ESOGAMIA - Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. V, p. 371

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

EXOGAMY. – The term exogamy, introduced into sociology by McLennan, denotes that rule, common to all peoples, by which a wife must be chosen outside the group with which the young man is closely related. Consequently, any sexual relationship occurring between persons belonging to the same group is considered incestuous. The limits of this norm vary in different cultures.

In primitive cultures, exogamy is local, i.e., the bride must be chosen from a village other than the one in which the groom resides; this norm often corresponds in many cases to blood exogamy, since the inhabitants of the same village are frequently relatives. In totemism, where the tribe is divided into different clans whose members believe themselves to descend from a common ancestor, there is clan exogamy. In earlier matriarchy, there is class exogamy: the tribe is divided into two matriclan classes, within each of which exogamy is in force. Nomadic shepherds have preserved and extended to the large patriarchal family, which characterizes the sociology of these peoples, the exogamy of primitive cultures based on blood kinship. Clan and class exogamy are the product of an artificially constructed kinship system and are therefore more recent than that based on consanguinity, which never disappears from any culture and remains a common characteristic of all humanity.

Consanguineous relatives are always: parents and children, even if only by adoption, brothers and sisters; almost always cousins, sometimes on both the paternal and maternal lines, sometimes only on one (first cousins are often considered as brothers, although there are peoples who have a strong preference for marriage between the son of a sister and the daughter of a brother). Often the prohibition of marriage has such a wide scope as to include persons whom we no longer consider relatives.

The exceptions to exogamy (v. ETHNOLOGY) are so rare and so isolated, truly felt as such and therefore so detested by the other members of the same tribe, that they confirm the universal character of this law, the study of which, though most interesting, still needs to be deepened.

Ethnologists, sociologists, and evolutionary psychologists have offered various explanations of exogamy, all of which have fallen because they contradict the facts. For Morgan, it would be the result of successive restrictions following the phase of unlimited sexual promiscuity (agamism) which he posited. McLennan believed that savages generally practice infanticide, which would force males to steal women from outside their own group. But these observations are entirely gratuitous because infanticide and abduction are unknown in primitive cultures: they appear in certain more developed cultures and have never been universal among humanity.

Spencer argued that the savage steals women from outside his group because this gives him the advantage of having slaves and trophies at the same time. But warfare in primitive cultures is very rare, and slavery is absolutely unknown. Lubbock and Wilken, like McLennan before them, posit sexual promiscuity, whereby the women of a group would belong to all the men of that group. The first wives could therefore only have been stolen women: with them individual marriage would have begun. What has already been said regarding the theories of Morgan and McLennan (v. ETHNOLOGY) also serves to refute those of Lubbock and Wilken. Lubbock bases his explanation on touch, which he believes to be original: exogamy would have arisen from the sense of fear that the sight of a woman’s blood, especially during menstruation, inspires in men. But this thesis also collapses with the observation that totemism does not belong to primitive cultures and has never been universal in human history.

Freud’s theory, based on the erotic element as the foundation of all psychoanalysis, is pure fiction. According to him, in primitive society the father would have kept all the women for himself, preventing the sons from having access to them; the sons would have hated, killed, and eaten him. But patricide would have led to antagonism among the brothers, each being a rival to the others for the women. To be able to live together, the brothers had to introduce the incest taboo, renouncing all the women they desired, for whose sake they had killed their father. The evidence regarding the family in the most archaic cultures accessible to us seems to be absolutely contrary to Freud’s notion of the horde. The treatment meted out to parents is precisely the opposite of patricide. Cannibalism, too, is foreign to primitive cultures.

Ethnologists have generally been very severe toward Freud: Revesz, Boas, Kroeber, Schmidt, and many others have easily demonstrated the absolute groundlessness of Freud’s theory on the origin of society and religion. Revesz rightly wrote that Freud contributed more to pornography than to medicine. Darwin, Westermarck, Schmidt, and many others have made positive contributions to the study of the problem.

Schmidt’s findings are the best known, because they combine solid ethnological studies with psychology. According to this author, in small groups representing the most archaic cultures accessible to us, the family is the center of ethical and social life; the state is only in its infancy. The education received by the young is essentially directed toward making good fathers of families, according to the ideal of virtue of these peoples.

Generally, among young men and girls who have grown up together in an atmosphere of familiarity, no attraction develops that would lead to marriage: this observation is perhaps most evident in these small groups, since those who live in the same village are generally discouraged from marrying. In childhood and early youth, the distinction between the sexes is still very weak and only begins with puberty; among people who live together, this distinction develops very slowly (this fact had already been rightly emphasized by Darwin, Westermarck, and others). Moreover, people who live in the same village know each other too well, including each other’s faults, which is not conducive to marriage. Very differently, it happens among young men and girls belonging to families from different villages, who come into direct contact during puberty: then all aspirations, dreams, affections, and ideals that lead to marriage awaken. Above all, it is in this ideal of a companion that the young man and girl have formed—an ideal that includes all qualities: beauty, intelligence, character, will, moral life—that the explanation of exogamy is to be sought. In these cultures, where offspring are greatly desired, the young man feels more than in others the responsibility he assumes with marriage, because the economy based on hunting and gathering makes him dependent on his daily labor. Therefore, he desires a girl who gives him confidence that she will be a good wife and mother of a family, and to find her, he goes outside the circle of his village, which is too narrow. This is the ideal of a union with insufficient blood: it is incest. From this impulse outward arises the freedom of choice that, in these cultures, young men and girls enjoy. This ideal is not an illusion but a force that imposes strict duties toward the new family: in man are latent energies and intellectual and moral qualities which love, trust, and mutual esteem awaken and keep active.

The ideal is met with further study, and perhaps it is more the task of psychology than of ethnology to find a solution that explains all its aspects. The benefits that humanity has derived from the ideal can never be sufficiently esteemed, in all fields: biological, economic, social, and cultural. Incest would have caused the most disastrous physical and moral consequences within the family and would have destroyed the respect and authority of parents. These effects would have been felt even more gravely in the small human aggregates of primitive cultures, where the only truly felt authority is that of the parents and the only solid social organization is the family.

Finally, without the ideal, the formation of large social groups—which are necessary for progress—would not have been possible, with consequent involution and perhaps even the end of culture itself.

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ESORCISM - ESPARZA ARTIEDA MARTÍN DE

A cleric who has received the order of exorcist (cf. ESORCISTA, ESORCISTATO) is fundamentally capable of performing both simple and solemn exorcisms; however, for many centuries the Church has granted the faculty of solemn exorcism only to priests distinguished by piety and prudence, through an express license from the Ordinary and with the obligation to observe faithfully the canons 1151-52 of the CIC and title XI of the Roman Ritual. Nevertheless, any priest may perform private exorcisms, especially in cases of penitents who are particularly tempted or hardened in manifesting their sins and repenting of them.

Exorcisms should normally be performed in a church or other pious and religious place, except in cases of necessity or for grave reasons to the contrary; however, not before a large public. If the exorcism is to be performed on a woman, it is necessary that close relatives or women of proven honesty be present.

In performing the exorcism, the minister should ordinarily use the formulas of the Roman Ritual, avoiding in every case the use of medicines or superstitious practices. Likewise, he must absolutely refrain from asking questions that are inappropriate, irrelevant to the purpose, unnecessary, or aimed at discovering future events. Instead, he should ask the demon whether it is alone or accompanied by other evil spirits, their names, the time when the possession began, and the cause of II.
Exorcisms can be performed not only on possessed Christians—Catholics or not, good or bad, or even excommunicated, including those under interdict—but also on persons of other religions or entirely pagan, provided that in every case there is moral certainty that they are truly possessed (cf. OSSERISIONE and OSSESSI).

BIBL.: J. Fornet, *Esorcisme*, in DTC, V, II, cols. 1762-80; Rituale Rom., cit. XI; J. Burch, *Esorcismo de la Iglesia*, in Rev. eccles., 22 (1936), pp. 203-208; H. Lescêtre, *Démoniaques*, IV; *L’esquisse des démons*, in DBS, II, cols. 1373-70; A. Piscetta, A. Gemelli, *Theol. mor.*, V, Torino 1944, p. 130 sér.; P. M. Cappello, *De Sacramentis*, I, IV, 1947, n. 92 sér.