Mating, marriage, and the status of woman / by James Corin.

  • Corin, James.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Mating, marriage, and the status of woman / by James Corin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    suggested that the difference in their mode of life was the reason for success in the one case, and failure in the other. Among monkeys a gregarious mode of life is the general rule. There are some departures from this—particularly among the higher apes—and jealousy is the cause. The Gorilla is an example. But there must hdve been a time, according to the principles oi evolution, when all monkeys were gre- garious—the ancestors of the Gorilla among them. The present state of the Gorilla is a departure from the more primitive con- dition ; and he has failed. The ancestors of Homo must have been gregarious in their monkey stage—if not as Catarrhines, at least as Platyrrhines. But Homo is a success. Does he owe his success to having continued, not only as monkey, or as monkey- man, Pithecanthropus, but long after he became what must be recognised as man, the primitive monkey gregariousness ? For what follows from this supposition ? In a social community there would be an absence of discord concerning mating.^ ^ “ The Agathyrsi . . . have promiscuous intercourse with women, to the end that they may be brethren one of another, and, being all of one family, may not entertain hatred towards each other.”—Herodotus (Cary), iv, 104.