the ethnological notebooks of karl marx - Marxists Internet Archive

14 “ D a s M utterrecht” , w o gynecocracy discussed. | U nter d. Iroquois,barbarians in Lower Status o f barbarism, but o f high mental grade, andam ong the equally advanced Indian tribes generally, verlangten d.Männer under severe penalties K euschheit v. d. W eibern, aber nicht reciprocalobligation. Polygamy universally recognised as the right o f themales, was in practice limited from inability to support the indulgence.In syndyasmian fam ily — absence o f exclusive cohabitation. T h e oldconjugal system remained, but under reduced u. restricted forms.A ehnlich unter d. Village Indians in the M iddle Status o f barbarism. N achClavigero (H ist, o f M exico) settled the parents all marriages. “ A priesttied a point o f the huepilli (gow n) o f the bride w ith the tilm atli (mandeo f the bridegroom ) and in this cerem ony the matrimonial contractchiefly consisted.” Herrera (H istory o f Am erica) says “ a ll that the bridebrought was kept in m em ory, that in cases they should be unmarried again,as was usual am ong them, the goods m ight be parted; the man taking thedaughters, and the wife the son, with liberty to marry again.” Polygam y arecognized right o f the males am ong the V illage Indians, m ore generallypracticed than am ong the less advanced tribes.In the punaluan fam ily was more or less o f pairing from the necessities o f thesocial state, each man having a principal wife am ong a num ber o f w ivesand vice versa; so that tendency in the direction o f the syndyasmian fam ily.D ies result hptsclich hervorgebracht dch d. organisation into gentes.In dieser organisation:1) Prohibition o f intermarriage in the gens excluded own brothers and sisters,and also the children o f own sisters, da diese alle in der gens. Bei subdivisionder gens the prohibition o f intermarriage — w ith all the descendantsin the female line o f each ancestor in the gens — follow ed its branches,for lon g periods o f time, as show n was the case am ong the Iroquois.2) T h e structure der gens created a prejudice agst the marriage o f consanguinei;w ar schon sehr general unter d. Am erican a(bo)rigenes zur Zeitihrer Entdeckung. Z .B . unter d. Iroquois none o f the blood relationsenumerated w ere marriageable. Since es38 w ar nöthig to seek w ivesfrom other gentes they began to be acquired by negotiation u. by purchase;scarcity o f w ives statt previous abundance, so gradually contracted thenumbers o f the punaluan group. Such groups how ever disappeared,obgleich d. system o f consanguinity remains.3)39 In seeking w ives they did not confine them selves to their own, noreven friendly tribes, captured them by force from hostile tribes; hence Indianusage to spare the lives o f fem ale captives, while the males were p u t to death.W hen w ives acquired by purchase and by capture, they not so readilyshared as before. This tended to cut off that portion o f the theoreticalgroup not immediately associatedfor subsistence; reduced still m ore the sizeo f the fam ily and the range o f the conjugal system. Practically grouplim ited itself, from the first, to ow n brothers w h o shared their w ives117