[403] SPENCER, _Principles of Sociology_, I, 679-81, 748 ff., 750. See, however, the criticism of STARCKE, _op. cit._, 151-53, 159 ff.; and compare WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 510 ff.; MCLENNAN, _Studies_, I, 108 ff.; _Fortnightly Review_ (1877), 701; and SPENCER'S "Short Rejoinder," _ibid._, 897. But elsewhere Spencer thinks the levirate may arise in the duty of caring for the brother's children--a general cause of polygyny: _op. cit._, 691, 692. For examples of inheritance of widows, see KOHLER, "Das Recht der Azteken," _ZVR._, XI, 54; "Das Negerrecht, namentlich in Kamerun," _ibid._, XI, 416, 423; and for widower inheritance among the Chins, _idem_, _ibid._, 186 ff.
[404] STARCKE, _op. cit._, 141 ff. For his theory of juridical fatherhood see _ibid._, 121-27, 135, 139; and compare the similar view of WAKE, _Marriage and Kinship_, 78 ff. This author gives an interesting discussion of the case of Boaz and Ruth, _op. cit._, 172-78, which may be compared with MCLENNAN, _Studies_, I, 109 n. 3. On the evidence for juridical fatherhood among the Arabs, consult SMITH, _Kinship and Marriage_, 119, 120.
Again, not only is the general extent of polyandry limited, but even where it exists it is confined in almost every case "to a very small part of the population."[405] It is sometimes restricted to the poorer classes, sometimes to the rich; and nearly always it is found side by side with polygyny or monogamy. There is another limitation, already noticed, which tells very strongly against the theory of its origin in promiscuity. Polyandry usually shows a tendency in the direction of monogamy. Sometimes each of the husbands lives with the wife during a certain period, while the others are absent; or frequently, "as one, usually the first married, wife in polygynous families is the chief wife;" so also, "one, usually the first, husband in polyandrous families is the chief husband." In him authority and the property are vested, and all the children, even, are feigned to be his.[406]
[406] _Ibid._, 457-59, 113-17; _cf._ especially STARCKE, _op. cit._, 135. HELLWALD, _Die mensch. Familie_, 264 ff., gives many interesting details.
In opposition to the theory of McLennan various explanations of the origin of polyandry have been advanced. Spencer regards both polygyny and polyandry as mere limitations of promiscuity. "Promiscuity may be called indefinite polyandry joined with indefinite polygyny; and one mode of advance is by diminution of the indefiniteness." Polyandry, therefore, does not originate in scarcity of women; nor can it be due to poverty; "though poverty may, in some cases, be the cause of its continuance and spread." It is rather one of several independent "types of marital relations emerging from the primitive unregulated state; and one which has survived where competing forms, not favored by the conditions, have failed to extinguish it."[407] Hellwald holds a similar view.[408] Robertson Smith traces its origin to the practice of capturing or of purchasing wives in common by a group of kinsmen; and in the case of purchase, poverty or the high price of women must have exerted a favorable influence.[409] Not entirely dissimilar is the view of Wake who, rejecting the hypothesis of McLennan, believes that polyandry can be satisfactorily explained "only as being established, under the pressure of poverty, either independently or as an offshoot from the phase of punaluan group marriage in which several brothers have their wives in common."[410] Starcke in like manner finds that it "is adapted in every respect to this organization of the joint family group." In its highest forms "it is only the eldest brother who is married," and "the younger ones are not husbands, but merely specially authorized lovers. There is nothing to indicate that the band of brothers, as such, take a wife in common; that is, that the marriage is the act of the whole community." Hence "polyandry belongs to the category of facts which have to do with the ordinary family communism;" and it does not forfeit its character of a marriage in which the individual does not quite lose his personality in the group.[411]