Another form of marriage called ‘group marriage‘ is also mentioned in the study of primitive marriage systems. The empirical data generated by social anthropologists hardly provide any detail about this form of marriage.
Lowie says that the term ‘marriage’ as we understand it by customary definition, if applied, there is “hardly something of the kind of group marriage”.
He says that what we term ‘group marriage’ is actually sexual communism. In each society, besides the traditions of monogamy, polygyny and polyandry, there are instances of pre-marital and extra-marital sex relations. These sex relations could be loosely called group marriage. Lowie argues:
In the first place we must recognize that far-reaching sexual communism may exist side by side with individual marriage. That is to say, one portion of the community may live according to the former principle, the remainder according to the other.
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Our own civilization with its connivance at prostitution presents as clear an example as possible. Primitive societies differ mainly in that sexual communism is openly sanctioned within the corresponding limits.
Lowie argues at length referring to a large number of social anthropologists, particularly Rivers, Morgan and others that there has never been a form of marriage called group marriage. He denies the existence of sexual communism in any part of the world. His conclusion runs as follows:
Sexual communism as a condition taking the place of the individual family exists nowhere at the present time; and the arguments for its former existence must be rejected as unsatisfactory. This conclusion will find confirmation in the phenomena of primitive family life.
Thus, on the basis of the inferences drawn by Lowie and others, it can be said that the popular textbooks of social anthropology are wrong to refer to group marriage as a form of marriage. It has also, been stated, in categorical terms, that there has never been and nowhere is there any incidence of group marriage among Indian tribes.
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We can come to an end by saying that despite the prevalence of polygyny and polyandry in parts of Africa and India, the general form of marriage all over the world remains to be monogamy which has come to stay for all times to come.