MONOGAMIA

MONOGAMY. —

I. THEORIES AND RESEARCH ON ITS ORIGINS

Bachofen’s hypothesis was widely debated. Although many data, from the standpoint of historical archaeology, could not be denied, it was nonetheless fully contested, as Wundt already noted, both the postulate of the universality of matriarchy and, even more so, its derivation from a state of complete promiscuity. The Swiss jurist’s theory, which was essentially based on philological and archaeological arguments, gradually faded into the background until, around 1870, it reappeared in ethnology, where it was corroborated by new arguments and grounded on fresh foundations. Morgan distinguished six stages in the evolution of the marital institution, while McLennan identified four, though both placed monogamy at the final stage, attributed to the advanced development of civilization, following polygamy. This history of marriage was accepted by sociologists and jurists, particularly by Marx, Engels, and Simons, and popularized by Bebel (v. FAMILY, II).

One of the earliest comprehensive studies concerning marriage among historical and primitive peoples, which, through the eloquence of facts, shook the aforementioned theories, was *The History of Human Marriage* (London, 1891) by Westermarck. He arrived at the following conclusions with certainty: polygamy exists among many peoples, and polyandry among some, yet monogamy is by far the ordinary form of marriage. It existed even among ancient peoples whose history is directly known. Moreover, monogamy is the only form of marriage that is generally recognized as legal and licit. The vast majority of peoples are habitually monogamous, and other forms of marriage have ordinarily been modified and oriented toward monogamy. Far more significant, however, is Westermarck’s historical evaluation of these facts, which he presented as follows: “Regarding the history of human marriage, two conclusions can be drawn with absolute certainty concerning monogamy and polygamy: monogamy, which has always been the predominant form of marriage, has had a clearer predominance in the lower strata of civilization rather than in the higher ones; polygamy, on the other hand, in these higher strata tends to revert significantly toward monogamy.”

Subsequent to this, the increasingly broad, precise, and in-depth exploration of primitive peoples throughout the world, along with the remarkable development of ethnology, has led to the classification of peoples into groups according to defined types of civilization in genetic order. This has also been beneficial for the history of marriage, further confirming as erroneous—because a priori and hasty—the historical-evolutionary reconstructions and refining the aforementioned conclusions of Westermarck. Today, it can be considered definitively proven that the so-called hunting and gathering peoples of Asia, Africa, and America represent the most ancient stage of human civilization, or the one closest to II. After Schmidt demonstrated in his study *The Position of Pygmy Peoples in the History of Human Development* (1910) that these peoples in Africa and Asia practiced monogamy, the renowned scholar of folk psychology, W. Wundt, wrote: “There is no other discovery in the history of human development that has so strikingly and persuasively destroyed long-held opinions as the finding of monogamy among primitive man.” And after acknowledging Schmidt’s contribution in highlighting an important fact, Wundt—who had surveyed the developmental history of human society—added: “The significance lies in the fact that it is not civilization that produced monogamy, but rather monogamy was one of the original conditions of civilization.” Thus, in his work *Elements of Folk Psychology: Outlines of a Psychological History of Human Evolution* (1912), having rejected all the arguments advanced by evolutionary ethnologists in support of their theories and considering the civilization of the most ancient ethnological peoples—those who, as he expressed it, “in a manner of speaking, approach the lower limits of human civilization and likely constitute the primordial state of social institutions and customs”—Wundt asked: “What, then, are the relationships between marriage and family at this stage? The answer, if we consider the widespread hypotheses about the primitive horde, is surprising, yet it cannot be disregarded if we examine these hypotheses in the proper light. Among all these tribes, we find monogamy not only as the sole form of union but, so to speak, the natural form—namely, monogamy in the form of individual marriage.”

For decades now, it has been a common conviction among experts in ethnology that human life certainly began not with promiscuity or group marriage, but with normal family conditions based on monogamy (m.).

Among the most recent authors of particular authority on this subject, K. Birket-Smith is cited, who in *Storia della civiltà* (Zurich 1946) expressed himself as follows: “We therefore start from marriage as an institution entirely human and, moreover, in its most ancient forms not very different from that which we ourselves know.”

The study of marriage rites among totemistic, matriarchal, nomadic pastoral peoples, and of mixed civilizations as well as those more advanced, such as the Chinese, leads back to monogamy (m.). Among the ancient Chinese, in fact, the bridegroom and bride were required to drink, during the ritual meal, after having made a libation to God, from two halves of a gourd—a rite that had symbolic significance, reconnecting every marriage with that of the first human couple after the flood. In China and among other peoples of the same linguistic family, marriage has always been recognized as monogamous, although concubinage and sororate were permitted. The children of concubines are considered children of the wife, who call her their mother, and the concubine their aunt. The same is evident from the marriage rites in polyandrous marriage, e.g., in southern Tibet, the classical land of polyandry. At the wedding ceremony, the younger brothers do not participate at all; it is performed only by the eldest brother, who is the sole husband of the woman, as Grenard wrote, the sole possessor of the land and all that belongs to the family, becoming heir to everything and head of the family itself; the younger brothers come under his authority, are dependent on him, and remain under his guardianship, as they were under that of their father. As an example of monogamy (m.) in a mixed culture, one may take the natives of the Trobriand Islands and other nearby islands in Malaysia, among whom Malinowski, and before him Fr. Salerio (1855), observed that monogamy (m.) is the rule.

**The Foundation of Monogamy (m.)** — Why do men follow monogamy (m.)? For the evolutionists, monogamy (m.) is due to the progress of civilization, which leads to the refinement of feelings and customs. Thurnwald attributes monogamy (m.) to a biological and economic reason. “This form of marriage,” he says, “is to the greatest extent the most widespread, because it is the one that best corresponds to the average biological ratio of the sexes. The predominance of this form, however, does not mean its exclusivity. Generally, it is the poorer men who are content with only one woman.”

Schmidt asserts that monogamy (m.) is the only natural form of marriage and proves it with the biological law. According to this law, under normal conditions, in general an equal number of males and females are born everywhere; slightly more males, but with a higher male mortality in the first years, so that there is only one woman for every man and one man for every woman. This biological law is clearly seen in action among many peoples practicing the so-called exchange marriage, which the African Pygmies of the Ituri call, as reported by Fr. Schebesta, “head for head,” since a clan that receives a woman in marriage must provide one of its own women to another clan, as is the rule in this exchange relationship of women.

Monogamy (m.) also depends on a moral law and a religious belief. The moral law is manifested especially in the case of adultery, which is severely judged and punished by criminal law, whose sanctions in this regard, particularly among the most ethnologically ancient peoples, extend even to the death penalty (v. INDISSOLUBILITY OF MARRIAGE, II. Among primitives). Many, and especially the most ancient of these peoples (Fuegians, Andamanese, African Pygmies), affirm that God created the first men, that is, the first human couple. Therefore, the institution of marriage and the family, as Fr. Schmidt has noted, is explicitly or implicitly referred to the Supreme Being. And the fact that it is a matter of monogamous marriage is evident from the fact that in none of the creation legends of man reported by these same peoples is a man given two or more wives, or vice versa. This also applies to the Pygmies of Gabon, who believe in the divine creation not of one couple, but of several couples, which, however, are always monogamous couples.