V. Among Savages. — Perhaps in no other way can the great advantages of Christian civilization be more conclusively shown than by the improvement which it has effected in the relations between the two sexes. The best students of the primitive condition of man have come to the conclusion that where divine revela- tion does not extend the institution of marriage, if it exists at all, it is by no means the outgrowth of affection and a desire for companionship, but is entered into by the male savages "as a mere animal and convenient connection" as the " means of getting their dinner cooked." There is "no idea of tenderness nor of chiv- alrous devotion"' (Hill, Tracts of Chittagong, p. IIG; comp. Pallas, Voyages, iv, 94). Indeed, according to Lubbock {Origin of Cirilization, and Primitive Condi- tion ofJIan), the lowest races have uo such institution
as the marriage rite, because " true love is almost im- known among them" (p. 50). Kolben {Hist. CujJe of Good Hope, i, KVi) tells us that "the Hottentots are so cold and indifferent to one another that you would think there was no such thing as love between them.'' There are even some savages, as the North American Indian tribe, the Tinnes, who have no word for " dear" or "beloved;" and it is said of the Algonquins that when the Bible was translated into their language a word had to be coined to give expression to our verb " to love." There are other uncivilized races of men that lack greatly in words to express social relations, as, e. g., the Sandwich ftlanders, who, according to Lubbock (p. 61-63), possess no words answering to " son," " daughter," " wife," or " husband," due not to poverty of language, but to the fact that " the idea of marriage does not enter into the Hawaian system of relationship."
Among savages, the peculiar ideas attached to the bond of matrimony make the marriage-ceremony rather an institution peculiar to them. As we have seen above, there are many rude people who do not recognise the symbol of marriage, and, naturally enough, no ceremony is known to them; and then there are many cases Ln which the marriage bond is recognised, but no ceremony of marriage is observed. " Yet," says Lubbock ( p. 58 ), " we must not assume that marriage is necessarily and always lightly regarded where it is unaccompanied by ceremonial.'' In Tahiti, says Cook {Voyage urovnd the World), " marriage, as appeared to us, is nothing more than an agreement between the man and the woman, with which the priest has no concern. Where it is contracted it appears to be pretty well kept, though sometimes the parties separate by mutual consent" (comp. Klemm, Cidtur der Menschen, iv, 299).
1. Cereinonies. — There cannot be said to exist any marriage ceremonies among the Badagas (Hindostan) ; the Kurumbas, a tribe of the Neilgherry Hills {Trans- act. Ethnol. Soc. vii, 276) ; the Indians of California {Smithsonian Rep. 1863, p. 368) ; the Kutchin Indians, further north {Smith. Rep. 1866, p. 326) ; the Arawaks of South America (Brett, Guiana, p. 101), and the Bra- zilian tribes generally (Martins, Rechtszn stand iinter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens, p. 51) ; and the same is the case with the Australian tribes (Eyre's Discoveries, ii, 319). Speke (Jo^/rw. p. 361) says "there are no such things as marriages in Uganda;" and of the Mandin- goes (West Africa), Caille {Trav. to Timhuctoo, i, 350) says that husband and wife are not united by any cere- mony; and Huttun (in Klemm, Cidiur, iii, 280) makes the same statement as regards the Ashantees. In Con- go and Angola (Astley, Coll. of Voyages, iii, 221, 227) " they use no peculiar ceremonies in marriage, nor scarce trouble themselves for consent of friends." Nei- ther do we find that the Hottentots know anything about marriage ceremonies, if we may follow La Yaillant {Voy. ii, 58); nor do the Bushmen, acconling to Mr. Wood {Nat. Hist. Man, i, 269), have in their language any means of distinguishing an unmarried from a mar- ried girl. According to Dalton {Trans. Ethn. Soc. vi, 25), the Keriahs of Central India have no word for mar- riage in their own language, and the only ceremony used appears to be little more than a stirt of public recogni- tion of the fact. " The marital rite among our tribes" (i. e. the Redskins of the United States), says School- craft {Ind. Tribes, p. 132, 248), " is nothing more than the personal consent of the ]iarties, without requiring any concurrent act of a priesthood, magistracy, or wit- nesses; the act is assumed by the jiarties without the necessity of any extraneous sanction." "There is," says Bruce {Travels, iv, 487), "no such thing as mar- riage in Abyssinia, unless that which is contracted by mutual consent, without other form, subsisting only till dissolved by dissent of one or the other, and to be re- newed or repeated as often as it is agreeable to both parties, who, when they please, live together again as man and wife, after having been divorced, had children
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by others, or whether they have been married or had cliililreu with others or not." Among the Bedouin Ar- at>s there is a marriage ceremony in the case of a girl, liut the remarriage of a widow is not thought sufficient- ly important to deserve one.