Editing Promiscuity (section)

==Primitive promiscuity==
Primitive promiscuity or original promiscuity was the 19th-century hypothesis that humans originally lived in a state of promiscuity or "[[wikt:hetaerism|hetaerism]]" before the advent of society as we understand it.<ref>Westermarck, chap. 3 pp. 103–04</ref><ref>[[Bachofen]], ''Das Mutterrecht'', pp. xix–xx, 10</ref><ref>[[Bachofen]], ''Antiquarische Briefe'' pp. 20–</ref><ref>[[John Ferguson McLennan|McLennan]], [[Lewis H. Morgan|Morgan]], Lord Avebury, [[Alexis Giraud-Teulon|Giraud-Teulon]], Lippert, Kohler, Post, Wilken, [[Peter Kropotkin|Kropotkin]], Wilutzky</ref><ref>[[Iwan Bloch|Bloch, Iwan]] ''Sexual Life of Our Time'', pp. 188–94</ref> Hetaerism is a theoretical early state of human society, as postulated by 19th-century anthropologists, which was characterized by the absence of the institution of marriage in any form and in which women were the common property of their tribe and in which children never knew who their fathers were.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Society Without Marriage? {{!}} Psychology Today |url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-human-beast/201311/a-society-without-marriage |access-date=2023-04-03 |website=www.psychologytoday.com |language=en}}</ref>

The reconstruction of the original state of [[Urgesellschaft|primitive society]] or humanity was based on the idea of progress, according to which all cultures have degrees of improvement and becoming more complicated. It seemed logical to assume that never before the types of families developed did they simply exist, and in primitive society, sexual relations were without any boundaries and taboos. This view is represented, inter alia, by anthropologist [[Lewis H. Morgan]] in ''[[Ancient Society]]'' and [[Friedrich Engels]]' work ''[[The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/origin_family.pdf|title=Frederick Engels: ''Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State'', II. "The Family"|website=Marxists.org|access-date=4 March 2022}}</ref>

In the first half of the 20th century, this notion was rejected by a number of authors, e.g. [[Edvard Westermarck]], a Finnish philosopher, social anthropologist and sociologist with in-depth knowledge of the history of marriage, who provided strong evidence that, at least in the first stages of cultural development, monogamy has been a perfectly normal and natural form of man-woman coexistence.<ref>[[:fi:Iso tietosanakirja|Iso tietosanakirja]], 1. part, columns 1054 ja 1055</ref><ref>[[:fi:Otavan iso tietosanakirja]]</ref>

Modern cultural anthropology has not confirmed the existence of a complete promiscuity in any known society or culture. The evidence of history is reduced to some texts of [[Herodotus]], [[Strabo]], and [[Gaius Julius Solinus|Solinus]], which have been hard to interpret.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46848/46848-h/46848-h.htm|title=The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Races of Man, by J. Deniker|website=Gutenberg.org|access-date=4 March 2022}}</ref>