File:Ridpath's history of the world; being an account of the ethnic origin, primitive estate, early migrations, social conditions and present promise of the principal families of men (1897) (14596938560).jpg

Identifier: ridpathshistoryo01ridp (find matches)
Title: Ridpath's history of the world; being an account of the ethnic origin, primitive estate, early migrations, social conditions and present promise of the principal families of men ..
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Ridpath, John Clark, 1840-1900
Subjects: World history Ethnology
Publisher: New York, Merrill & Baker
Contributing Library: Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston University

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Text Appearing Before Image:
The fourth plan of procreative union
is called monogamy. It is the joining
of one man to one woman

Monogamy de-
termines both
lines of parent-
age.

and of her to him. The
relation thus established is
distinct from any of the three preceding.
It is especially different as it relates to
offspring. It signifies an ascertained
parentage in both maternity and paterni-
ty. It signifies that all the children born
of one woman have a single father, and
that all the children born of one father
have a common mother. The relation is
so easily apprehensible that it need not
be described, either in itself or its re-
sults.
It should be remarked that the sexual
usage in different nations adopting differ-
ent schemes of procreative relationship
is particularly tenacious, and is generally

598 GREAT RACES OF MANKIND.

maintained with scrupulous exactitude
by the sentiment of the given people.
Monogamy is by no means

All races have
and maintain a
sexual code.

regarded as more essential
to the welfare of the race
by those peoples who practice it than are
Text Appearing After Image:
OLDEST TYPE OF THE MARRIED WOMAN—A CHALDÆAN
Drawn by Mlle. de Lancelot, after a sketch by Madame Dieulafoy.

the other schemes of union by the re-
spective races among whom they pre-
vail. There has never been found a
tribe of savages so low in the human
scale as not to have a certain sexual code,
any departure from which by the mem-
bers of the tribe would be regarded not
only as scandalous, but as destructive of
the welfare and happiness of all.
We can not pass from this analytic view
of the nature and methods employed by
different peoples in perpetuating the
race without noticing the bearings of
the subject on cer-
tain controverted
questions. The
principal of these is-
the historical prior-
ity of the several
plans of marriage
enumerated above.
The problem is not
so important in it-
self as in its rela
tions to another
question. It is easy
to perceive that if
monogamy be the
first great method
of mankind, then
the family, which is
the second unit in
ethnic development,
precedes the gens,
the gens the tribe,
and the tribe the
race, in the order
delineated in a for-
mer chapter.

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