From facts to be gathered, not alone from among the lower orders, but from observations among human beings as well, it would seem that any degree of affection for more than one individual at the same time is contrary to the female nature. A female insect, or bird, which feels a preference for a particular mate will pair with no other, hence, among orders where the female instincts control the relations between the sexes, “lawlessness” or promiscuity would not prevail.
A little observation and reflection, I think, will show us that the affection of the female is a character differing widely from the sex instinct of the male—that, while selfishness constitutes the underlying principle of the latter, the former involves not only care for the young and the unity of the group, but, when human conditions are reached, it involves also country, civilization, and the ultimate brotherhood of mankind.
If we bear in mind the conditions surrounding the orders of life from which the human race has sprung, and if we remember the nature of the characters inherited by mankind from these orders, together with the important fact that the lower instincts among them were under subjection to the higher faculties, we shall be enabled to see that the more degraded of the extant savage tribes cannot represent the primitive race as it emerged from the animal type.
Mr. Tylor must have been mindful of the altruistic character of early races when he remarked: “Without some control beyond the mere right of the stronger, the tribe would break up in a week, whereas in fact savage tribes last on for ages.”[61]
Concerning the relations of the sexes under unorganized society nothing may be known from actual observation, as, at the present time, no tribe or race is to be found under absolutely primitive conditions. Perhaps from no extant people is there so little information in reference to the earliest human state to be gleaned as from the lowest existing races. Among many of these tribes the rules which it has been necessary to establish for the regulation of the relations between the sexes are rigorously enforced, while among others a laxity prevails which would seem to indicate an almost total lack of those higher instincts which are observed among nearly all the lower orders of beings. The following fact, however, in regard to these races, has been observed: the more primitive they are, or the less they have come in contact with civilization, the more strictly do they observe the rules which have been established for the governance of the sexual relation. On this subject Mr. Parkyns says: