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Chapter_1
Chapter_1
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THE ORIGIN OF
THE FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY, AND THE STATE
by
FREDERICK ENGELS
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APPENDIX
A Recently Discovered Case of Group Marriage
1892
From Die Neue Zeit
Vol. XI, No. I, pp. 373-75
SINCE it has recently become fashionable among certain rationalistic
ethnographers to deny the existence of group marriage, the following
report is of interest; I translate it from the Russkiye Vyedomosti,
Moscow, October 14, i892 (Old Style). Not only group marriage, i.e.,
the right of mutual sexual intercourse between a number of men and a
number of women, is expressly affirmed to be in full force, but a form
of group marriage which closely follows the punaluan marriage of the
Hawaiians, the most developed and classic phase of group marriage.
While the typical punaluan family consists of a number of brothers (own
and collateral), who are married to a number of own and collateral
sisters, we here find on the island of Sakhalin that a man is married
to all the wives of his brothers and to all the sisters of his wife,
which means, seen from the woman's side, that his wife may freely
practice sexual intercourse with the brothers of her husband and the
husbands of her sisters. It therefore differs from the typical form of
punaluan marriage only in the fact that the brothers of the husband and
the husbands of the sisters are not necessarily the same persons.
It should further be observed that this report again confirms what I
said in The Origin of the Family, 4th edition, pp. 28-29: that group
marriage does not look at all like what our brother-obsessed philistine
imagines; that the partners in group marriage do not lead in public the
same kind of lascivious life as he practices in secret, but that this
form of marriage, at least in the instances still known to occur today,
differs in practice from a loose pairing marriage or from polygamy only
in the fact that custom permits sexual intercourse in a number of cases
where otherwise it would be severely punished. That the actual
exercise of these rights is gradually dying out only proves that this
form of marriage is itself destined to die out, which is further
confirmed by its infrequency.
The whole description, moreover, is interesting because it again
demonstrates the similarity, even the identity in their main
characteristics, of the social institutions of primitive peoples at
approximately the same stage of development. Most of what the report
states about these Mongoloids on the island of Sakhalin also holds for
the Dravidian tribes of India, the South Sea Islanders at the time of
their discovery, and the American Indians. The report runs:
"At the session of October 10 (Old Style; October 22, New Style)
of the Anthropological Section of the Society of the Friends of
Natural Science, N. A. Yanchuk read an interesting communication
from Mr. Sternberg on the Gilyaks, a little-studied tribe on the
island of Sakhalin, who are at the cultural level of savagery.
The Gilyaks are acquainted neither with agriculture nor with
pottery; they procure their food chiefly by hunting and fishing;
they warm water in wooden vessels by throwing in heated stones,
etc. Of particular interest are their institutions relating to
the family and to the gens. The Gilyak addresses as father, not
only his own natural father, but also all the brothers of his
father; all the wives of these brothers, as well as all the
sisters of his mother, he addresses as his mothers; the children
of all these 'fathers' and 'mothers' he addresses as his brothers
and sisters. This system of address also exists, as is well known,
among the Iroquois and other Indian tribes of North America, as
also among some tribes of India. But whereas in these cases it
has long since ceased to correspond to the actual conditions,
among the Gilyaks it serves to designate a state still valid
today. To this day every Gilyak has the rights of a husband in
regard to the wives of his brothers and to the sisters of his
wife; at any rate, the exercise of these rights is not regarded as
impermissible. These survivals of group marriage on the basis of
the gens are reminiscent of the well-known punaluan marriage,
which still existed in the Sandwich Islands in the first half of
this century. Family and gens relations of this type form the
basis of the whole gentile order and social constitution of the
Gilyaks.
"The gens of a Gilyak consists of all-nearer and more remote, real
and nominal-brothers of his father, of their fathers and mothers
of the children of his brothers, and of his own children.
One can readily understand that a gens so constituted may comprise an
enormous number of people. Life within the gens proceeds according to
the following principles. Marriage within the gens is unconditionally
prohibited. When a Gilyak dies, his wife passes by decision of the
gens to one of his brothers, own or nominal. The gens provides for the
maintenance of all of its members who are unable to work. 'We have no
poor,' said a Gilyak to the writer. 'Whoever is in need, is fed by the
khal [gens].' The members of the gens are further united by common
sacrificial ceremonies and festivals, a common burial place, etc.
"The gens guarantees the life and security of its members against
attacks by non-gentiles; the means of repression used is blood-revenge,
though under Russian rule the practice has very much declined. Women
are completely excepted from gentile blood-revenge. In some very rare
cases the gens adopts members of other gentes. It is a general rule
that the property of a deceased member may not pass out of the gens; in
this respect the famous provision of the Twelve Tables holds literally
among the Gilyaks: si suos heredes non habet, gentiles familiam habento
-- if he has no heirs of his own, the members of the gens shall
inherit. No important event takes place in the life of a Gilyak
without participation by the gens. Not very long ago, about one or two
generations, the oldest gentile member was the head of the community,
the starosta of the gens; today the functions of the chief elder of the