Marshall D Sahlins, 1960, The Origin of Society. In (ed) Peter B Hammond, Physical Anthropology and Archaeology (1964), The Macmillan Company, New York, USA. pp 59-65
Despite apparent superficial similarities between animal and human societies, the difference between them is profound: “Human social life is culturally, not biologically, determined.” The triumph of intellect over instinct — of altruism over individualism — was demonstrably basic to our evolution.
5. The Origin of Society1 This discussion of the early phases of human in the comparative procedure which equates society considers events that occurred a modern hunters and gatherers with the actual million years ago, in places not specifically protagonists of the Stone Age is fortified by determined, under circumstances known only the remarkable social congruence observed by informed speculation. It will therefore be among these peoples, even though they are an exercise in inference, not in observation. historically as separated from one another as This means juxtaposing the social life of the Stone Age is distant from modern times. man’s closest relations — monkeys and apes They include the Australian aborigines, the — on the one side, with the organization of Bushmen of South Africa, the Andaman known primitive societies on the other. The Islanders, the Shoshoni of the American gap that remains is then bridged by the mind. Great Basin, the Eskimo, and Pygmy groups No living primate can be directly equated in Africa, Malaya and the Philip pines. with man’s actual simian ancestor, and no Comparison of primate sociology with the contemporary primitive people is identical findings of anthropological research with our cultural ancestors. In both instances immediately suggests a startling conclusion: only generalized social traits — not The way people act, and probably have particular, specialized ones — can be selected always acted, is not the expression of inherent for historical comparison. On the primate side human nature. There is a quantum difference, one must rely primarily on the few field at points a complete opposition, between reports of free-ranging groups and on certain even the most rudimentary human society and pioneer studies of captive animals. These the most advanced subhuman primate one. have covered the anthropoid apes, especially The discontinuity implies that the emergence the gibbon and the chimpanzee (which are of human society required some suppression, more closely related to man) as well as the rather than a direct expression, of man’s New and Old World monkeys. On the human primate nature. Human social life is side the nearest contemporary approximations culturally, not biologically, determined. to the original cultural condition are societies This is not to slander the poor apes, to of hunters and gatherers, pre-agricultural suggest that their social behavior is peoples exacting a meager livelihood from necessarily innate and unlearned. Yet it is wild food resources. This cultural order clearly the product of their nature, of animal dominated the Old Stone Age (one million to needs and reactions, physiological processes 10,000 or 15,000 years ago). Confidence and psychological responses.
1 MARSHALL D. SAHLINS, “The Origin of Society,” in Scientific American, 203, No. 3 (1960), pp. 76-86. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher. Copyright © 1960 by Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved. Dr. Sahlins is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan.
59 Marshall D Sahlins, 1960, The Origin of Society. In (ed) Peter B Hammond, Physical Anthropology and Archaeology (1964), The Macmillan Company, New York, USA. pp 59-65
Their social life therefore varies directly with Most significantly for the assessment of its the organic constitution of the individual and historic role, year-round sex in higher primates the horde. In an unchanging environment the is associated with year-round heterosexual social characteristics of a given subhuman social life. Among other mammals sexual primate species are unchanging, unless or until activity, and likewise heterosexual society, is the species is organically transformed. The frequently confined to a comparatively brief same cannot be said about human social breeding season. arrangements. We are all one species, but our Of course other important social activities go on social orders grow and diversify, even within a in the subhuman primate horde. Group constant environment, and they do so quite existence confers advantages, such as defense apart from the minor biological (racial) against predation, which transcend the differences that develop among different gratification of erotic urges. In the evolutionary peoples. perspective the intense, long-term sexuality of This liberation of human society from direct the primate individual is the historic biological control was its great evolutionary complement of the advantages of horde life. strength. Culture saved man in his earliest days, Nor, in considering subhuman primate clothed him, fed him and comforted him. In sexuality, should attention be confined to these times it has become possible to pile form coitus. The evidence grows that certain Old on form in great social edifices that undertake World monkeys—the closely related baboon, to secure the survival of millions of people. Yet rhesus monkey and Japanese monkey — do the remarkable aspect of culture’s usurpation of have seasonal declines in breeding without the evolutionary task from biology was that in cessation of horde life. But sex enters into so doing it was forced to oppose man’s primate subhuman primate social relations in a variety nature on many fronts and to subdue it. It is an of forms, and heterosexual copulation is only extraordinary fact that primate urges often one of them. Sexual mounting is involved in the become not the secure foundation of human establishment of dominance, which grows out social life, but a source of weakness in it. of chronic competition for food, mates, and The decisive battle between early culture and other desirable objects. It is a common element human nature must have been waged on the of youthful play; indeed, the female higher field of primate sexuality. The powerful social primate is unique among female mammals in magnet of sex was the major impetus to displaying the adult sexual pattern prior to subhuman primate sociability. This has long puberty. The familiar primate trait of mutual been recognized. But it was the British grooming — the pulling and licking out of anatomist Sir Solly Zuckerman — whose parasites and other objects from the coat of attention to the matter developed from another animal — often appears to be a observation of the almost depraved behavior of secondary sexual activity. Sex is more than a baboons in zoos — who made sexuality the key force of attraction between adult males and issue of primate sociology. Subhuman primates females; it also operates among the young and are prepared to mate at all seasons, and between individuals of the same sex. although females show heightened receptivity Promiscuity is not an accurate term for it; it is midway through the menstrual cycle, they are indiscriminate. And while we might deem some often capable of sexual activity at other times. of the forms perversions, to a monkey or an ape they are all just sociable.
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Sex is not an unmitigated social blessing for -cies, is still joined in every individual to this primates. Competition over partners, for day. In Sigmund Freud’s famous allegory, the example, can lead to vicious, even fatal, strife. conflict between the self-seeking, sexually It was this side of primate sexuality that forced inclined id and the socially conscious superego early culture to curb and repress it. The re-enacts the development of culture that emerging human primate, in a life-and-death occurred in the remote past. economic struggle with nature, could not afford The design of many of these tabus is obvious: the luxury of a social struggle. Co-operation, the disconcerting fascination of sex and its not competition, was essential. Culture thus potentially disruptive consequences had to be brought primate sexuality under control. More eliminated from vital social activities. Thus the than that, sex was made subject to regulations, incest tabu is a guardian of harmony and such as the incest tabu, which effectively solidarity within the family — a critical matter enlisted it in the service of co-operative kin for hunters and gatherers, for among them the relations. Among subhuman primates sex had family is the fundamental economic as well as organized society; the customs of hunters and social group. At the same time, the injunction gatherers testify eloquently that now society on sexual relations and marriage among close was to organize sex — in the interest of the relatives necessarily forces different families economic adaptation of the group. into alliance and thus extends kinship and The evolution of the physiology of sex itself mutual aid. provided a basis for the cultural reorganization It has been said that kinship, with its economic of social life. As Frank Beach of Yale aspect of co-operation, became the plan for University has pointed out, a progressive primitive human society. “Kinship” here means emancipation of sexuality from hormonal a cultural form, not a biological fact. Apes are control runs through the primate order. This of course genetically related to each other. But trend culminates in mankind, among whom sex apes do not and cannot name and distinguish is controlled more by the intellect — the kinsmen, and they do not use kinship as a cerebral cortex — than by glands. Thus it symbolic organization of behavior. On the other becomes possible to regulate sex by moral hand, cultural kinship has virtually nothing to rules; to subordinate it to higher, collective do with biological connection. No one, for ends. The consequent repression of primate example, can be absolutely certain who his sexuality in primitive as well as more father is in a genetic sense, but in all human developed societies has taken striking forms. In societies fatherhood is a fundamental social every human society sex is hedged by tabus: on status. Almost all societies adhere, implicitly or time, place (the human animal alone demands explicitly, to the dictum of the Napoleonic code privacy), on the sex and age of possible in this respect: the father of the child is the partners, on reference to sex in certain social husband of the mother. contexts, on exposing the genitalia (particularly for females), on cohabitation during culturally Many hunters and gatherers carry kinship to an important activities which range in different extreme that is curious to us. By a device societies from war and ceremony to brewing technically known as classificatory kinship they beer. By way of an aside, it is notable that the ignore genealogical differences between repression of sex in favor of other ends is a collateral and lineal kin at certain points, battle which, while won for the spe- lumping them terminologically and in social be-
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-havior. Thus my father’s brother may be -prise a separate pack within the horde, and “father” to me, and I act accordingly. Close only when a female is in heat does she forsake kinship may be extended indefinitely by the this group for males. She does not become same logic: My father’s brother’s son is my attached to a specific male, but, wearing them “brother,” my grand father’s brother is my out in turn. goes from one to another. The Old “grandfather,” his son is my “father,” his son World rhesus horde and mate relations are my “brother,” and so on. As one observer similar except that a receptive female is taken remarked of the Australian aborigines: “It is over primarily by dominant males, a step in the impossible for an Australian native to have direction of exclusiveness. In the anthropoid anything whatever to do with anyone who is not gibbon the trend toward exclusiveness is fully his relative, of one kind or another, near or developed: the entire horde is typically distant.” composed of an adult male, a permanent female The subhuman primate horde varies in size consort and their young. As yet it is not safe to among different species, ranging from groups in state unequivocally that such progressive the hundreds among certain Old World change runs through the entire primate order. It monkeys to the much smaller groups, often does appear that the higher subhuman primates smaller than 10, characteristic of anthropoid presage the human family more than do the apes. The horde may stay together all the time, lower. or it may scatter during daytime feeding into The primate horde is practically a closed social packs of various sorts — mate groups of males group. Each horde has a territory, and local and females, females with young, males alone groups of most species defend their ground (or — and come together again at night resting trees) against encroachment by others of their places. Monkeys seem inclined to scatter in this kind. The typical relation between adjacent way more than apes. hordes is that of enmity, especially, it seems, if There are typically more adult females than food is short. Their borders are points of social adult males within the hordes sometimes, as in deflection, and contact between neighbors is the case of the howler monkey, three times as often marked by belligerent vocal cries, if it many. This may be in part due to a faster does not erupt into fatal violence. maturation rate for females. It may also reflect the elimination of some males in the course of Territorial relations among neighboring human competition for mates. These males are not hunting-and-gathering bands (a term used necessarily killed. They may lead a solitary life technically to refer to the cohesive local group) outside or on the fringes of the horde, offer an instructive contrast. The band territory attempting all the while to attach themselves to is never exclusive. Individuals and families may some group and acquire sexual partners. shift from group to group, especially in those The progressive emancipation of sex from habitats where food resources fluctuate from hormonal control in the primate order that was year to year and from place to place. In noted by Beach seems to be paralleled by a addition, a great deal of interband hospitality progressive development from promiscuous and visiting is undertaken for purely social and mating to the formation of exclusive, permanent ceremonial reasons. Although bands remain heterosexual partnerships between specific autonomous politically, a general notion of animals. Among certain New World monkeys, tribalism, based on similarity in lan- females with their young corn-
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-guage and custom and on social collaboration, toward kinsmen. In certain ways this system of develops among neighboring groups. These etiquette is even more effective than law. A tendencies are powerfully reinforced by kinship breach of etiquette cannot go undetected, and and the cultural regulation of sex and marriage. punishment in the form of avoidance, gossip Among all modern survivors of the Stone Age, and ridicule follows hard upon offense. marriage with close relatives is forbidden, while The primitive human family, unlike the marriage outside the band is at least preferred subhuman primate mate group, is not based and sometimes morally prescribed. The kin ties simply on sexual attraction. Sex is easily thereby created become social pathways of available in many band societies, both before mutual aid and solidarity connecting band to and outside marriage, but this alone does not band. It does not seem unwarranted to assert necessarily create or destroy the family. The that the human capacity to extend kinship was a incest tabu itself implies that the human family necessary social condition for the deployment cannot be the social outcome of erotic urges. of early man over the great expanses of the Moreover, sexual rights to a wife may even be planet. waived in the interest of securing friendly Another implication of interband kinship relations with other men, as in the famous deserves emphasis: Warfare is limited among Eskimo custom of wife lending. This, hunters and gatherers. Indeed, many are incidentally, is only one cultural device among reported to find the idea of war many for enlisting marriage and sex in the incomprehensible. A massive military effort creation of wide social alliance. In remarkable would be difficult to sustain for technical and contrast to subhuman primate unions, often logistic reasons. But war is even further created and maintained in violence, marriage is inhibited by the spread of a social relation — in band society a means of securing peace. kinship — which in primitive society is often a Adultery and quarrels over women are not synonym for “peace.” Thomas Hobbes’s unknown among primitive peoples. But such famous fantasy of a war of “all against all” in actions are explicitly considered antisocial. the natural state could not be further from the Among monkeys and apes, on the other hand, truth. War increases in intensity, bloodiness, comparable events create the social order. duration and significance for social survival through the evolution of culture, reaching its Marriage and the family are institutions too culmination in modern civilization. important in primitive life to be built on the Paradoxically the cruel belligerence that is fragile, shifting foundations of “love.” The popularly considered the epitome of human family is the decisive economic institution of nature reaches its zenith in the human condition society. It is to the hunter and gatherer what the most removed from the pristine. By contrast, it manor was to feudal Europe, or the corporate has been remarked of the Bushmen that “it is factory system is to capitalism: it is the not in their nature to fight.” productive organization. The primary division The only permanent organization within the of labor in band economy is that between men band is the family, and the band is a grouping and women. The men typically hunt and make of related families, on the average 20 to 50 weapons; the women gather wild plants and people altogether. Bands lack true government take care of the home and children. Marriage and law; the rules of good order are then is an alliance between the two essential synonymous with customs of proper behavior social elements of production. These fac-
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-tors complement each other — the Eskimos dominance quality seems to arise between say: “A man is the hunter his wife makes him” primate suborders: in New World monkeys, — and they lock their possessors in enduring dominance is “tenuous”; in Old World monkeys marital and familial relations. Many it may become “rough” and “brutal”; in apes, anthropologists have testified that in the minds while clearly apparent, it is not so violently of the natives the ability to cook and sew or to established or sustained. In all species, hunt are much more important than is beauty in however, dominance affects a variety of social a prospective spouse. activities, including play, grooming and The economic aspect of primitive marriage is interhorde relations as well as sex and feeding. responsible for many of its specific Compared both to subhuman primate characteristics. For one thing, it is the normal antecedents and to subsequent cultural adult state; one cannot economically afford to developments, dominance is at its nadir among remain single. Hence the solitary subhuman primitive hunters and gatherers. Culture is the primate male has no counterpart in the primitive oldest “equalizer.” Among animals capable of band. The number of spouses is, however, symbolic communication, the weak can always limited by economic considerations among collectively connive to overthrow the strong. primitives. A male ape has as many mates as it On the other side, political and economic means can get and defend for itself; a man, no more of tyranny remain underdeveloped among than he can support. In fact, marriage is usually hunters and gatherers. monogamous among hunters and gatherers, There is some evolutionary continuity in although there are normally no rules against dominance behavior from primate to primitive; polygamy. Culture, reflecting the compulsions among hunters and gatherers leadership, such as of economics, thus dramatically altered human it is, falls to men. Yet the supremacy of men in mating and differentiated the human family the band as a whole does not necessarily mean from its nearest primate analogues. the abject subordination of women in the home. “Peck orders” of dominance and sub ordination Once more the weapon of articulate speech are characteristic of sub human primate social must be reckoned with; the Danish relations. Chronic competition for mates and anthropologist Kaj Birket-Smith observes: “A perhaps food or other desirable objects census would certainly show a higher establishes and maintains such hierarchies in percentage of henpecked husbands among the every grouping of monkeys and apes. Repeated Eskimos than in a civilized country (except, victory secures future privileges for a dominant perhaps, the U. S.!); most Eskimos have a animal; subordinates, by conditioned response, deeply rooted respect for their wives’ tongues.” withdraw from or yield access to anything The men who lead the band are the wiser and worth having. As Henry W. Nissen of the older. They are not, however, respected for their Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology has ability to commandeer limited supplies of observed, “the bigger animal gets most of the desired goods. On the contrary, generosity is a food; the stronger male, most of the females.” necessary qualification for prestige; the man In most species males tend to dominate over who does most for the band, who sacrifices females, although in certain anthropoid apes, most, will be the one most loved and heeded by notably the chimpanzee and the gibbon, the the rest. The test of status among hunters and reverse can occur. A difference in what has gatherers is usually the reverse of that among been called monkeys and apes;
64 Marshall D Sahlins, 1960, The Origin of Society. In (ed) Peter B Hammond, Physical Anthropology and Archaeology (1964), The Macmillan Company, New York, USA. pp 59-65 it is a matter of who gives away, not who takes far beyond the family. It is a demand of group away. A second qualification for leadership is survival that the successful hunter be prepared knowledge — knowledge of ritual, tradition, to share his spoils with the unsuccessful. “The game movements, terrain and the other things hunter kills, other people have,” say the that control social life. This is why older men Yukaghir of Siberia. are respected. In a stable society they know In a band economy goods commonly pass from more than the others, and to be “old-fashioned” hand to hand, and the circulation gains is a great virtue. momentum in proportion to the degree of Knowledge of itself breeds little power. The kinship among households and the importance headmen of a band can rule only by advice, not of the goods for survival. Food, the basic by fiat. As a Congo Pygmy leader bluntly resource, must always be made available to remarked to an anthropologist, there is just no others on pain of ostracism; the scarcer it point in giving orders, “as nobody would heed becomes, the more readily it must be given them.” The titles of reference given leaders of away, and for nothing. In addition, food and hunting and gathering bands speak eloquently other things are often shared to promote of their powers: the Shoshoni leader is “the friendly relations, utilitarian considerations talker,” and his Eskimo counterpart is “he who notwithstanding. There was a time in human thinks.” In a primitive band each family is a affairs when the only right of property that more cohesive, stronger polity than the band as brought honor was that of giving it away. a whole, and each is free to manage its own The economic behavior of primitives obviously affairs. Birket-Smith said: “There is no rank or does not conform to the stereotype of class among the Eskimos, who must therefore “economic man” by which we organize and renounce that satisfaction, which Thackeray analyze our own economy. But it does conform calls the true pleasure of life, of associating to a realm of economics familiar to us, so with one’s inferiors.” The same may be said of familiar that no one bothers to talk about it and other primitive societies. it lacks an economic science: kinship-friendship The leveling of the social order that economics. There is much to be learned about accompanied the development of culture is primitive economics here, and it would not be a related to the fundamental economic change mere exercise in analogy, for our kin life is the from the selfish — literally rugged — evolutionary survival of relations that once individualism of the primate to co operative kin encompassed society itself. dealings. Monkeys and apes do not co-operate economically; monkeys cannot even be taught In selective adaptation to the perils of the Stone by humans to work together, although apes can. Age, human society overcame or subordinated Nor is food ever shared except in the sense that such primate propensities as selfishness, a subordinate animal may be intimidated into indiscriminate sexuality, dominance and brute handing it over to a dominant one. Among competition. It substituted kinship and co- primitives, on the other hand, food sharing operation for conflict, placed solidarity over follows automatically from the division of labor sex, morality over might. In its earliest days it by sex. More than that, the family economy is a accomplished the greatest reform in history, the pooling of goods and services — “communism overthrow of human primate nature, and in living” as a famous 19th-century thereby secured the evolutionary future of the anthropologist called it. Mutual aid is extended species.
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