The fact is that Spencer and Gillen and other writers on Australia use the term group merely as a noun of multitude.  They do not mean by group, in one sense, anything more than a number of persons.  In this sense they speak of group marriage (=polygamy) at the present day—­a fact which is not peculiar to Australia and which no one is concerned to deny.  By a quite illegitimate transformation of meaning they also apply the term group to a portion of a tribe distinguished by a class name and (or or) term of relationship and mean by group marriage class promiscuity.  They do not even perceive that they make this transition, for otherwise Messrs Spencer and Gillen could hardly assail Dr Westermarck for using the term “pretended group marriage” which is quite accurate as a description of group (=class) marriage or promiscuity.  Even if there were justification for assuming that group marriage (=polygamy) is a lineal descendant of group marriage (=class promiscuity), nothing would be gained by using the term group marriage of both.  In the subsequent discussion it will be made clear that whatever their causal connection, there is hardly a single point of similarity between them beyond the fact that the sexual relations are in neither case monogamous.  It is therefore to be hoped that the supporters of the hypothesis of group marriage will in the future encourage clear thinking by not using the same term for different forms of sexual union.

I now proceed to discuss the alleged survival of group marriage and other Australian marriage customs.

Taking the Dieri tribe as our example the following state of things is found to prevail.  The tribe is divided into exogamous moieties, Matteri and Kararu; subject to restrictions dependent on kinship, with which we are not immediately concerned, any Matteri may marry any Kararu.  A reciprocal term, noa[156], is in use to denote the status of those who may marry each other.  This noa relationship is sometimes cited as a proof of the existence of group marriage.  As a matter of fact it is no more evidence of group marriage than the fact that a man is noa to all the unmarried women of England except a few, is proof of the existence of group marriage in England; or the fact that femme in French means both wife and woman is an argument for the existence of promiscuity in France in Roman or post-Roman times.

A ceremony, usually performed in infancy or childhood, changes the relationship of a noa male and female from noa-mara to tippa-malku.  The step is taken by the mothers with the concurrence of the girl’s maternal uncles, and is in fact betrothal.  Apparently no further ceremony is necessary to constitute a marriage.  At any rate nothing is said as to that.

In connection with this form of marriage there are two points of importance to be noted.  The first is that whereas a man may have as many tippa-malku wives as he can get, a woman cannot have more than one tippa-malku husband, at any rate not at the same time.  After the husband’s death she may again enter into the tippa-malku relation.  The second point is that the tippa-malku relation must precede the pirrauru relation, of which I shall speak in a moment, and cannot succeed it[157].