M'Lennan, JOHN FERGUSON

M'Lennan, JOHN FERGUSON, a strikingly original and suggestive writer on primitive civilisation, was born at Inverness, 14th October 1827. He graduated at King's College, Aberdeen, in 1849, and then proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, which he left in 1853 to join the Scottish bar in 1857. But he cut short the practice of his profession in his zeal for the study of the usages and customs of early civilisation. The chief fruit of his labours appeared in Primitive Marriage (1865), in which he emphasises the importance of the matriarchal theory of marriage amongst savage peoples, and in papers in the Fortnightly Review (1869-70) on totemism. His book, after being enlarged and the argument strengthened by new evidence, was issued under the new title of Studies in Ancient History in 1876. M'Lennan further defended his views as against the patriarchal theory of Sir Henry Maine in The Patriarchal Theory, left incomplete at the author's death, but finished and edited by his brother Donald in 1885. He also wrote a Life of Thomas Drummond (1867) and papers on 'The Levirate and Polyandry' (1877). Draftsman of parliamentary bills for Scotland in 1872-75, he died 16th June 1881. A second series of Studies in Ancient History, edited by his widow and A. Platt, appeared in 1896.