About This Book
The author surveys the biological and social origins of marriage and the family, beginning with animal reproduction and mating behavior and proceeding through cross-cultural forms of sexual association. The study examines alleged promiscuity, hetaïrism, polyandry, marriage by capture, purchase and servitude, polygamy, primitive and civilized monogamy, prostitution and concubinage, adultery, repudiation and divorce, widowhood and the levirate. Drawing on ethnographic examples and comparative analysis, it traces how sexual customs, property relations, and evolving moral sentiments shape family arrangements across different societies.
About the Author
You May Also Like
6 picks
West African studies
by Mary Henrietta Kingsley
The narrative of an explorer in tropical South Africa
by Francis Galton
Notes on the Floridian Peninsula; Its Literary History, Indian Tribes and Antiquities
by Daniel G. Brinton
The History of the Five Indian Nations of Canada / Which are dependent on the Province of New-York, and are a barrier between the English and the French in that part of the world
by Cadwallader Colden
Nuestra Pampa; libro de lectura
by W. Jaime Molins
The jungle folk of Africa
by Robert H. Milligan