riage, polygamy and monogamy. Only polyandry is missing;[Translator's note 1] that could be accomplished by men only. Even our next relations, the quadrumana, exhibit all possible differences in the grouping of males and females. And if we draw the line still closer and consider only the four anthropoid apes, Letourneau can only tell us, that they are now monogamous, now polygamous; while Saussure contends according to Giraud-Teulon that they are monogamous. The recent contentions of Westermarck[Translator's note 2] in regard to monogamy among anthropoid apes are far from proving anything. In short, the information is such that honest Letourneau admits: "There exists no strict relation at all between the degree of intellectual development and the form of sexual intercourse among mammals." and Espinas says frankly:[Translator's note 3] "The herd is the highest social group found among animals. It seems to be composed of families, but from the outset the family and the herd are antagonistic; they develop in directly opposite ratio."
It is evident from the above that we know next to nothing of the family and other social groups of anthropoid apes; the reports are directly contradictory. How full of contradiction, how much in need of critical scrutiny and research are the reports even on savage human tribes! But monkey tribes are far more difficult to observe than human tribes. For the present, therefore, we must decline all final conclusions from such absolutely unreliable reports.
Translator's note
- ↑ The female of the European cuckoo (cuculus canorus) keeps intercourse with several males in different districts during the same season. Still, this is far from the human polyandry, in which the men and one women all live together in the same place, the men mutually tolerating one another, which male cuckoos do not.
- ↑ Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage, London, 1891.
- ↑ Espinas, Des Societes Animales, 1877.
