It
tically by the exchange of women. The fact required language, planning, cooperation, self
that fewer than two-thirds of hunting societies control, foresight and cultural learning, a
are patrilocal today, and only 41 percent have probably developed along with these.
band-exogamy, is explained in terms of modern The family was made desirable by the early
conquest, economic change and depopulation. human combination of prolonged child car
I cannot accept this formula. It is true that with the need for hunting with weapons ove
modern hunting societies have been severely large terrains. The sexual division of labor on
changed, de-culturated, and often depopulated, which it was based grew out of a rudimentar
by capitalist imperialism. I can see little pre-human division between male defense and
evidence, however, that the ones that arefemale child care. But among humans this
patrilocal today have undergone less change
sexual division of functions for the first time
than those that are not. It is hard to believe became crucial for food production and so lai
that in spite of enormous environmental diver- the basis for future economic specialization an
sity and the passage of thousands, perhaps cooperation.
millions, of years, hunting societies all had band Morgan and Engels were probably right i
exogamy with patrilocal residence until theythinking that the human family was precede
were disturbed by western imperialism. It isby sexual indiscriminacy. They were also righ
more likely that early band societies, like laterin seeing an egalitarian group-quality abou
agricultural tribes, developed variety in family early economic and marriage arrangement
life and the status of women as they spread They were without evidence, however, in
over the earth. believing that the earliest mating and econom
There is also some likelihood that the earliest patterns were entirely group relations.
hunters had matrilocal rather than patrilocal Together with tool use and language, the
families. Among apes and monkeys, it is almost family was no doubt the most significant
always males who leave the troop or are driveninvention of the human revolution. All three
out. Females stay closer to their mothers and required reflective thought, which above all
their original site; males move about, attaching accounts for the vast superiority in conscious-
themselves to females where availability andness that separates humans from apes.
competition permit. Removal of the wife to the The family provided the framework for all
husband's home or band may have been a
relatively late development in societies where
found in some patrilineal as well as matrilineal
male cooperation in hunting assumed over- societies, but they tend to be more prominent in the
whelming importance.8 Conversely, after the latter. It is thus possible that in many areas even late
Stone Age hunters had matrilocal residence and
perhaps matrilineal descent, and that in some regions
8. Upper Palaeolithic hunters produced female fig-this pattern continued through the age of horticulture
urines that were obvious emblems of fertility. The cult and even-as in the case of the Nayars of Kerola and
continued through the Mesolithic and into the Neo- the Minangkabau of Sumatra-into the age of plow
lithic period. Goddesses and spirits of fertility are agriculture, of writing, and of the small-scale state.

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 pre-state society and the fount of its creative- that in "matriarchal" societies women were
ness. In groping for survival and for knowledge, completely equal with or were even dominant
human beings learned to control their sexual over men. For this, too, there seems to be no
desires and to suppress their individual selfish- basis in evidence.
ness, aggression and competition. The other The past of the family does not limit its
side of this self control was an increased future. Although the family probably emerged
capacity for love-not only the love of a with motherhumanity, neither the family itself nor
for her child, which is seen among apes,particular but of family forms are genetically deter-
male for female in enduring relationships, mined. and The sexual division of labor-until
of each sex for ever widening groups of recently, universal-need not, and in my opin-
humans. Civilization would have been impos-ion should not, survive in industrial society.
sible without this initial self-control, seen inProlonged child care ceases to be a basis for
incest prohibitions and in the generosity and female subordination when artificial birth con-
moral orderliness of primitive family life. trol, spaced births, small families, patent feed-
From the start, women have been subordi- ing and communal nurseries allow it to be
nate to men in certain key areas of status, shared by men. Automation and cybernation
mobility and public leadership. But before the remove most of the heavy work for which
agricultural revolution, and even for several women are less well equipped than men. The
thousands of years thereafter, the inequality exploitation of women that came with the rise
was based chiefly on the unalterable fact of of the state and of class society will presumably
long child care combined with the exigencies ofdisappear in post-state, classless society-for
primitive technology. The extent of inequalitywhich the technological and scientific basis
varied according to the ecology and the already exists.
resulting sexual division of tasks. But in anyThe family was essential to the dawn of
case it was largely a matter of survival rather civilization, allowing a vast qualitative leap
than of man-made cultural impositions. Hence forward in cooperation, purposive knowledge,
the impressions we receive of dignity, freedom love, and creativeness. But today, rather than
and mutual respect between men and women in
enhancing them, the confinement of women in
primitive hunting and horticultural societies. homes and small families-like their subordi-
This is true whether these societies are patri- nation in work-artificially limits these human
local, bilocal or matrilocal, although matrilocal capacities. It may be that the human gift for
societies, with matrilineal inheritance, offer personal love will make some form of volun-
greater freedom to women than do patrilocal tary, long-term mating and of individual devo-
and patrilineal societies of the same level of tion between parents and children continue
productivity and political development. indefinitely, side by side with public responsi-
A distinct change occurred with the growth bility for domestic tasks and for the care and
of individual and family property in herds, in upbringing of children. There is no need to
durable craft objects and trade objects, and in legislate personal relations out of existence. But
stable, irrigated farm-sites or other forms of neither need we fear a social life in which the
heritable wealth. This crystallized in the rise of family is no more.
the state, about 4,000 B.C. With the growth of
class society and of male dominance in the REFERENCES
ruling class of the state, women's subordination
Coult, Allan D.
increased, and eventually reached its depths-in 1965 Cross Tabulations of Murdock's World
the patriarchal families of the great agrarian Ethnographic Sample. University of Mis-
states. souri.
Knowledge of how the family arose is Fox, Robin
interesting to women because it tells us how we1967 Kinship and Marriage. London: Pelican
differ from pre-humans, what our past has Books.
been, and what have been the biological and Hockett, Charles F. and Robert Ascher
cultural limitations from which we are emerg- 1968 The Human Revolution. In Man in Adapta-
ing. It shows us how generations of male tion: The Biosocial Background, Yehudi A.
Cohen (ed.). Chicago: Aldine.
scholars have distorted or over-interpreted the Livingstone, Frank B.
evidence to bolster beliefs in the inferiority of1969 "Genetics, ecology and the origin of incest
women's mental processes-for which there is and exogamy." Current Anthropology
no foundation in fact. Knowing about early (February).
families is also important to correct a reverse Morris, Desmond
bias among some feminist writers, who hold 1967 The Naked Ape. Jonathon Cape.

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 Murdock, G. P.
1957 World Ethnographic Sample, American
Anthropologist.
1967 Ethnographic Atlas. University of Pittsburgh
Schneider, David M. and Kathleen Gough
1961 Matrilineal Kinship. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Semyonov, Y. I.
1967 "Group marriage, its nature and role in the MARRIAGE HAPPINESS:
evolution of marriage and family relations." A Behavioral Approach to Counseling
I n Seventh International Congress of
by Dr. David Knox, East Carolina University
Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences.
Vol. IV. Moscow. Most couples start out expecting
the very best from their marriage but
court records attest to the fact that
many couples fail. They fail for many
reasons-but they fail chiefly because
they do not know how to handle the
many inevitable behavioral problems
which arise. Marriage Happiness pre-
sents the methods by which couples
can work out these problems. The the-
oretical base is behavioral psychology
with its great power to help in the
control or management of trouble-
some behaviors. Built into the manual
are hundreds of behaviorally based,
practical techniques for use in the
marriage. As marriage happiness oc-
curs under certain conditions, the
counselor helps his clients to consider
what behaviors, performed by whom,
and when, enhance or impede a desir-
able relationship. Areas covered are
sex, children, alcohol, in-laws, reli-
gion, money, and many more. This is
a manual for all counselors and help-
ing professionals as well as students in
training.
176 pages - paper cover - $4.00
FAMILIES: Applications of
Social Learning to Family Life
by Dr. Gerald R. Patterson
Oregon Research Institute, Eugene, Oregon
The finest coverage of family in-
tervention techniques available to the
reader. Based on years of on-site fam-
ily research, this book shows how the
conditions of family interaction can
be arranged so that problem behaviors
can be located and mediated before
they become permanently harmful.
Areas covered range from children and
adolescents to marriage, parents, and
the elderly family members.
144 pages - paper cover - $3.00
U* Research Press Company, Dept. GS
CFS Box 3177, Champaign, Illinois 61820

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