The second postulate, which may be regarded as a corollary of the first,
is that the primary conjugal condition was one of promiscuity, out of
which different forms ot marriage were successively segregated. Now the
wide range in institutional development exemplified by the American
Indians affords unprecedented opportunities for testing this postulate
also. The simplest demotic unit found among the aborigines is the clan or
mother-descent group, in which the normal conjugal relation is essentially
monogamous,(57) in which marriage is more or less strictly regulated by a
system of prohibitions, and in which the chief conjugal regulation is
commonly that of exogamy with respect to the clan; in higher groups, more
deeply affected by contact with neighboring peoples, the simple clan
organization is sometimes found to be modified, (1) by the adoption and
subsequent conjugation of captive men and boys, and, doubtless more
profoundly, (2) by the adoption and polygamous marriage of female
captives; and in still more highly organized groups the mother-descent is
lost and polygamy is regular and limited only by the capacity of the
husband as a provider. The second and third stages are commonly
characterized, like the first, by established prohibitions and by clan
exogamy; though with the advance in organization amicable relations with
certain other groups are usually established, whereby the germ of tribal
organization is implanted and a system of interclan marriage, or tribal
endogamy, is developed.
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