Nineteenth Century Evolutionary
Perspectives
Power, Privilege and Prejudice
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The Context of
Evolutionary Thought
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Came from mainly England and America in the middle and late
nineteenth century.
Industrial Revolution had produced major technical changes in society.
The emergence of a powerful middle class that saw itself as prime
shapers of human history.
Emergence of large divisions of wealth within both Europe and
America.
Later nineteenth century was the highpoint of colonial empires.
Idea of progress became a kind of secular faith of the middle classes.
State the main ideas you’ll be talking about
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Lewis Henry Morgan, 1818-1881
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Studied classics in New York.
Admired the Seneca and became adopted into one
of their clans. Studied their kinship system
extensively.
Saw the clan organization of the Senecas as
similar to Greek and Roman clans.
Travelled to England, met Edward Tyler and
Charles Darwin, major evolutionary thinkers, and
became a convert.
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Ancient Society
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Unilinear Evolution: All societies
passed through similar stages.
These stages were: Savagery,
Barbarism, and Civilization.
These stages were reflected in
various aspects of society and
social organization.
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Institutions, Stages, and Social
Organization
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Each society had certain institutions that Morgan considered
important and universal:
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Arts of subsistence
Government
Language
Family forms
Religion
Houses and Architecture
Forms of Property
Each institution was related to the other institutions.
Each stage of evolution had characteristic social institutions.
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Example: Arts of Subsistence and
Family Forms and their Relation
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Savagery Subsistence Family
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Lower: Gathering
Middle: Fishing
Upper: Hunting
Promiscuous horde
Consanguine
Barbarism:
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Lower:
Middle:
Upper:
Civilization:
Agriculture and industry
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Punuluan
Syndyasmian
Patriarchal/polygamous
Monogamous
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Morgan’s Contributions to Kinship
Studies
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Morgan differentiated between ‘biological’ systems of kinship and
classificatory systems.
Classificatory systems were defined as those in which a kinship term applied
to a wide range of ‘relatives’, e.g. father could apply to all men of the
(biological) father’s generation on the father’s side (in a patrilineal system),
sister to all women of one’s own generation on the father’s side (in a
patrilineal system).
Although our system also contains classificatory relatives, e.g. cousin, aunt
and uncle, classificatory systems are characterized by all kinspeople falling
under a ‘class’ of relatives and not applying to one individual alone.
Much debate about this, even in Morgan’s day, but many anthropologists still
use the term ‘classificatory’ system.
Even during Morgan’s lifetime, many (e.g. McLennan) objected to the
concept of ‘promiscuous horde’ and subsequent ethnographic work proved
this to be untrue.
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Space and Time in Evolutionary
Thought
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Later on, evolutionary thought was criticized for the fact that it lacked
fieldwork and was highly speculative and ethnocentric.
However, what we have to deal with today is the thought processes at
work in creating schemes of unilineal evolution.
 With colonialism, Europeans and Euro-North Americans encountered
societies that were quite different than their own, in terms of kinship
relations, family forms, technologies. All these societies co-existed in
space, but in relations of power between them.
 Evolutionary thought ‘ordered’ this diversity through plotting differences
in space and translated them into differences in time.
 Provided a secular form of unilineal time that derived from JudeoChristian theories of time and added to it the concept of progress.
 Unilineal schemes of evolution also provided reassurance to the
powerful middle-classes of Europe and America that their territorial
conquests were for a larger, global purpose of human progress.
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Biological and ‘Racial’ Evolution
Pseudo-sciences like craniometry attempted to translate cultural
differences into biological differences.
e.g. ‘The Mismeasure of Man’ by Stephen Gould.
Nota bene: Morgan and other evolutionary thinkers such as
Edward Tyler and McLennan clearly differentiated themselves
from studies of ‘racial’ evolution:
Morgan: assumed that humankind always, everywhere
possessed the same mental faculties:
Saw the arts of subsistence, property and technology as the
driving forces of social evolution.
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