g of group. Dieri customs. Tippa-malku
marriage. Obscure points. _Pirrauru._ Obscure points. Relation of
_pirrauru_ to _tippa-malku_ unions. Kurnandaburi. Wakelbura customs.
Kurnai organisation. Position of widow. _Piraungaru_ of Urabunna.
_Pirrauru_ and group marriage. _Pirrauru_ not a survival. Result of
scarcity of women. Duties of _Pirrauru_ spouses. _Piraungaru_:
obscure points.

We now come to the marriage customs of the Australian natives of the
present day and the supposed survivals of group marriage. In dealing
with the question of group marriage we are met with a preliminary
difficulty. No one has formulated a definition of this state, and the
interpretations of the term are very diverse.

Fison, for example, says[152] group marriage does not necessarily imply
actual giving in marriage or cohabitation; all it means is a marital
right or rather qualification which comes by birth. He argues however on
a later page[153] that Nair polyandry, which is more properly termed
promiscuity, is group marriage. Much the same view is taken by A.H.
Post[154], who regards the theory of pure promiscuity and the undivided
commune as untenable.

Kohler, on the other hand[155], speaks of group marriage as existing
among the Omahas, a patrilineal tribe, be it remarked; but means by that
no more than adelphic polygyny.

Spencer and Gillen criticise Westermarck's use of the term "pretended
group marriage" and assert it to be a fact among the Urabunna. On the
very next page group marriage is spoken of as having preceded the
present state of things. Both statements cannot be true.

For the purposes of the present work I understand group marriage to mean
promiscuity limited by regulations based on organisations such as
age-grades, phratries, totem-kins, or local groups.

The fact is that Spencer and Gillen and other writers on Australia use
the term group merely as a noun of multitude. They do not mean by group,
in one sense, anything more than a number of persons. In this sense they
speak of group marriage (=polygamy) at the present day--a fact which is
not peculiar to Australia and which no one is concerned to deny. By a
quite illegitimate transformation of meaning they also apply the term
group to a portion of a tribe distinguished by a class name and (or or)
term of relationship and mean by group marriage class promiscuity. They
do not even perceive that they make this transition, for otherwise