denied by those who have followed him in rejecting the views of Morgan. It is one of the many unfortunate consequences of McLennan's belief in the importance of polyandry in the history of human society that it has helped to prevent his followers from seeing the social importance of the classificatory system. They have failed to see that the classificatory system may be the result neither of promiscuity nor of polyandry, and yet have been determined, both in its general character and in its details, by forms of social organisation.
Since the time of Morgan and McLennan few have attempted to deal with the question in any comprehensive manner. The problem has inevitably been involved in the controversy which has raged between the advocates of the original promiscuity or the primitive monogamy of mankind, but most of the former have been ready to accept Morgan's views blindly, while the latter have been content to try to explain away the importance of conclusions derived from the classificatory system without attempting any real study of the evidence. On the side of Morgan there has been one exception in the person of Professor J. Kohler,[1] who has recognised the lines on which the problem must be studied, while on the other side there has been, so far as I am aware, only one writer who has recognised that the evidence from the nature of the classificatory system of relationship cannot be
- ↑ Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe, Stuttgart, 1897 (reprinted from Zeitsch. f. vergleich. Rechtswiss, 1897, xii., 187).
