Morning journal and courier., 1888-11-07
QUEER MARRIAGE CUSTOMS

Peoples who Allow No Acquaintanea Between Husband and mother-In. Law.
 In the snthropological section of the Brit ish association, says the London Globe, E. B. Tylor recently described method of inves. tigating the development of institutions as applied to laws of marriage and descent. He said: "With the view of applying d. rect numerical method to anthropology, the writer has compiled schedules of the sys- tems of marriage and descent among some three hundred and fifty peoples of the world, so as to ascertain by means of 8 method of adhesion how far each rule coexists or not with other rules, and what have been the al. reetions of development from one rule to an- other. AS 8 frst test of the results to be ob- tained by this means the barbaric custom Is examined which forbids the husband and his wife's parents (though on friendly footing) to speak or look at one another or mention one anothefss names. Some seventy peoples practice this or the converse custom of the wife and her husbands relatives being obliged ceremonially to cut one another. On classifying the marriage rules of man. kind marked distinction is found to lie between those people whose custom is for the husband to reside with his wife's fami- ly and those where he removes her to his own home. It appears that the avoidance custom between the husband and his wife's family belongs prependerantly Gin fourteen cases, as compared with eight computed as likely to happen by chance) to the group of cases where the husband goes to live with the wifes family. This implies a casual connection between the customs of avoidance and residence, suggesting as a reason that the husband, being an interlo- per in the wife's family, must be treated as 8 stranger; to use an English idiom express ing the situation, he is not recognized Other varieties of the customs show similar preponderant adhesions. Another custom, here called teknonmy, or naming the parent from the child, prevails among more than thirty people; as an example was mentioned the name of Ra-mary, or father of Mary, by which Livingstone was generally known in Africa. This custom proves OF examination to adhere closely to those of residence and avoidance, the three occurring together among eleven people-that is more than six times as often might be expected to hap pen by chance concurrence. Their conDec- tion finds satisfactory explanation in the ae- counts given of the Cree Indians of Canada, where the husband lives in his wife's house, but never speaks to his parents-in-law till his first child is born; this alters the whole situation, for though the father is not 8 member of the family his child is, and so confers on him the status of father of so- and -so, which becomes his name, the whole being then brought to a logical conclusion by the family ceasing to cut him. These et- iquettes of avoidance furnish an indication of the direction of change in social habits among mankind; there are eight people (for instance the ZuIus) where residence is in the husbands family, with the accompanying avoidances, but at the same time the avoid ance is kept up between the husband and the wife's family, indicating that at a recent period he may have habitually lived with them"