Logo

Synopsis Ernest Crawley’s predecessors E.B. Taylor and Sir J.G. Frazer, through their researches, had made it amply clear that since the current theories of the origins of marriage were based on superficial knowledge of modes of primitive living and thinking, therefore, were not sound and never to be relied upon. One of the basic contention, in this context, was that the system of marriage was studies in isolation from the marriage ceremonies. The author of the present book realized this mistake and analysed the entire phenomenon of marriage in the background of inseparable relation between individual and society. He proceeded from a general study of primitive culture to the study of marriage by probing into the custom of exchange of dress between men and women. His conclusions are ‘that all cases of the custom yielded the same psychological components as to the relations of the sexes generally and marriage in particular’. The theory of origins of marriage is developed dilating upon various subjects viz. Sexual Taboo, Sexual Relations, Theory of Change and Exchange, Marriage and Its Ceremonies, Husband, Wife and Mother in Law and Parent and Child etc. The book, therefore, covers a very wide range of studies in the field of anthropology, sociology and psychology.