the ethnological notebooks of karl marx - Marxists Internet Archive

T h e marriage relationship extended w herever the relationship o f brother andsister was recognized to exist; each brother having as many w ives as hehad sisters, ow n or collateral, and each sister as many husbands as shehad brothers, ow n or collateral.W herever the relationship o f wife is found in the collateral line, that o fhusband must be recognized in the lineal, and vice versa.Unter d. Kajfern v. Südafrika d. w ives meiner Cousins - father's brother's son,father's sister's son, mother's brother's son, m other’s sister's son - are alike m yw iv e s.21The larger the group recognising the marriage relation, the less the evil o f closeinterbreeding.1820 the Am erican missions established in the Sandwich islands, w ereshocked22 at the sexual relations; they fanden dort die punaluan fam ily,w ith ow n sisters and brothers not entirely excluded, the males livin g inpolygyny, the fem ales in polyandry, the people had not attained the organisationin gentes. Unwahrscheinlich dass d. actual family am ong the Hawaiians wasas large as the group united in the marriage relation. Necessity wouldcompel its subdivision into smaller groups fo r the procurement o f subsistence, andfo r mutual protection; individuals passed whsclich at pleasure from one o fthese subdivisions into another in the punaluan as w ell as consanguine families,g ivin g rise to that apparent desertion by husbands and w ives o f eachother and by parents o f their children mentioned by Rev. Hiram Bingham(M issionary A m erik., in Sandwich islands) Communism in living must haveprevailed both in the consanguine and in the punaluan fam ily als requiremento f their condition. I t s till prevails generally among savage and barbaroustribes, [each smaller fam ily w ould be a miniature o f the group.]U eber Chinese system o f 9 Grades see “ Systems o f Consanguinity etc p. 415,p. 432.In Plato’s Timaeus (Ch. II) all consanguinei in the Ideal Republic to fallinto 5 categories, in w hich the w om en w ere to be in com m on as w ivesand the children in com m on as to parents. (.steh meine Ausgabe p . 70/ ersteColumne) H ier dieselben 5 prim ary grades o f relations. Plato bekanntmit hellenischen u. pelasgischen traditions reaching back in the regiono f barbarism etc. Seine grades exact die der Hawaiians.D . state o f society indicated by the consanguine fam ily points to an anteriorcondition o f promiscuous intercourse (in der H orde!) trotz D arw in (See Descento f M an II, 360) Sobald d. Horde w ould break up into smaller groups forsubsistence, it w ould fall vo n promiscuity into consanguine fam ilies, welchesdie first “ organised form o f society."Part I I I . Ch. I l l The Punaluan Family.Existed in Europe, A sia , Am erica w ithin the historical period, in Polynesia108