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McLENNAN, JOHN FERGUSON
(1827–1881), sociologist, born at Inverness on 14 Oct. 1827, was son of John
McLennan, insurance agent, of Inverness, and Jessie Ross, his wife. Educated
at Inverness and at King's College, Aberdeen, where he graduated M.A. in
1849, he subsequently entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where in 1853 he
obtained a wrangler's place in the mathematical tripos. Leaving Cambridge
University without a degree, he spent two years in London writing for the
'Leader,' then edited by George Henry Lewes [q. v], and other periodicals.
On returning to Edinburgh he was called to the bar in January 1857. He
became secretary to the Scottish Law Amendment Society, and took an active
part in the agitation which led to the Court of Session Act of 1868, and in
1871 he accepted the post of parliamentary draughtsman for Scotland. The
onerous duties of the latter office he discharged for some years ably and
conscientiously.
In 1857 appeared his first considerable literary effort, the article on
'Law' in the 'Encyclopædia Britannica ' (8th edition). In the course of the
researches into ancient institutions which it involved, McLennan was led to
speculate on the origin of the curious custom of marriage by collusive
abduction, which obtained in historic times, both at Sparta and at Rome, and
conjectured that it was a relic of an archaic custom of marriage by actual
abduction, or 'capture.' Further research led him to the conclusion that
primitive society consisted of miscellaneous hordes, recognising no ties of
kinship, practising promiscuous sexual intercourse and female infanticide,
and thus compelled to prey upon one another for women. Hence was established
within each horde a custom of having sexual intercourse with none but alien
women (exogamy), which acquired a religious or quasi-religious sanction, and
survived into historic times. In course of time uterine — but at first only
uterine — kinship came to be recognised, and with its recognition abduction
gave place to the more genial practice of the reception of paramours by
women under the maternal roof, which, from its prevalence among the Nairs,
McLennan terms Nair polyandry. This among the more progressive races was
succeeded by polyandry of the type found in Tibet, where several brothers
have a wife in common who accordingly passes into their family, and this
again by patriarchal monandry, polygamous or monogamous according to
circumstances.
In support of this very bold hypothesis McLennan marshalled a considerable
mass of evidence in an ingenious but somewhat confused and fragmentary
essay, entitled 'An Inquiry into the Origin of the Form of Capture in
Marriage Ceremonies,' Edinburgh, 1865, 8vo. Though anticipated to some
slight extent by the Swiss jurist Bachofen (see Das Mutterrecht. Eine
Untersuchung über die Gynaikokratie der alten Welt nach über religiosen und
rechtlichen Natur, Stuttgart, 1861, 4to), McLennan's work was the result of
altogether independent thought and research, and of the importance of the
facts which for the first time it brought together there has never been any
question. On the other hand, the theory of the evolution of marriage which
he sought to base upon them has met with little favour, and may be said to
be now generally rejected by sociologists. It gave, however, an immense
impetus to research, and has recently received some support from Professor
Robertson Smith's investigations into primitive Arabian institutions (see
Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, Cambridge, 1885, 8vo).
Want of leisure combined with ill-health to frustrate McLennan's
long-cherished intention of rewriting 'Primitive Marriage.' He continued,
however, his investigations into the subject until shortly before his death.
In 1866 he discussed the Homeric evidence in two articles on 'Kinship in
Ancient Greece' in the 'Fortnightly Review' (April and May), and contributed
a slighter paper on 'Bride Catching' to the 'Argosy' (June). He broke
entirely new ground in a brief article on 'Totemism' in the supplement to 'Chambers's
Encyclopaedia' (1868}, followed by a series on the same subject, entitled
'The Worship of Animals and Plants,' in the 'Fortnightly Review' for October
and November 1869 and February 1870. Under the title 'Studies in Ancient
History ' he issued in 1876 a reprint of 'Primitive Marriage,' and the
essays on 'Kinship in Ancient Greece,' with some new matter, viz. an
examination of the American ethnologist Morgan's theory of 'The
Classificatory System of Relationships;' a brief paper on Bachofen's '
Mutterrecht,' another on Sir John Lubbock's hypothesis of 'Communal
Marriage,' and an elaborate essay on the 'Divisions of the Ancient Irish
Family.' To the 'Fortnightly Review' he contributed in May 1877 an article
on 'The Levirate and Polvandry,' an attempt to deduce the former institution
from the latter, which provoked a reply from Mr. Herbert Spencer, and
another on 'Exogamy and Endogamy ' in the following June.
To clear the way for a comprehensive work which he projected on the
evolution of the idea of kinship, McLennan began in 1880, but did not live
to complete, a critical examination of Sir Henry Maine's patriarchal theory,
with the view of proving it to be an historical anachronism. His health,
however, was already thoroughly undermined by consumption, and while
wintering in Algeria he suffered from repeated attacks of malarial fever. He
returned to England in the spring of 1881, and died, after some months of
complete prostration, at his house, Hawthorndene, Hayes Common, Kent, on 16
June.
McLennan received from the university of Aberdeen the degree of LL.D. in
1874. He married twice : (1) on 23 Dec. 1862, Mary Bell, daughter of John
Ramsay McCulloch [q. v.], by whom he had one child, a daughter, still
living; (2) on 20 Jan. 1875, Eleonora Anne, daughter of Mr. Francis Holies
Brandram, J.P. for the counties of Kent and Sussex, who survives him.
The fragment on the patriarchal theory, edited and completed by McLennan's
brother Donald, who had helped in its composition, was published in 1885,
under the title 'The Patriarchal Theory, based on the Papers of the late
John Ferguson McLennan,' London, 8vo. Maine's death in 1888 relieved him
from the obligation of answering its very acute and trenchant criticism. For
the projected work on kinship McLennan left considerable materials, the
arrangement of which, begun by Donald McLennan, but interrupted by his death
in 1891, has since been continued by Professor Robertson Smith, and carried
far towards completion. A reprint of ' Studies in Ancient History,' with
notes by David McLennan, appeared in 1886, London, 8vo.
Besides his extremely original and suggestive work in sociology, McLennan
published in 1867 an excellent 'Memoir of Thomas Drummond, R.E., F.R.A.S.,
Under-Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 1836 to 1840,' Edinburgh,
8vo [see Drummond, Thomas, 1797-1840]. |
