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By such unmistakable evidence is the authority of morality

asserted in the relations of the sexes: and so many more elements

enter into this 'mystery' than are dreamed of by Plato and some

other philosophers.

Recent enquirers have indeed arrived at the conclusion that among

primitive tribes there existed a community of wives as of

property, and that the captive taken by the spear was the only

wife or slave whom any man was permitted to call his own. The

partial existence of such customs among some of the lower races

of man, and the survival of peculiar ceremonies in the marriages

of some civilized nations, are thought to furnish a proof of

similar institutions having been once universal. There can be no

question that the study of anthropology has considerably changed

our views respecting the first appearance of man upon the earth.

We know more about the aborigines of the world than formerly, but

our increasing knowledge shows above all things how little we

know. With all the helps which written monuments afford, we do

but faintly realize the condition of man two thousand or three

thousand years ago.