says: 'The usage' (that of polyandry--many husbands to a single wife)
'seems to me one which circumstances overpowering morality and decency
might at any time call into existence. It is known to have arisen in
the native Indian army.' The question now is, what are the
circumstances that overpower morality and decency, and so produce
polyandry, with its necessary consequences, when it is a recognised
institution--the absence of the patriarchal family, and the
recognition of kinship through women? Any circumstances which cause
great scarcity of women will conduce to those results. Mr. M'Lennan's
opinion was, that the chief cause of scarcity of women has been the
custom of female infanticide--of killing little girls as _bouches
inutiles_. Sir Henry Maine admits that 'the cause assigned by M'Lennan
is a _vera causa_--it is capable of producing the effects.'[209] Mr.
M'Lennan collected a very large mass of testimony to prove the wide
existence of this cause of paucity of women. Till that evidence is
published, I can only say that it was sufficient, in Mr. M'Lennan's
opinion, to demonstrate the wide prevalence of the factor which is
the mainspring of his whole system.[210] How frightfully female
infanticide has prevailed in India, every one may read in the official
reports of Col. M'Pherson, and other English authorities. Mr. Fison's
_Kamilaroi and Kurnai_ contains some notable, though not to my mind
convincing, arguments on the other side. Sir Henry Maine adduces
another cause of paucity of women: the wanderings of our race, and
expeditions across sea.[211] This cause would not, however, be
important enough to alter forms of kinship, where the invaders (like
the early English in Britain) found a population which they could
conquer and whose women they could appropriate.

Apart from any probable inferences that may be drawn from the presumed
practice of female infanticide, actual ascertained facts prove that
many races do not now live, or that recently they did not live, in the
patriarchal or modern family. They live, or did live, in polyandrous
associations. The Thibetans, the Nairs, the early inhabitants of
Britain (according to Caesar), and many other races,[212] as well as
the inhabitants of the Marquesas Islands, and the Iroquois (according
to Lafitau), practise, or have practised, polyandry.

We now approach the third and really important problem--(3) Is there
any reason to suppose that the stronger peoples, like the A