''The History of Human Marriage'' is an 1891 book by the Finnish philosopher and anthropologist Edvard Westermarck that provides an overview of marriage over time. Blankenhorn 2007. pp. 9-10. The Finnish philosopher

Jaakko Hintikka Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka (12 January 1929 – 12 August 2015) was a Finnish philosopher and logician. Life and career Hintikka was born in Helsingin maalaiskunta (now Vantaa). In 1953, he received his doctorate from the University of Helsin ...

calls the work a monumental study and a classic in its field, but notes that it is now antiquated.

Summary

In the book, Westermarck defined marriage as "a more or less durable connection between male and female lasting beyond the mere act of propagation till after the birth of the offspring." Westermarck argues that marriage is a social institution that rests on a biological foundation, and developed through a process in which human males came to live together with human females for sexual gratification, companionship, mutual economic aid, procreation, and the joint rearing of offspring. Blankenhorn 2007. p. 37. Besides other observations and propositions, Westermarck also proposes that people who live in close domestic proximity during the first few years of their lives become desensitized to

sexual attraction Sexual attraction is attraction on the basis of sexual desire or the quality of arousing such interest. Sexual attractiveness or sex appeal is an individual's ability to attract other people sexually, and is a factor in sexual selection or mat ...

, and as one explanation for the

incest taboo An incest taboo is any cultural rule or norm that prohibits sexual relations between certain members of the same family, mainly between individuals related by blood. All human cultures have norms that exclude certain close relatives from tho ...

. This hypothesis has come to be known as the

Westermarck effect The Westermarck effect, also known as reverse sexual imprinting, is a psychological hypothesis that people tend not to be attracted to peers with whom they lived like siblings before age six. This hypothesis was first proposed by Finnish anthro ...

, named after him, or as reverse

sexual imprinting In psychology and ethology, imprinting is any kind of phase-sensitive learning (learning occurring at a particular age or a particular life stage) that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behaviour. It was first used to des ...

Scholarly reception

David Blankenhorn David Blankenhorn (born 1955 in Jackson, Mississippi) is the founder and president of the Institute for American Values and its initiative Braver Angels. He is also co-director of The Marriage Opportunity Council and the author of ''Fatherless Amer ...

calls the book one of the best histories of human marriage, and considers it deservedly famous. He comments, however, that it leaves out a great deal of material while "skimming too quickly over too much." Blankenhorn believes, however, that scholarship subsequent to Westermarck's has tended to support his conclusions.

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...

extensively used citations from the book in ''

Marriage and Morals ''Marriage and Morals'' is a 1929 book by philosopher Bertrand Russell, in which the author questions the Victorian morality, Victorian notions of morality regarding sex and marriage. Russell argues that the laws and ideas about sex of his time ...

''.

References

Bibliography

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External links

''The History of Human Marriage. Volume I''
5th edition (1921)
''The History of Human Marriage. Volume II''
5th edition (1921)
''The History of Human Marriage. Volume III''
5th edition (1921) {{DEFAULTSORT:History of Human Marriage 1891 non-fiction books Books by Edvard Westermarck Books about marriage Sociology books