Primitive Marriage

In Primitive Marriage, McLennan focuses on the marriage practices and ideas of kinship of primitive people. He invented the terms endogamy and the exogamy to explain his theory. He defines endogamy as the ability of a tribe to marry within the same tribe. Exogamy is the prohibition of this practice. Therefore, the way in which the tribe attains wives is by capturing them from other tribes. This argument is centered on the perpetual state of hostility that existed amongst different tribes (Rivière). McLennan argues that marriage by capture existed in primitive societies and proof of this exists in the symbols of capture that exists within that culture.

McLennan argues that is exists because women born into a tribe are not seen as valuable because men of the tribe can not marry them. This results in female infanticide which leads to polyandry due to the fact that men are forced to find wives outside of their group. He also divides marriage up into 5 categories that range from pure endogamy to pure exogamy. He uses these classification to illustrate the progression of marriage.

Chapter 8 opens with one of McLennan’s most controversial statements which is that ancient societies had no idea of kinship. He lays out his theory of social evolution in which early societies did not recognize blood ties. As societies progressed there was recognition through the female line which led to the formation of families. He argues that this system also supports polyandry and women being held in common. He further classifies different states of polyandry as “ruder” and “less rude”. The ruder state is when the men are unrelated and the less rude state is when the husbands are brothers. He ties exogamy into this theory by stating that all exogamous races practiced the system of polygamy. The last stage of development that McLennan describes is the one in which kinship was recognized through the male line.

McLennan’s book ends with an attack on the Patriarchal theory that social evolution started with the family and developed into the state. Primitive Marriage reverses this theory describing the lowest level of progress as being the horde and the individual family as the highest level (Rivière).

Primitive Marriage reflects the link between science and society that began to surface in the 19th century. McLennan interacted with various anthropologist and sociologist who applied these ideals such as Lewis Henry Morgan and E.B. Tylor.