s; and in support of this view the sexual
license granted in many tribes to unmarried girls may be adduced.
However this may be, the custom in question appears to be civil and not
religious. The same thing is true of the ceremonies in which bridegroom
and bride are hailed as king and queen--a very natural form of
merrymaking.[334] The purchase of wives is probably a simple commercial
act.

+181+. The marriage ceremonies mentioned above appear to be all social
in their nature. Into them the supernatural is introduced in proportion
as the conception of a divine control of society obtains.[335] On the
other hand, those customs which are intended to ward off evil spirits or
general evil influences from the married pair are religious or magical.

+182+. Mr. Crawley[336] holds that all marriage ceremonies are
essentially religious, as involving the conception of something strange
and dangerous in the contact of men and women; they are intended, he
thinks, to neutralize dangers by reversing taboos and by assimilating
the two persons each to the other, the dangers in question being not
merely distinctly sexual but those of contact in general. Though he
carries his application of the principle of taboo too far, he has
collected a large number of examples which illustrate the separation
between the sexes in early society, and the taboos which hold in their
social intercourse. The separation of the sexes in early times seems to
have resulted largely from the difference in their occupations and the
consequent isolation of each from the other. Possibly one result of this
isolation was that each saw something strange and wonderful in the
other; but it must be remembered that the taboo laws were made by men
and are therefore directed particularly against women. The belief in the
sacredness of life would act more particularly on the ideas concerning
birth.

+183+. Among many half-civilized peoples and generally in Christian
communities marriage is regarded both as a religious ceremony and as a
civil contract, and is controlled in the one case by the religious
authorities, in the other case by the civil authorities. In Mohammedan
communities marriage is simply a civil contract, but religious
ceremonies are often connected with it.[337]

CEREMONIES AT BIRTH

+184+. It is possible that early man was so impressed by the fact of
life and the wonderfulness of the birth of a human being that he
included this latter fact in the sphere