Excerpt from The History of Human Marriage, Vol. 1 of 3 The comparative method in sociology, p. I sq. - The resemblances Of culture-phenomena due partly to mental similarity and partly to transmission, p. 2 sq. - The difficulty in deciding whether they are due to the one cause or to the other, p. 3 sq. - The ethnological method, so unfriendly to the idea of independent origins, has itself inde pendently originated in two different Countries, p. 4 sq. - The customs of savages subject to spontaneous changes, which may lead to similar results in different cases, p. 5 sq.-the investigations of the evolu tionary school, which chiefly endeavours to find the psychological and sociological origin of culture-phenomena, and those of the ethno logical school, which is concerned with their wanderings, supplement each other, p. 6.-how the comparative method helps the sociologist to find the origin of customs, p. 7 sq. - Dr. Rivers' criticism of the endeavour to discover the psychical causes of social phenomena, p. 8 sq. - Social survivals, p. 9 sq. - Dr. Rivers' distrust in our capacity of learning the motives by which Social Conduct is determined, p. 10 sq. - The field - ethnologist's inquiry into motives, p. 11 sq. The hypothetical character of many explanations of social phenomena, p. 12. - The complaint that the use of the comparative method is hardly compatible with a sufficiently careful scrutiny of authorities and sources, p. 12 sq. - The trustworthiness of ethnographical evidence, p. I 3 sq. - The complaint that the comparative method detaches the cultural phenomenon from the organic whole Of which it forms a part and thereby easily represents it in a wronglight, pp. 14 - 1 7. The study of a cultural phenomenon as it is distributed among different races and the study of it which is restricted to a particular ethnic group complement each other, p. 17 sq. - The homogeneous elements of the human mind underrated and the homogeneity of the group-mind overrated by the school of Durkheim, pp. 17 - 19. An error of method prevalent among the evolutionary school, p. 19 sq. - The only Condition on which the universal prevalence of a social phenomenon in the past may be assumed, p. 20 sq. - Criticism of the method of Durkheim, p. 2i. - Biologica1 facts underlying marriage and many particular customs and rules relating to it, p. 22. - The influence which people's ideas and beliefs have exercised upon their marriage customs, ibid. - The influence of industrial culture, p. 22 sq. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.