Through those infants of the stone age, or of ages much earlier,
marriage and pure affection came into the world.
It is not hard to reproduce in our minds the picture of the first
marriage.
A savage woman, half human, half ape, with rough, matted locks
hanging round her face, sits holding her new-born baby,
protecting it from wind and cold.
It is a queer baby, covered perhaps with reddish hair, its brow
no higher than a rat's. Its jaw protrudes; its tiny, grimy hands
clutch with monkey power all things within reach.
Along comes the father, full of plans to kill a mammoth or a cave
bear; interested in his stone-tipped club, but caring nothing for
the mother, who has been for some time only a whining nuisance.
He stops for a second to look at the small creature which he has
added to earth's animal life.
Its misshapen skull, ferret eyes, miniature shoulders--something
about it reminds him of his royal self, as studied in the pool.
He stoops to look closer. His bristly hairs are grabbed, and a
weird, insane, toothless grin lights up the little monkey face.
Then the savage takes a new view of life; there the marriage
institution and the marriage problem are born simultaneously.
Says the mammoth hunter, with whistling words and hoarse throat
sounds half articulated:
"I like this baby.
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