Edvard Westermarck
(1862–1939)

Edvard [Edward] Westermarck, a Finnish sociologist, social anthropologist, and moral philosopher, was one of the leading social scientists of his time. Dividing much of his life between Finland, England, and Morocco, he left behind a substantial scientific and philosophical legacy. Westermarck served as a professor of philosophy in Finland and as a professor of sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His work spans three closely related areas: family and marriage, morality, and religion and magic. His extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Morocco focused particularly on religion and magic. This introduction explores how Westermarck’s major works in these areas are interwoven with his life journey, teaching, and the materials featured in this digital collection.

Childhood and student years

Edvard Alexander Westermarck was born in 1862 in Helsinki, into a Swedish-speaking family belonging to the urban intellectual elite. His father, Nils Christian Westermarck (1826–1904), was a bursar at the Imperial Alexander University of Finland (University of Helsinki). His mother, Constance Gustafva Maria Blomqvist (1830–1909), was the daughter of Alexander Blomqvist (1796–1848), the university’s chief librarian and Professor of the History of Ideas (lärdomshistoria). Blomqvist was the grandson of Johan Sederholm (1722–1805), the wealthiest person in Helsinki, a manufacturer and shipowner. Sederholm’s house at Senate Square is the oldest surviving building in central Helsinki. Sederholm’s son had a relationship with a maid, which resulted in the birth of Alexander Blomqvist, who, according to the norms of the time, was considered illegitimate.

The Westermarck family lived on the northwest edge of Old Church Park (Gamla kyrkoparken) and had five children. Westermarck was particularly close to his older sister, Helena Westermarck (1857–1938), who was exactly five years his senior. Helena was a Paris-educated painter, a prolific writer, and a pioneer of the Finnish women’s movement. The siblings remained unmarried and maintained a close relationship throughout their lives. Westermarck was a sickly child who suffered from chronic catarrh and asthma attacks. He had to avoid exertion and cold air, which at times distanced him from his peers, their games, and the outdoor life to which he later developed a strong affection.

Westermarck’s health began to improve after his graduation from Svenska normallyceum in 1881. A doctor recommended that he spend time in a sanatorium in Norway, where his lung capacity increased, and outdoor activities in the fresh mountain air helped strengthen him. He became an avid hiker, mountaineer, sailor and nature observer. His biographical writings are rich in detailed observations of the plants and trees in the areas where he lived and spent time.

In 1881, Westermarck began studying aesthetics, modern literature, and Greek language and literature at the Alexander University in Finland. The 1880s was a decade of intellectual transformation, during which theories of biological and social evolution, naturalistic and empiricist tendencies, criticism of religion, and liberal ideas spread among student circles. Westermarck belonged to a generation of students who challenged the national romantic idealism of previous generations. After studying general history, Westermarck’s interests shifted toward British empiricist philosophy and psychology. Rejecting the dominant German idealism and metaphysics in Finland, he became particularly interested in evolutionary thought. Particularly influential was Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man (1871), whose argument that the differences between humans and animals in psychological abilities and emotions are merely differences in degree, not in kind, became the guiding principle of Westermarck’s work.

Marriage researcher

The impetus received from Darwin led Westermarck to prepare a doctoral thesis on the relations between the sexes and the origin of human marriage. In his memoirs, Westermarck writes that he arrived at the topic entirely by chance, ‘and least of all by any personal interest in the subject’.¹ Westermarck worked in London from 1887 to 1888, utilizing the resources of the British Library, as he would frequently do in the future. This required learning English at the age of 25. Westermarck was introduced to London’s scientific and intellectual circles by the British psychologist James Sully, whom he had met by chance during a mountain hike in Norway. Another close and long-time friend was the psychologist Alexander Faulkner Shand.

Westermarck’s doctoral thesis, The History of Human Marriage, Part I: The Origin of Human Marriage (1889), was the first English-language dissertation published in Finland. This thesis was later incorporated into his first book, The History of Human Marriage (1891), published in England. The foreword was written by the renowned British scientist Alfred Russel Wallace, best known as the co-discoverer of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor described the book as a ‘vigorous effort to work the biology side and the culture side of anthropology into one connected system’. The book became a critical success and a bestseller, quickly translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Japanese.

In this book, Westermarck offers a detailed critique of the prevailing late-nineteenth-century scientific view that humans originally lived in a state of unregulated sexual promiscuity and that monogamous marriage was a relatively recent historical development. This ‘promiscuity hypothesis’ also assumed that many still-existing indigenous peoples practiced promiscuity. Westermarck argued instead that family formation and marriage have emotional and biological foundations, suggesting that some form of permanent bonds between partners has likely existed throughout human history. He concluded that ‘marriage is rooted in family, rather than family in marriage’.

In this same work, Westermarck introduced his now well-known theory of incest avoidance and the incest taboo. He argued that ‘there is an innate aversion to sexual intercourse between persons living very closely together from early youth’. This emotional aversion applies both to children raised in the same family and to parents and their children. He considered this aversion an evolutionary adaptation shaped by natural selection to prevent inbreeding depression, as the offspring of close relatives experience reduced survival and fertility. Finally, he proposed that this aversion is reflected in customs and laws prohibiting sexual relations between close kin.

An extended and updated three-volume edition of History of Human Marriage was published in 1921. Westermarck revisited the topic in the 1930s with Three Essays on Sex and Marriage (1934), in which he responds to criticism and offers a substantial critique of Sigmund Freud. The Future of Marriage in Western Civilisation (1936) encapsulates Westermarck’s theoretical perspectives and engages with contemporary social and political debates surrounding marriage.

Moral scientist

Westermarck’s interest in studying morality arose from a debate in the Philosophical Society of Finland around 1890s, concerning the extent to which a criminal should be treated with kindness. Despite careful reflection, the participants failed to reach a consensus. In the introduction to The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, Westermarck writes that this debate led him to ponder: ‘Why do moral ideas in general differ so greatly? And, on the other hand, why is there in many cases such a wide agreement? Nay, why are there any moral ideas at all?’ These questions guided his work throughout the 1890s. Between 1893 and 1894, Westermarck conducted research in England and continued his work while lecturing in Helsinki. In 1897, he returned to England and began fieldwork in Morocco the following year – a period that also significantly shaped his moral research.

Westermarck referred to his research project as ‘psychological ethics’ or ‘scientific ethics’. Traditionally, ethics had been understood as the attempt to establish universally valid rules for human conduct. Westermarck rejected this normative approach, emphasizing instead the need to empirically investigate what kinds of moral beliefs people actually hold and to explain why. In addition to Darwin, his project was significantly influenced by the Scottish sentimentalist philosophers David Hume and Adam Smith. Nevertheless, Westermarck’s moral theory also contains distinct normative elements.

Westermarck’s second book, the two-volume, 1,500-page The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, was published in 1906 and 1908. It received widespread acclaim from critics and was translated into German and French. Philosopher Rolf Lagerborg, a student and close friend of Westermarck, later observed that the success of this monumental work by a single scholar appeared to overshadow the entire Durkheimian school of sociology, which was at the time Westermarck’s main rival.

In the first volume, Westermarck presents his ‘general theory of the nature of moral consciousness’, which extends into an analysis of the emotional foundations of human social life. He argues that the moral beliefs expressed in moral judgments ‘are ultimately based on moral emotions’. These emotions, which he terms ‘retributive emotions’, encompass both negative and positive responses. Moral disapproval or indignation, resembling anger, motivates punishment, while moral approval or praise, resembling gratitude, motivates reward. Westermarck examines both the evolutionary origins of moral emotions and their expressions in contemporary society, emphasizing how these emotions arise through sympathy, emotional contagion, aversion and disgust, and violations of social norms. Central to his argument is the idea that the norms and laws of human societies are rooted in these emotional tendencies.

Most of the work focuses on historical and cross-cultural comparisons of various moral and legal conceptions. These case studies aim to vindicate Westermarck’s theory of the nature and sources of moral emotions. He examines a wide range of behaviours, including those that affect the welfare of others – such as killing, theft, lying, altruism, hospitality, and the treatment of women – and those that concern the agent’s own welfare, such as suicide and self-neglect. Key topics also include sexual behaviour (such as views on homosexuality), food taboos, cleanliness and dirt, the treatment of animals, and human relationships with supernatural beings.

Westermarck returned to the topic in the late 1920s, culminating in his major philosophical work, Ethical Relativity (1932). In this book, he presents his theory of moral emotions in a more concise form and uses it to critique moral objectivism – the belief that universally valid moral truths can be discerned through reason or other human faculties. His most extensive criticism is directed at Immanuel Kant.

Fieldworker

Westermarck began planning an extensive scientific expedition around the world in the early 1890s. The purpose of the expedition was to support his ongoing study of morality by collecting material on moral beliefs across different cultures. He finally embarked on the journey in 1898, funded by three years by the University of Helsinki. Morocco was intended to be the first stop on a journey that would eventually reach Polynesia, but he never travelled beyond Morocco. On this initial journey, Westermarck spent six months in Morocco and was captivated by the environment. In his autobiography, he writes:

I felt myself carried back a thousand years, and many a time fancied I was a wayfarer in Europe at a period when made roads and bridges were unknown and the traveller had to make his own way as best he could. I had, moreover, got an idea of Oriental life and been brought into daily contact with people who had kept their ancient belief in magical powers and mystic spirits that dwell in every mountain chasm, every spring and river, and creep out of their hiding-places when twilight falls and terrify the hearts of children of men.²

Westermarck’s decision to concentrate on a single country had a profound impact on the development of his methodological thinking. He recognized that the customs and beliefs of a people could only be properly studied by learning and speaking their language. This linguistic grounding stood in sharp contrast to contemporary anthropological practice. The researchers who travelled to the Torres Strait between 1898 and 1899 with the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition, led by Alfred C. Haddon, for example, relied on interpreters to communicate with the local population. Westermarck also appreciated the necessity to spend extended periods, ideally years, among the people being studied. Morocco’s proximity to Europe made repeated visits feasible. He further maintained that the actions and beliefs of people should be understood from within, from their own perspective, relying solely on his own observations and direct information from the local population.

Between 1898 and 1913, Westermarck spent a total of six years in the field, including an uninterrupted period of over two years from 1900 to 1902. His fieldwork was largely made possible by his acquaintance and friendship with Abdessalam El-Baqqali, a Moroccan man whom Westermarck met during his first visit to the country and who accompanied him on all subsequent trips. A descendant of a Moroccan holy family, El-Baqqali held the status of shereef, or holy man. Westermarck’s public acknowledgments of El-Baqqali’s importance to his research are exceptional in the history of anthropology.

Westermarck focused particularly on the Berber-speaking populations inhabiting the mountain regions, though he also collected data from the Arabic-speaking population groups. He lived with members of each major Berber tribe and segments of the Arabic-speaking population for periods ranging from a few months to half a year. This approach was partly a practical necessity – since in many areas he could only travel while disguised as local – and partly a deliberate effort to form a comprehensive picture of Moroccan folk beliefs. Unusually for anthropology at the time, Westermarck sought to include both men and women as informants.

The First World War interrupted Westermarck’s frequent visits to Morocco, and he was unable to return until 1923. At this point, he rented – and a few years later purchased – Villa Tusculum, a house perched on a seaside cliff on the western edge of Tangier. The villa was surrounded by a lush garden, with views stretching east to the Mediterranean Sea and west to the Atlantic Ocean. Westermarck was assisted in caring for the villa by El-Baqqali, who lived in the house and maintained it during Westermarck’s absences. From then on, Westermarck spent part of each year in Morocco until the end of his life.

Westermarck began publishing scientific articles on Morocco in 1899, many of which were later incorporated into his books on the country. Marriage Ceremonies in Morocco (1914) explores the magico-religious aspects of marriage rituals. The monumental two-volume Ritual and Belief in Morocco (1926), spanning over 1,200 pages, provides a comprehensive overview of magical and religious beliefs in Moroccan folk culture. It examines topics such as baraka (holiness), Jinn spirits, the evil eye, curses, oaths, omens, witchcraft, animal treatment, and rituals associated with the agricultural cycle, birth, childhood, and death. The Moroccan trilogy concludes with Wit and Wisdom in Morocco: A Study of Native Proverbs (1930), which focuses on proverbs and language. Westermarck further discusses his key research findings in Early Beliefs and Their Social Influence (1932) and Pagan Survivals in Mohammedan Civilisation (1933), based on farewell lectures he delivered at LSE in the spring of 1931.

Westermarck’s experiences in Morocco made him a pioneer of ethnographic fieldwork, which he actively encouraged his students in Finland and England to pursue. Among them, sociologist and anthropologist Gunnar Landtman conducted extensive fieldwork among the Kiwai peo­ple in New Guinea from 1910 to 1912. Anthropologist and com­parative religion scholar Rafael Karsten studied South American Indian cultures in the Gran Chaco lowlands from 1911 to 1913 and in western Amazon from 1916 to 1919. Religious scholar Uno Harva, known as Uno Holmberg until 1927, undertook several field trips to Siberia between 1911 and 1917, focusing on Finno-Ugric religions and Siberian mythology. Bronisław Malinowski, Westermarck’s closest student in London, conducted his famous fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands between 1915 and 1918. Anthropologist Hilma Granqvist carried out fieldwork in a single Palestinian village, spending a total of three years there between 1925 and 1931.

Defining social sciences and philosophy

Westermarck taught in Finland and England for several decades, with his teaching closely intertwined with his research. He developed many of his ideas while preparing lectures, which he later structured around his publications. At the same time, his lectures shed light on key aspects of his published work. Westermarck’s lecture manuscripts are preserved in the archival collections of the Åbo Akademi University Library, while most of the surviving notes by his students are held at LSE.

In 1890, Westermarck was appointed Docent in Sociology (adjunct professor) at the University of Helsinki. From 1894 to 1897, he served as Acting Professor of Philosophy. Beginning in 1904, he lectured at LSE under the title of ‘Appointed Teacher of Sociology’. In 1906, a Chair of Practical Philosophy was established for Westermarck at the University of Helsinki by dividing the teaching of philosophy into theoretical and moral branches. He continued working simultaneously at LSE, where he was appointed in 1907 as Britain’s first Professor of Sociology, initially for a five-year term and, from 1912, as a permanent professor. In 1918, he left Helsinki to become Professor of Philosophy at the newly founded Swedish-speaking Åbo Akademi University in Turku, southwestern Finland, where he also served as rector from 1918 to 1921. Westermarck retired from LSE in 1930 and from Åbo Akademi University in 1932.

The first lecture series on sociology held in Finland was Westermarck’s ‘Samhällslära’ (Social Science) in 1894, although he had previously delivered docent lectures on ‘The History of the Family’. He defined sociology as the study of the causes of social phenomena. In his inaugural lecture at LSE, he stated that ‘the object of sociology is to explain the social phenomena, to find their causes, to show how and why they have come into existence’. By social phenomena, Westermarck referred to behaviours related to interactions and relationships between individuals. He often spoke of the ‘origins’ of social phenomena, by which he primarily meant their causes. These questions were central to his work on family, marriage, and morality, with particular emphasis on emotional origins. For Westermarck, social anthropology was a branch of sociology that studies the cultures of non-European peoples, particularly those without a written tradition.

In his sociology lectures delivered in Helsinki and London, Westermarck focused particularly on social institutions, which he defined as relationships between individuals regulated by society through customs or laws. He examined relationships within the family, among members of the same society, and between people from different societies. At LSE, Westermarck initially lectured under the title ‘Sociology’ and, later as a professor, on topics such as ‘Social Institutions’, ‘Social Rights and Duties’, ‘The Family’, and ‘Early Beliefs and Their Influence on Social Relationships and Institutions’, which explored religion and magic.

After his appointment as Professor of Practical Philosophy in Helsinki, Westermarck reformed the teaching of philosophy. He replaced German idealism and metaphysics with empiricism, normative ethics with ‘psychological’ and ‘scientific’ ethics, natural law with sociology, and the philosophy of religion with comparative religion. He also lectured on psychology, drawing on the works of Danish psychologist Alfred Lehmann, Danish philosopher Harald Høffding, and American philosopher and psychologist William James. In addition, Westermarck lectured extensively on the history of philosophy. His lectures on eighteenth-century British moral philosophy, delivered in Finland from the 1890s to the early 1930s, illuminate his intellectual influences. At Åbo Akademi University, he focused on early modern philosophy, particularly Enlightenment philosophy in Britain and France, as well as ethics, psychology, and comparative religion.

As a teacher, Westermarck was highly valued by his students. Modest, approachable, and humorous, he attracted a devoted following, particularly in Finland. He emphasized seminar work alongside lectures, a practice he introduced in the 1890s. In addition to Rafael Karsten, Gunnar Landtman, and Rolf Lagerborg, his close disciples included art scholar Yrjö Hirn, Finland’s long-term foreign minister Rudolf Holsti, ethnologist and sociologist Karl Robert Villehard Wikman, and sociologist and diplomat Ragnar Numelin. His influence extended beyond this core group, impacting fields such as Finno-Ugric ethnology and religious studies, with Uno Harva as a leading figure. Before the Second World war, Westermarck and his students held key teaching positions and professorships in philosophy, sociology, and aesthetics at Finnish universities.

At LSE, Westermarck’s closest student and later colleague was Bronisław Malinowski, who considered Westermarck his most important influence. The two also conducted a seminar together. Westermarck contributed to the training of a younger generation of British social anthropologists at LSE, including E.E. Evans-Pritchard and Raymond Firth.

Social and political engagement

The intellectual landscape that Westermarck embraced in the 1880s is reflected not only in his scientific work but also in his social and political activities. In his writings on morality, he addressed the legitimacy of laws, describing this as the ‘practical’ dimension of his work. In Finland, he belonged to the liberal and reformist segment of the Swedish-speaking intelligentsia. In the 1880s and 1890s, he was close to the Liberal Party and to the Finnish liberals within the ‘Young Finnish Movement’. By the early twentieth century, as tensions between language groups intensified, he increasingly aligned himself with the Swedish movement. In England, he maintained close ties with members of the Fabian Society, some of whom founded LSE in 1895. The Fabian socialists advocated for reform through gradual change and research-based social planning.

With the success of The History of Human Marriage, Westermarck became a prominent figure in the British women’s movement. In the 1890s, he served as vice-president of the Women’s Progressive Society and the International Women’s Union. In Finland, he was an active member of the Finnish Women’s Association Unioni (Kvinnosaksförbundet Unionen r.f.., Naisasialiitto Unioni ry), established in 1892, where his sister Helena was a founding member. In his scientific work, Westermarck advocated liberal legal reforms concerning divorce law, equality between spouses, the status of unmarried women and illegitimate children, and the decriminalization of homosexuality.

Westermarck was particularly critical of aspects of sexual morality he saw as rooted in Christian influences. In Finland, he was a founding member and chairman of the Prometheus Society (Studentföreningen Prometheus), an anti-religious association established in 1905. The Prometheus Society advocated religious freedom and the separation of church and state, including the removal of religious education from public schools, the recognition of civil marriage, and the abolition of biblical oaths in court proceedings. Westermarck also supported animal rights and the abolition of the death penalty. In the early 1930s, he became one of the founding members of the British animal protection association, The National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports.

Around 1900, Westermarck played a key international role in opposing Russian repressive policies during the periods of ‘Russification’ in Finland. He was part of the core group that initiated, organized and collected signatures for the Europe-wide Pro Finlandia cultural petition addressed to the Tsar in 1899. This petition was central to Finnish resistance against the Tsar’s February Manifesto, which aimed to weaken Finland’s autonomous status. Thanks to the efforts of Westermarck and other cultural figures, the petition garnered widespread international support for Finland’s legal and cultural independence. Westermarck personally collected signatures in England, Switzerland, and Italy, and arranged for an Italian expert in international law to join the delegation that traveled to St. Petersburg. Additionally, he served as an advisor to the underground resistance organization Kagal, which actively opposed Russian policies. Among his long-term friends was Lennart Hohenthal, an activist who fled to London after assassinating a high-ranking official overseeing law enforcement in autonomous Finland in 1905.

The Russification policies continued around 1910, during which Westermarck helped establish the Anglo-Finnish Society in London, an organization aimed at securing international support for Finland’s position. The idea of independence gained momentum during the First World War. During this period, Westermarck was part of an inner circle that raised funds and organized military training in Germany for nearly 2,000 volunteer students, known as the Jäger Battalion, in preparation for the struggle for independence.

After Finland gained independence in 1917, movements in the Åland Islands and Sweden sought to annex the archipelago to Sweden. The matter was brought before the League of Nations, where Westermarck served as the representative of the Swedish Assembly of Finland from 1920 to 1921, defending the islands’ connection to Finland. The archipelago ultimately remained part of Finland as a special autonomous and demilitarized region.

Westermarck’s critique of Christianity reached its culmination in his final work, Christianity and Morals (1939), published shortly before his death. His correspondence reveals that he was planning a book to encapsulate his long-standing research on religion and magic, tentatively entitled ‘The Essence of Holiness’.

Westermarck died at the age of 76 from a prolonged asthma attack, reportedly triggered by hearing radio news of Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland. He passed away at his sister Helena’s villa in Lappvik, on the southern coast of Finland. He is buried in the family grave on the north side of the old chapel at the Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki.

Legacy

At the turn of the 20th century, Westermarck was more widely recognised than many social scientists now regarded as classical founders of sociology. His work was engaged with or commented on by major figures such as Friedrich Engels, Émile Durkheim, John Dewey, Sigmund Freud, G.E. Moore, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and many others. Despite being one of the first professors of sociology in Europe, his contributions were largely excluded from the canon of sociology – the collection of thinkers, theories, and texts considered foundational to the discipline – after the Second World War. In recent years, Westermarck’s legacy has been actively re-evaluated, reflecting renewed recognition of his importance in the early development of modern social sciences, particularly regarding the relationship between nature and culture.

As the founder of Finnish sociology, Westermarck played a central role in the early institutionalisation of the discipline in Finland, including the establishment of teaching posts and professorships decades before similar developments occurred in other Nordic countries. In 1940, his disciples founded the Westermarck Society, which soon became the national association for Finnish sociologists. Despite these institutional continuities, postwar Finnish sociology diverged markedly from its Westermarckian foundations.

In anthropology, Westermarck contributed to the discipline’s development through his work on marriage, which discredited prevailing theories of primitive promiscuity. This research helped lay the groundwork for modern kinship studies. He was among the first anthropologists to conduct methodologically reflexive fieldwork in vernacular languages over extended periods. Through his fieldwork and teaching at LSE, Westermarck influenced the development of ethnographic fieldwork methods, notably through his student Bronisław Malinowski, who became one of the most influential anthropologists of the 20th century.

Today, Westermarck is best known for his theory of incest avoidance and the incest taboo, which has attracted significant attention since the 1960s and 1970s. The emotional mechanism he proposed for incest avoidance – arising from close childhood interaction between individuals – is now known as the ‘Westermarck effect’. Contemporary research in anthropology, psychology, and biology continues to build on his work, actively exploring various aspects of his theory. He is frequently cited as a pioneer of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. In the 21st century, his work on moral emotions has garnered growing interest among scholars studying the evolutionary origins of morality.

Westermarck’s influence on philosophy is less immediately visible than his impact on anthropology and evolutionary studies. In Finland, he steered philosophy toward a predominantly Anglo-Saxon orientation, moving away from its earlier German-dominated tradition. Georg Henrik von Wright has described The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas as the most important work ever written by a Finnish philosopher. Internationally, Westermarck was among the first to articulate a philosophically rigorous form of moral relativism, contributing to the rise of relativistic and subjectivist approaches in 20th-century moral philosophy. His work influenced John Mackie, whose error theory – denying the existence of objective moral values – remains central to contemporary debates.

References

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