[215] _Ibid._, 207, 171-208. STARCKE is criticised by CUNOW, _Australneger_, 165, for lack of thoroughness and consistency in his examination of the classificatory systems.
[216] _History of Human Marriage_, chap. v, 82 ff.
[217] _Ibid._, 90. LUBBOCK, _Origin of Civilization_, 162-203, criticises Morgan's views as to the classificatory systems and concludes that the "terms for what we shall call relationships are, among the lower races of men, mere expressions for the results of marriage customs, and do not comprise the idea of relationship as we understand it; that, in fact, the connection of individuals _inter se_, their duties to one another, their rights, and the descent of their property, are all regulated more by the relation to the tribe than by that to the family; that, when the two conflict, the latter must give way" (202). TYLOR, _On a Method of Investigating the Development of Institutions_, 261-65, discovers a close relation between exogamy and the classificatory system. Thus out of fifty-three tribes with that system thirty-three observe the rule of exogamy (264).
These criticisms have not gone unchallenged. More recent and more detailed examination of the classificatory nomenclatures has thrown new light on their meaning; although their origin in promiscuity or "group-marriage" has not been conclusively established. Thus Cunow, who in general accepts the former existence of group-marriage among various peoples, and even finds traces of it in Australia,[218] denies that the Australian class-nomenclatures are derived from original group-relations;[219] nor are they, as Westermarck believes, ever employed as mere empty terms of polite or respectful address.[220] The class-systems arose in a very early recognition of three generations or stages of seniority, in order to hinder sexual relations between relatives in the ascending and descending line.[221] For this reason, and because of the existence among some backward tribes of significant terms of kinship, individual marriage must as a general rule have existed among the Australian natives from the "earliest times."[222] Thus, "in its original form," the author concludes, "the division into classes is a striking confirmation of Morgan's theory, that the first step in the development of systems of relationship consists in the prevention of sexual union between parents and children in the wide sense."[223] For the same reason it follows that intermarriage between the nearest collateral relatives may not have been excluded.