Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.364

v1.c5.364

² The Old Indians have indeed here too, fully anticipated the theories of modern science: In the beginning all the men of the clan, the horde, or the tribe had the right to enjoy all the women of the community; then came marriage, whether polyandric, polygamic, or monogamic, “simple or mixed,” but at first always with the very actual consciousness still (and one that was often obeyed) that, in spite of it, access to a woman was not barred to the other men. In perfect harmony with our tale, for example, is the custom among the polygamous Nasamones and the monogamic Massagetae, among whom even after marriage the wife could be freely visited by all the men. Withal, in all probability, father-right prevailed in the original Indo-Germanic people, not, as has been held, mother-right. Yet among many Indo-Germanic peoples in later times there is evidence even of a community of wives, not to speak of other loose customs. See Ed. Meyer, Gesch. d. Altertums, i, 1, pp. 26 f. And the patriarchate is in itself consistent with the greatest unconcern as to the woman’s chasteness, and even after marriage. Cp. for this chapter, among the moderns, Hartland, Primitive Paternity, especially the second volume, and in