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== THE REAL CAUSE OF EXOGAMY.==

440. A point in the evidence from profane history that exogamy has had its origin in polygyny (the humbler members of a tribe being driven to seek wives outside the tribe because the stronger, or head men, had monopolized the women of the tribe for their harems), is the fact that very generally the royal classes have not been expected to obey such restrictions. In early times even brothers and sisters of royal blood married; and such is the custom among certain African tribes to this day. Dr. Frazer, in his book, Totemism and Exogamy, informs us that in both Assam and Africa, among exogamous tribes, the heads of the tribe marry members of their own tribe. It stands to reason, however, that should exceptionally pretty captive women be brought into a tribe, this would lead even its chiefs to join the next expedition to capture women from the tribe whence the attractive captives came. Thus we are told, Genesis 6:1-2, that it was when the Cainites “saw the daughters of Men (Sethite women) that they were fair” they took them, and their progeny were “mighty men,” “men of renown” (see pars. 158-162).[1]

441. But of what practical moment is this matter? We answer, it is of great moment to women to grasp the immense difference between the teaching of evolutionists and the Holy Scriptures on the same facts. The teachings of the social evolutionists of the present day are very injurious to the progress of womanhood. The evolutionist rejects the teachings of the early chapters of Genesis, and would lead women to do the same, declaring the Biblical teaching to be degrading to women. But let us remember that what has injured women is the rabbinical and theological perversion of the real teachings of these early chapters. Women are in danger of throwing aside a priceless treasure because it has been presented to them under a repulsive cover; and evolutionists are exhorting them. “Throw it away! Throw it away! It is only rubbish.”

442. But before we throw our document away, we will tear off the cover (its traditional interpretation and translation), and get to its original contents. And furthermore, we will compare with God’s Word what evolution offers woman in place of it, for the early chapters of Genesis. The social evolutionists, for the most part, would begin the world’s social history with a repulsive promiscuity; the Bible begins it with a picture of purest monogamy. The evolutionists next picture a state of polyandry for women; the Bible nowhere, from Genesis to Revelation, admits a picture of this degrading system of female life; polyandry has existed in this world, and may exist today, but never so extensively as to be a factor in great social problems. The evolutionist “evolves” female kinship out of polyandry,¾a state in which the fatherhood of children cannot be determined; the Bible derives female kinship from an ordinance of God,¾as binding upon Christians today (even though universally disobeyed), as the law against free and easy divorce.

443. God premised female kinship when He prophesied “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head;” He founded the law of female kinship earlier, when He said, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.” The evolutionist, by implication if not often by actual statement, pictures the growth of male kinship and the gradual subjugation of the mothers of the human race as progress; the Bible shows that the same is a defiant going against God’s expressed will. The evolutionist is silent as to the part that an initial polygyny has played in bringing about lamentable conditions, but has much to say that is misleading about polyandry; but the Bible shows the very early development of polygyny among men, and gives us a clear picture of its outcome¾the capture of women,¾the beginning of exogamy¾as closely related to the sensuality and violence of men. Women, as a class, have never been pictured in Bible history as given over to the degrading habits of polyandry,¾the nearest approach being an occasional woman of evil life. Such misrepresentations belong to rabbinical misrepresentations of the character of Eve and of women in general; or to pagan conceptions of womanhood; or to the theory of modern evolutionists, who have, once for all, committed themselves to the employment of picturing everything of the past as worse than the present, and cut the foot to fit their shoe,¾in other words, shape the living truth to their dead theory.

444. McLennan states, in relation to the early dignity of womanhood: “All those signs of superiority on the woman’s part were the direct consequence (1) of marriage being not monogamous or such as to permit of certainty of fatherhood; and (2) of wives not as yet living in their husband’s houses, but apart from them, in the houses of their own mothers.” Writers on this theme agree with McLennan as to the first point, while we, on Scriptural authority, strongly dissent. Female kinship was not, in early times, kept to the front merely because male kinship could not be determined, owing to the practice of polyandry. God Himself, by express ordinance founded female kinship. Nature also establishes female kinship, and it has only been by a “reform against nature” (that horror which is so odious to the eyes of all believers in masculine domination), that man has ever displaced female kinship and enthroned male kinship,¾by gross cruelty and systematic tyranny, as we shall presently show. We agree in part with McLennan’s second point. Certainly immense advantages accrued to the human race¾primarily to women and children¾by the early practice of disjointing the husband from his kin, and not the wife from her kin in marriage. Some of these are enumerated in paragraph 45.

445. All these writers seem to agree that exogamy, in its rise, is closely related to the capture of wives, and the capture of wives to a scarcity of women. But none of them, excepting Herbert Spencer so far as we know, suggest that that scarcity might arise out of the practice of polygyny,¾as we believe the Bible clearly shows. The problem with them, is, how to account for exogamy after having once agreed together that female kinship was born of polyandry. Let them once drop this hypothetic polyandry as accounting for female kinship, and accept the belief that nature and nature’s God established female kinship, and a perfectly clear and simple case can be made out. We believe the otherwise objectless, unsavory stories of the blaspheming, polygamous Lamech and his self-vaunting poetry, and of the depredations of Cain’s tribe on the daughters of Seth, have their place in the Bible because they instruct us in the initial steps of social degeneration. They are meant for clues to great social problems. Here (in the opening chapters of Genesis) we trace disease¾the moral disease, sin, back to its initial symptoms. To be able to trace a disease through all its variations back to its inception, generally affords the secret of its conquest.

446. To review and sum up: Accepting the Biblical account as authoritative, (1) The human race began with the family (not the tribe, or clan, as evolutionists teach) as its unit; (2) it began in pure monogamy, Matthew 19:4; (3) with female kinship. Matthew 19:5: (4) but Cain bequeathed to the race sensual and domineering characteristics; (5) as a result of this bad inheritance, strengthened by bad example (Genesis 4:24) Cain’s descendants invent “cutting instruments” (R. V.), and use them as weapons of warfare, first within the tribe,¾the stronger members of which monopolize more wives than one, if they choose; (6) thus the weaker men are driven to unite themselves to wives in the (at first) friendly Sethite tribe, but still keeping up friendly relations with their Cainite brethren: (7) seeing Sethite women “that they are fair,” the stronger men begin the capture of Sethite women, Genesis 6:1-2, and thus exogamy, as a custom, is established.

447. Again we emphasize, as a lesson to be drawn from these considerations, the need of women translators and Biblical expositors to collaborate with men. There are, equally in each sex, certain sex prejudices and certain sex limitations that unfit either sex to be the sole custodian of divine truth for the opposite sex. In this instance, as in other instances, the predominance of male expositors of the Bible and the predominance of male expositors of scientific and archaeological facts, lead both bodies astray as to their deductions from plainly demonstrable teachings of nature, ancient history, customs and the Word of God.

==Footnotes==
[4] This statement and interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4, will not be understood apart from the exposition of Sir J.W. Dawson, given in pars. 158-162.

==See Also==
[[God's Word to Women]] |
[[God's Word to Women Table of Contents]] |
[[Foreword to the 1943 Edition]] |
[[Foreword to the 2005 Edition]] |
[[Author's Note]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 1 | Lesson 1]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 2 | Lesson 2]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 3 | Lesson 3]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 4 | Lesson 4]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 5 | Lesson 5]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 6 | Lesson 6]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 7 | Lesson 7]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 8 | Lesson 8]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 9 | Lesson 9]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 10 | Lesson 10]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 11 | Lesson 11]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 12 | Lesson 12]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 13 | Lesson 13]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 14 | Lesson 14]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 15 | Lesson 15]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 16 | Lesson 16]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 17 | Lesson 17]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 18 | Lesson 18]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 19 | Lesson 19]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 20 | Lesson 20]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 21 | Lesson 21]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 22 | Lesson 22]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 23 | Lesson 23]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 24 | Lesson 24]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 25 | Lesson 25]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 26 | Lesson 26]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 27 | Lesson 27]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 28 | Lesson 28]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 29 | Lesson 29]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 30 | Lesson 30]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 31 | Lesson 31]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 32 | Lesson 32]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 33 | Lesson 33]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 34 | Lesson 34]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 35 | Lesson 35]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 36 | Lesson 36]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 37 | Lesson 37]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 38 | Lesson 38]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 39 | Lesson 39]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 40 | Lesson 40]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 41 | Lesson 41]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 42 | Lesson 42]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 43 | Lesson 43]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 44 | Lesson 44]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 45 | Lesson 45]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 46 | Lesson 46]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 47 | Lesson 47]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 48 | Lesson 48]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 49 | Lesson 49]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 50 | Lesson 50]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 51 | Lesson 51]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 52 | Lesson 52]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 53 | Lesson 53]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 54 | Lesson 54]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 55 | Lesson 55]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 56 | Lesson 56]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 57 | Lesson 57]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 58 | Lesson 58]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 59 | Lesson 59]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 60 | Lesson 60]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 61 | Lesson 61]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 62 | Lesson 62]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 63 | Lesson 63]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 64 | Lesson 64]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 65 | Lesson 65]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 66 | Lesson 66]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 67 | Lesson 67]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 68 | Lesson 68]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 69 | Lesson 69]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 70 | Lesson 70]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 71 | Lesson 71]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 72 | Lesson 72]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 73 | Lesson 73]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 74 | Lesson 74]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 75 | Lesson 75]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 76 | Lesson 76]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 77 | Lesson 77]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 78 | Lesson 78]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 79 | Lesson 79]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 80 | Lesson 80]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 81 | Lesson 81]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 82 | Lesson 82]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 83 | Lesson 83]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 84 | Lesson 84]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 85 | Lesson 85]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 86 | Lesson 86]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 87 | Lesson 87]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 88 | Lesson 88]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 89 | Lesson 89]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 90 | Lesson 90]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 91 | Lesson 91]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 92 | Lesson 92]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 93 | Lesson 93]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 94 | Lesson 94]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 95 | Lesson 95]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 96 | Lesson 96]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 97 | Lesson 97]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 98 | Lesson 98]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 99 | Lesson 99]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 100 | Lesson 100]] |
[[Index of Scripture Texts]] |
[[Dictionary]]
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