CHAPTER XX.
MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY IN THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE.
I. The Past.—Sociology and evolution—Sociology and scientific method—The biological reason of marriage and the family—Primitive forms of marriage—Its evolution—Consanguineous primitive groups—The evolution of the family—The stages of this evolution—From communism to individualism—Advantages of the primitive clan—Polygamy and statistics of births. II. The Present.—Present marriage in Europe—The dangers of celibacy according to A. Bertillon—They marry who can—Imperfect categories of celibates—Money and matrimony—Selection by money—Marriages by purchase. III. The Future.—Prehistoric peoples still surviving—Progress is the law of the world—The meaning of matrimonial and familial evolution—Sociological rhythms—Future collective societies—The family and society—Progress of conjugal discord—The marriage of the future—Herbert Spencer and Montaigne—Slowness of social evolutions—Conservatives and innovators—Nothing dies; everything is renewed. I. The Past.
In the preceding chapters I have attempted to describe how men of all countries and all races have more or less constituted and organised their marriage and their family, and for this purpose I have patiently classified a multitude of facts collected singly by an army of observers.
Moreover, in conformity with the method of evolution, and in order not to neglect the most distant sources, I have prefaced my minute inquiry into marriage and the family among men by an investigation of the same kind in regard to animals. Man is neither a demi-god nor an angel; he is a primate more intelligent than the others, and his
