FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[82]Marriage and Kinship in Early Arabia, p. 74. See also Marsden,History of Sumatra, p. 225.[83]“The Beginning of Marriage,”American Anthropologist, Vol. IX, p. 376.[84]Lettres edefiantes et curieux, Vol. XVIII, p. 441, copied in Dunhalde,Description de la Clune, Vol. I, p. 166, and cited by McGee.[85]Dalton,Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, pp. 64, 142. See also Tylor, “The Matriarchal Theory,”Nineteenth Century, July 1896, p. 89.[86]Moore,Marriage Customs: Modes of Courtship, etc., p. 261. Rengger,Naturgeschichte der Säugelliere von Paraguay, p. 11, cited by Westermarck,op. cit., p. 158.[87]J. M. Wheeler, “Primitive Marriage,” an article inProgress, 1885, p. 128.[88]McGee, “The Beginning of Marriage,”American Anthropologist, Vol. IX.[89]Haddon, “Western Tribes of the Torres States,”Journal of the Anthropological Society, Vol. XIX, Feb. 1890. Cited by Havelock Ellis,Psychology of Sex, Vol. III, p. 185.[90]For further examination of this question of the supposed passivity of the woman in courtship, seeThe Truth about Woman, pp. 65-69, 251-257.[91]Die socialen Einrichtungen der Pelauer. Die Religion, de Pelauer.Mr. Frazer,Golden Bough, Part IV,Adonis, Attis, Osiris, pp. 387et seq., summarises the account of Kubary. See also Waitz-Gerland, Vol. V, Part II, p. 106et seq., and an account of the Pelews given by Ymer.[92]Semper,Die Palau-Inseln, p. 68, cited by Westermarckop. cit., p. 211.[93]Ymer, Vol. IV, p. 333.[94]Frazer,op. cit., p. 380.[95]Hodgson,Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1847 (Dalton).[96]Duveyrier,Toûareg du Nord, p. 337et seq.[97]Chavanne,Die Sahara, pp. 181, 209, 234.[98]Ibid., p. 387.[99]Duveyrier,op. cit., p. 430.[100]Ibid., p. 362.[101]Ibid., p. 347.[102]Chavanne,op. cit., p. 208et seq.[103]Duveyrier,op. cit., p. 429.[104]Letourneau,The Evolution of Marriage, pp. 180-181.

[82]Marriage and Kinship in Early Arabia, p. 74. See also Marsden,History of Sumatra, p. 225.

[83]“The Beginning of Marriage,”American Anthropologist, Vol. IX, p. 376.

[84]Lettres edefiantes et curieux, Vol. XVIII, p. 441, copied in Dunhalde,Description de la Clune, Vol. I, p. 166, and cited by McGee.

[85]Dalton,Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, pp. 64, 142. See also Tylor, “The Matriarchal Theory,”Nineteenth Century, July 1896, p. 89.

[86]Moore,Marriage Customs: Modes of Courtship, etc., p. 261. Rengger,Naturgeschichte der Säugelliere von Paraguay, p. 11, cited by Westermarck,op. cit., p. 158.

[87]J. M. Wheeler, “Primitive Marriage,” an article inProgress, 1885, p. 128.

[88]McGee, “The Beginning of Marriage,”American Anthropologist, Vol. IX.

[89]Haddon, “Western Tribes of the Torres States,”Journal of the Anthropological Society, Vol. XIX, Feb. 1890. Cited by Havelock Ellis,Psychology of Sex, Vol. III, p. 185.

[90]For further examination of this question of the supposed passivity of the woman in courtship, seeThe Truth about Woman, pp. 65-69, 251-257.

[91]Die socialen Einrichtungen der Pelauer. Die Religion, de Pelauer.Mr. Frazer,Golden Bough, Part IV,Adonis, Attis, Osiris, pp. 387et seq., summarises the account of Kubary. See also Waitz-Gerland, Vol. V, Part II, p. 106et seq., and an account of the Pelews given by Ymer.

[92]Semper,Die Palau-Inseln, p. 68, cited by Westermarckop. cit., p. 211.

[93]Ymer, Vol. IV, p. 333.

[94]Frazer,op. cit., p. 380.

[95]Hodgson,Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1847 (Dalton).

[96]Duveyrier,Toûareg du Nord, p. 337et seq.

[97]Chavanne,Die Sahara, pp. 181, 209, 234.

[98]Ibid., p. 387.

[99]Duveyrier,op. cit., p. 430.

[100]Ibid., p. 362.

[101]Ibid., p. 347.

[102]Chavanne,op. cit., p. 208et seq.

[103]Duveyrier,op. cit., p. 429.

[104]Letourneau,The Evolution of Marriage, pp. 180-181.

Endeavourhas been made in the previous chapters to present the case for mother-right as clearly and concisely as possible. The point we have now reached is this: while mother-right does not constitute or make necessary rule by women, under that system they enjoy considerable power as the result (1) of their organised position under the maternal marriage among their own clan-kindred, (2) of their importance to the male members of the clan as the transmitters and holders of property.

It is necessary to remember the close connection between these mother-right customs and the communal clan, which was a free association for mutual protection. This is a point of much interest. As we have seen, the undivided family of the clan could be maintained only by descent through the mothers, since its existence depended on its power to retain and protect all its members. In this way it destroyed the solitary family, by its opposition to the authority and will of the husband and father.

These conclusions will be strengthened as we continue our examination of mother-right customsas we shall find them in all parts of the world. I must select a few examples only and describe them very briefly, not because these cases offer less interest than the complete maternal families already examined, but because of the length to which this part of my inquiry is rapidly growing. The essential fact to establish is the prevalence of mother-descent as a probable universal stage in the past history of mankind, and then to show the causes which, by undermining the dominion of the maternal clan, led to the adoption of father-right and the re-establishment of the patriarchal family.

Let us begin with Australia, where the aboriginal population is in a more primitive condition than any other race whose institutions have been investigated. I can notice a few facts only from the harvest of information brought together by anthropologists and travellers. The tribes are grouped into exogamous sub-divisions, and each group has its own land from which it takes a local name. Each group wanders about on its own territory in order to hunt game and collect roots, sometimes in detached families and, less often, in larger hordes, for there seems to be a tendency to local isolation. A remarkable feature of the social organisation is found in the more advanced tribes, where, in addition to the division into clans, the group is divided into male and female classes. All the members of such clans regard themselves as kinsmen, or brothers and sisters; they have the same totem mark and are bound to protect each other. The totem bond isstronger than any blood tie, while the sex totems are even more sacred than the clan totems.

Much confusion has arisen out of the attempts to explain the Australian system; and for long the close totem kinship was supposed to afford evidence of group marriage, by which a man of one clan was held to have sexual rights over all the women in another clan. But further insight into their customs has proved the error of such a view, which arose from a misunderstanding of the terms of relationship used among the tribes. Nowhere is marriage bound by more severe laws; death is the penalty for sexual intercourse with a person of a forbidden clan. And it is certain that there is no evidence at all of communism in wives.[105]

A system of taboos is very strongly established, and as we should expect the women appear to be most active in maintaining these sexual separations. If a man, even by mistake, kills the sex-totem of the women, they are as much enraged as if it were one of their own children, and they will turn and attack him with their long poles.

In Australia it is easy to recognise a very early stage in human society. The organisation of the family group into the clan is still taking place. Moreover, the most primitive patriarchal conditions have not greatly changed, for the males are great individualists and cannot readily suffer the rights of others than themselves. Mother-right can hardly be said to exist, and the position of women is low.It is not the custom among any tribes for the husband to reside in the home of the wife; this in itself is sufficient to explain the power of the husbands. Wives are frequently obtained by capture, and fights for women are of common occurrence. Here it would seem that progress has been very slow. Indeed, it is the chief interest of the Australian tribes that we can trace the transformation from the early patriarchal conditions to the communal clan.

There is still another fact of very special interest. In the large majority of tribes known to us descent is traced through the mother; the proportion of these tribes to those with father-descent being four to one. Now, the question arises as to which of these two systems is the earlier custom? As a rule it is assumed that in all cases descent was originally traced through the mother. But is this really so? The evidence of the Australian tribes points to the exact opposite opinion. For what do we find? The tribes that have established mother-descent have advanced further, with a more developed social organisation, which could hardly be the case if they were the more primitive. To this question Starcke, inThe Primitive Family, has drawn particular attention; he regards “the female line as a later development,” arrived at after descent through the father was recognised, such change being due to an urgent necessity which arose in the primitive family for cohesion among its members, making necessary sexual regulation and the maternal clan.

It is certainly difficult to decide on the priority of this or that custom. But what is significant is that in Australia the tribes which maintain the male line of descent must be assigned to the lowest stage of development. The rights established by marriage among them are less clearly defined, and the use of the totem marks, with the sexual taboos arising from them, are less developed. Everything tends to show that clan organisation and union in peace have arisen with mother-descent, which cannot thus be regarded as a survival from the earlier order, but as a later development—a step forward in progress and social regulation.

I take this as being exceedingly important: it serves to establish what it has been my purpose to show, that in the first stage the family was patriarchal—small hostile groups living under the jealous authority of the fathers; and that only as advancement came did the maternal clan develop, since it arose through a community of purpose binding all its members in peace, and thereby controlling the warring individual interests. The reasons for mother-descent have been altogether misunderstood by those who regard it as the earliest phase of the family, and connect the custom with sexual disorder and uncertainty of paternity. In all cases the clan system shows a marked organisation, with a much stronger cohesion than is possible in the restricted family, which is held together by the force of the father. It was within the clan that the rights of the father and husband were endangered: he lost hisposition as supreme head of the family, and became an alien member in a free association where his position was strictly defined. The incorporation of the family into the clan arose through the struggle for existence forcing it into association; it was the subordinate position of the husband under such a system which finally made the women the rulers of the household. If we regard the social conditions of the maternal system as the first stage of development, they are as difficult to understand as they become intelligible when we consider it as a later and beneficent phase in the growth of society.

This, then, I claim as the chief good of the maternal system. As I see it, each advance in progress rests on the conquest of sexual distrusts and fierceness forcing into isolation. These jealous and odious monopolist instincts have been the bane of humanity. Each race must inevitably in the end outlive them; they are the surviving relics of the ape and the tiger. They arise out of that self-concentration and intensity of animalism that binds the hands of men and women from taking their inheritance. The brute in us still resents association. Am I wrong in connecting this individual monopolist idea of My power! My right! with the paternal as opposed to the maternal family? At any rate I find it absent in the communal clan grouped around the mothers, where the enlarged family makes common cause and life is lived by all for and with each other.

An instructive example of the joint maternal family is furnished by the Naïrs of Malabar, wherewe see a very late development of the clan system. The family group includes many allied families, who live together in large communal houses and possess everything in common. There is common tenure of land, over which the eldest male member of the community presides; while the mother, and after her death the eldest daughter, is the ruler in the household. It is impossible to give the details of their curious conjugal customs. The men do not marry, but frequent other houses as lovers, without ceasing to live at home, and without being in any way detached from the maternal family. There is, however, a symbolic marriage for every girl, by a rite known as tying thetali; but this marriage serves the purpose only of initiation, and the couple separate after one day. When thus prepared for marriage, a Naïr girl chooses her lovers, and any number of unions may be entered upon without any restrictions other than the strict prohibitions relative to caste and tribe. These later marriages, unlike the solemn initial rite, have no ceremony connected with them, and are entered into freely at the will of the woman and her family.[106]

Now, if we regard these customs in the light of what has already been established, it is clear that they cannot be regarded as the first stage in the maternal family. Such a view is entirely to mistake the facts. The Naïrs are in no respect a people ofprimitive culture. Through a long period they have most strictly preserved the custom of matriarchal heredity, which has led to an unusual concentration of the family group, and it is probable that here is the best explanation of the conjugal liberty of the Naïr girls. However singular their system may appear to us, it is the most logical and complete of any polyandric system. If we compare it with the more usual form of patriarchal polyandry we see at once the influence of maternal descent. Here, the woman makes a free choice of her husbands; in no sense is she their property. It is common for them to work for her, one husband taking on himself to furnish her with clothes, another to give her rice and food, and so on. It is, in fact, the wife who possesses, and it is through her that wealth is transmitted. In fraternal polyandry, on the other hand (as, for instance, it is practised in Thibet and Ceylon), the husbands of a woman are always brothers; she belongs to them, and for her children there is a kind of collective fatherhood. But among the Naïrs the man as husband and father cannot be said to exist; he is reduced to the most subordinate rôle of the male—he is simply the progenitor.

I know of no stronger case than this of the degraded position of the father. And what I want to make clear is that in such negation of all father-right rested the inherent weakness in the matriarchal conditions—a weakness which led eventually to the re-establishment of the paternal family. We must be very clear in our minds as to the sharpdistinction between the restricted family and the communal clan. The clan as a confederation of members was opposed to the family whose interests were necessarily personal and selfish. Such communism, to some may appear strange at so early a stage of primitive cultures, yet, as I have more than once pointed out, it was a perfectly natural development; it arose through the fierce struggle for existence, forcing the primitive hostile groups to expand and unite with one another for mutual protection. Such conditions of primitive socialism were specially favourable for women. As I have again and again affirmed, the collective motive was more considered by the mothers, and must be sought in the organisation of the maternal clan. But since individual desires can never be wholly subdued, and the male nature is ever directed towards self-assertion, the clan, organised on the rights of the mothers, had always to contend with an opposing force. At one stage the clan was able to absorb the family, but only under exceptional conditions could such a system be maintained. The social organisation of the clan was inevitably broken up as society advanced. With greater security of life the individual interests reasserted their power, and this undermined the dominion of the mother.

To bring these facts home, we must now consider some further examples of mother-right, in order to show how closely these customs are connected with the conditions of the maternal familiar clan.

The Yaos of Africa have what may be regardedas a matriarchal organisation. Kinship is reckoned and property is inherited through the mother. When a man marries, he is expected to live in his wife’s village, and his first conjugal duties are to build a house for her, and hoe a garden for her mother. This gives the woman a very important position, and it is she, and not the man, who usually proposes marriage.[107]

In Africa descent through the mother is the rule, though there are exceptions, and these are increasing. The amusing account given by Miss Kingsley[108]of Joseph, a member of the Batu tribe in French Congo, strikingly illustrates the prevalence of the custom. When asked by a French official to furnish his own name and the name of his father, Joseph was wholly nonplussed. “My fader!” he said. “Who my fader?” Then he gave the name of his mother. The case is the same among the negroes. The Fanti of the Gold Coast may be taken as typical. Among them an intensity of affection (accounted for partly by the fact that the mothers have exclusive care of the children) is felt for the mother, while the father is almost disregarded as a parent, notwithstanding the fact that he may be a wealthy and powerful man. The practice of the Wamoimia, where the son of a sister is preferred in legacies, “because a man’s own son is only the son of his wife,” is typical. The Bush husband does not livewith his wife, and often has wives in different places.[109]

In Africa the clan system is firmly established, which explains the prevalence of mother-descent. Women, on the whole, take an important position, and here, as elsewhere, their inheritance of property enables them to maintain their equality with their husbands. Individual possession of wealth is allowed, but a married man usually cannot dispose of any property unless his wife agrees, and she acts as the representative of the children’s claims upon the father. The privilege that, according to Laing, the Soulima women have, of leaving their husbands when they please, is also proof of the maternal customs.[110]Moreover, among some tribes, the influence of the mothers as the heads of families extends to the councils of state; it is even said that the chiefs do not decide anything without their consent.[111]

Mother-right is still in force in many parts of India, though owing to the influence of Brahminism on the aboriginal tribes the examples of the maternal family are fewer than might be expected. Among the once powerful Koochs the women own all the property, which is inherited from mother to daughter. The husband lives with his wife and her mother, and,we are told, is subject to them. These women are most industrious, weaving, spinning, planting and sowing, in a word, doing all the work not above their strength.[112]The Koochs may be compared with the Khasis, already noticed, and these maternal systems among the Indian hill tribes may surely be regarded as showing conditions at one time common. Even tribes who have passed from the clan organisation to the patriarchal family preserve numerous traces of mother-right. Thus, the choice of her lover often remains with the girl; again, divorce is easy at the wish either of the woman or the man.[113]Such freedom in love is clearly inconsistent with the patriarchal authority of the husband. I must note too the practice, common among many tribes, by which the husband remains in the wife’s home for a probationary period, working for her family.[114]This is clearly a step towards purchase marriage, as is proved by the Santals, where this service is claimed when a girl is ugly or deformed and cannot be married otherwise, while other tribes offer their daughters when in want of labourers. This service-marriage must not be confused with the true maternal form, where the bridegroom visits or lives with the wife and any service claimed is a test of his fitness; it shows, however, the power of thewoman’s kindred still curbing the rights of the husband.

The existence of mother-descent among the peoples of Western Asia has been ascertained with regard to some ancient tribes; but I may pass these over, as they offer no points of special interest. I must, however, refer briefly to the evidence brought forward by the late Prof. Robertson Smith[115]of mother-right in ancient Arabia. We find a decisive example of its favourable influence on the position of women in the custom ofbeenamarriage. Under this maternal form, the wife was not only freed from any subjection involved by the payment of a bride-price in the form of compulsory service or of gifts to her kindred (which always places her more or less under authority), but she was the owner of the tent and the household property, and thus enjoyed the liberty which ownership always entails. This explains how she was able to free herself at pleasure from her husband, who was really nothing but a temporary lover. Ibn Batua, even in the fourteenth century found that the women of Zebid were perfectly ready to marry strangers. The husband might depart when he pleased, but his wife in that case could never be induced to follow him. She bade him a friendly adieu and took upon herself the whole charge of any children of the marriage. The women in Jâhilîya had the right to dismiss their husbands, and the form of dismissalwas this: “If they lived in a tent they turned it round, so that if the door faced east it now faced west, and when the man saw this, he knew he was dismissed and did not enter.” The tent belonged to the woman: the husband was received there, and at her good pleasure. We find many cases ofbeenamarriage among widely different peoples. Frazer[116]cites an interesting example among the tribes on the north frontier of Abyssinia, partially Semitic peoples, not yet under the influence of Islam, who preserve a maternal marriage closely resembling thebeenaform, but have as well a purchase marriage, by which a wife is acquired by the payment of a bride-price and becomes the property of her husband.

A very curious form of conjugal contract is recorded among the Hassanyeh Arabs of the White Nile, where the wife passed by contract for a portion of her time only under the authority of her husband. It illustrates in a striking way the conflict in marriage between the old rights of the woman and the rising power of the husband.

“When the parents of the man and the woman meet to settle the price of the woman, the price depends on how many days in the week the marriage tie is to be strictly observed. The woman’s mother first of all proposes that, taking everything into consideration, with due regard to the feelings of the family, she could not think of binding her daughter to a due observance of that chastity whichmatrimony is expected to command for more than two days in the week. After a great deal of apparently angry discussion, and the promise on the part of the relations of the man to pay more, it is arranged that the marriage shall hold good, as is customary among the first families of the tribe, for four days in the week, viz. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and in compliance with old established custom, the marriage rites during the three remaining days shall not be insisted on, during which days the bride shall be perfectly free to act as she may think proper, either by adhering to her husband and home, or by enjoying her freedom and independence from all observance of matrimonial obligations.”[117]

A further striking example of mother-right is furnished by the Mariana Islands, where the position of women was distinctly superior.

“Even when the man had contributed an equal share of property on marriage, the wife dictated everything, and the man could undertake nothing without her approval; but if the woman committed an offence, the man was held responsible and suffered the punishment. The women could speak in the assembly; they held property, and if a woman asked anything of a man, he gave it up without a murmur. If a wife was unfaithful, the husband could send her home, keep her property, and kill the adulterer; but if the man was guilty or even suspected of the same offence, the women of the neighbourhood destroyed his house and all his visible property, and the owner was fortunate if he escaped with a whole skin; andif the wife was not pleased with her husband, she withdrew, and a similar attack followed. On this account many men were not married, preferring to live with paid women.”[118]

A similar case of the rebellion of men against their position is recorded in Guinea, where religious symbolism was used by the husband as a way of obtaining control and possession of his wife. The maternal system held with respect only to the chief wife.

“It was customary, however, for a man to buy and take to wife a slave, a friendless person with whom he could deal at pleasure, who had no kindred who could interfere with her, and to consecrate her to his Bossum, or god. The Bossum wife, slave as she had been, ranked next to the chief wife, and was exceptionally treated. She alone was very jealously guarded, she alone was sacrificed at her husband’s death. She was, in fact, wife in a peculiar sense. And having by consecration been made of the kindred and worship of her husband her children could be born of his kindred and worship.”[119]

It will be readily seen that the special rights held by the husband over these captive-wives would come to be greatly desired. But the capture of women was always difficult, as it frequently led to quarrels and even warfare with the woman’s tribe, and for this reason was never widely practised. It would therefore be necessary for another way of escape from the bonds of the maternal marriageto be found. This was done by a system of buying the wife from her clan-kindred, in which case she became the property of her husband.

The change did not, of course, take place at once, and we have many examples of a transition period where the old customs are in conflict with the new. Both forms of marriage, the maternal and the purchase contract, are practised side by side by many peoples. These cases are so instructive that I must add one or two examples to those already noticed. Theambel-anakmarriage of Sumatra is the maternal form, but there is another marriage known asdjudur, by which a man buys his wife as his absolute property. There is a complicated system of payments, on which the husband’s rights to take the wife to his home depends. If the final sum is paid (but this is not commonly claimed except in the case of a quarrel between the families) the woman becomes to all intents and purposes the slave of the man; but if, on the other hand, as is not at all uncommon, the husband fails or has difficulty in making the main payment, he becomes the debtor of his wife’s family, and he is practically the slave, all his labour being due to his wife’s family without any reduction in the debt, which must be paid in full, before he regains his liberty.[120]In Ceylon, again, there are two forms of marriage, calledbeenaanddeega, which cause a marked difference in the position of the wife. A woman married under thebeenaform lives in the house or immediate neighbourhood ofher parents, and if so married she has the right of inheritance along with her brothers; but if married indeegashe goes to live in her husband’s house and village and loses her rights in her own family.[121]

In Africa where thebeena maternal marriageis usual, and the husband serves for his wife and lives with her family, it is said that families are usually more or less willingfor value receivedto give a woman to a man to take away with him, or to let him have hisbeenawife to transfer to his own house. Among the Wayao and Mang’anja of the Shirehighlands, south of Lake Nyassa, a man on marrying leaves his own village and goes to live in that of his wife; but, as an alternative, he is allowed to pay a bride-price, in which case he takes his wife away to his home.[122]Again among the Banyai on the Zambesi, if the husband gives nothing the children of the marriage belong to the wife’s family, but if he gives so many cattle to his wife’s parents the children are his.[123]Similar cases may be found elsewhere. In the Watubela Islands between New Guinea and Celebes a man may either pay for his wife before marriage, or he may, without paying, live as her husband in her parents’ house, working for her. In the former case, the children belong to him, in the latter to the mother’s family, but he may buy them subsequently at a price.[124]Campbell records of the Limboo tribe(where the bride is usually purchased and lives with the husband), that if poverty compels the bridegroom to serve for his wife, he becomes the slave of her father, “until by his work he has redeemed his bride.”[125]An interesting case occurs in some Californian tribes where the husband has to live with the wife and work, until he has paid to her kindred the full price for her and her child. So far has custom advanced in favour of father-right that the children of a wife not paid for are regarded as bastards and held in contempt.[126]

Wherever we find the payment of a bride-price, in whatever form, there is sure indication of the decay of mother-right: woman has become property. Among the Bassa Komo of Nigeria marriage is usually effected by an exchange of sisters or other female relatives. The men may marry as many wives as they have women to give to other men. In this tribe the women look after the children, but the boys, when four years old, go to live and work with the fathers.[127]The husbands of the Bambala tribe (inhabiting the Congo states between the rivers Inzia and Kwilu) have to abstain from visiting their wives for a year after the birth of each child, but they are allowed to return to her on the payment to her father of two goats.[128]Among the Bassanga on the south-west of Lake Moeru the children of the wife belong to the mother’s kin,but the children of slaves are the property of the father.

The right of a father to his children was established only by contract. Even where the wife had been given up by her kindred and allowed to live with her husband, we find that the children may be claimed by her family. Thus among the Makolo the price paid on marriage might merely cover the right to have the wife, and in this case the children belonged to the wife’s family. It might, however, cover a certain right to the children if that had been contracted for, but never such a right as separated them wholly from the mother’s family. To effect this it was necessary that a further price should be paid at the father’s death. This sum once paid, her family had “given her up” and her children were entirely severed from them.[129]The legal acknowledgment of fatherhood in all cases had to be paid for.

There are many customs pointing to this new father-force asserting itself, and pushing aside the mother-power. In Africa, among the Bavili the mother has the right to pawn her child, but she must first consult the father, so that he may have a chance of giving her goods to save the pledging.[130]This is very plainly a step towards father-right. There is no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children. Similar conditions prevail among the Alladians of the Ivory Coast, but herethe mother cannot pledge her children without the consent of her brother or other male head of the family. The father has the right to ransom the child.[131]An even stronger example of the property value of children is furnished by the custom found among many tribes, by which the father has to make a present to the wife’s family when a child dies: this is called “buying the child.”[132]A similar custom prevails among the Maori people of New Zealand; when a child dies, or even meets with an accident, the mother’s relations, headed by her brothers, turn out in force against the father. He must defend himself until wounded. Blood once drawn, the combat ceases; but the attacking party plunders his house and appropriates the husband’s property, and finally sits down to a feast provided by him.[133]

These cases, with the inferences they suggest, show that the power a husband and father possessed over his wife and her children was gained through purchase. And it is not the fact of the husband’s power, however great it might be, that is so important, but the fact that by the change in the form of marriage the wife and her children were cut off from the woman’s clan-kindred, whose duty to protect them was now withdrawn. Here, then, was the reason of the change from mother-right to father-right. The monopolist desire of the husband to possess for himself the woman and her children(perhaps the deepest rooted of all the instincts) reasserted itself. But the regaining of this individual possession by man was due, not to male strength, but to purchase. I must insist upon this. As soon as women became sexually marketable their freedom was doomed.

There are many interesting cases of transition in which the children belong sometimes to the mother and sometimes to the father. Again I can give one or two examples only. In the island of Mangia the parents at the birth of the child arranged between themselves whether it should be dedicated to the father’s god or to the mother’s. The dedication took place forthwith, and finally determined which parent had the ownership of the child.[134]Among the Haidis, children belong to the clan of the mother, but in exceptional cases when the clan of the father is reduced in numbers, the new-born child may be given to the father’s sister to suckle. It is then spoken of as belonging to the paternal aunt and is counted to its father’s clan.[135]It is also possible to transfer a child to the father by giving it one of the names common to his clan. There are many curious customs practised by certain tribes, wavering between mother and father descent. In Samoa religion decides the question. At the birth of a child the totem of each parent is prayed to in turn (usually, though not always, starting with that of the father) and whichever totem happensto be invoked at the moment of birth is the child’s totem for life and decides whether he or she belongs to the clan of the mother or the father.[136]Equally curious was the custom of the Liburni, where the children were all brought up together until they were five years old. They were then collected and examined in order to trace their likeness to the men and they were assigned to their fathers accordingly. Whoever received a boy from his mother in this way regarded him as his son.[137]Similarly with the Arabs, where one woman was the wife of several men, the custom was either for the woman to decide to which of them the child was to belong, or the child was assigned by an expert to one of the joint husbands to be regarded as his own.[138]

These facts throw a strong light on the bond between the father and the child, which was a legal bond, not dependent, as it is with us, upon blood relationship. Fatherhood really arose out of the ownership of purchase. And for this reason the father’s right came to extend to all the children of the wife. It does not appear that the husband makes any distinction between his wife’s children, even if they were begotten by other men. Chastity is not regarded as a virtue, and in those cases where unfaithfulness in a wife is punished, it is always because the woman, who has passed from the protection of her kindred, acts without her husband’s permission. Interchange of wives is common,while it is one of the duties of hospitality to offer a wife to a stranger guest. Husbands sometimes, indeed, seek other men for their wives, believing they will obtain sons who will excel all others. Thus of the Arabs we are told, there is one form of marriage according to which a man says to his wife, “Send a message to such a one and beg him to have intercourse with you.” The husband acts in this way in order that his offspring may be noble.[139]When a Hindu marries, all the children previously born from his wife become his own; in Pakpatan, even when a woman has forsaken her husband for ten years, the children she brings forth are divided between her and her lover.[140]Similarly in Madagascar, when a woman is divorced, any children she afterwards bears belong to her husband.[141]Campbell tells us of children born out of wedlock in the Limboo tribe that the father may obtain possession of the boys by purchase and by naming them, but the girls belong to the mother.[142]

I am very certain that it was through property considerations and for no moral causes that the stringency of the moral code was tightened for women. It seems to me of very great importance that women should grasp firmly this truth: the virtue of chastity owes its origin to property. Our minds fall so readily under the spell of such ideas as chastity and purity. There is a mass of realsuperstition on this question—a belief in a kind of magic in chastity. But, indeed, continence had at first no connection with morals. The sense of ownership has been the seed-plot of our moral code. To it we are indebted for the first germs of the sexual inhibitions which, sanctified, by religion and supported by custom, have, under the unreasoned idealism of the common mind, filled life with cruelties and jealous exclusions, with suicides, and murders, and secret shames.[143]

This brings me to summarise the point we have reached. Father-right was dependent on purchase-possession and had nothing to do with actual fatherhood. The payment of a bride-price, the giving of a sister in exchange, as also marriage with a slave, gained for the husband the control over his wife and ownership of the children. I could bring forward much more evidence in proof of this fact that property, and not kinship, was the basis of fatherhood, did the limits of my space allow me to do so; such cases are common in all parts of the world where the transitional stage has been reached. The maternal clan, with its strong social cohesion is then broken up by the growing power of individual interests pushing aside the old customs, and bringing about the restoration of the family. I believe that the causes by which the father gained his position as the dominant partner in marriage must be clear to every one from the examples Ihave given. Fatherhood established in the first stage of the family on jealous authority, now, after a period of more or less complete obscuration, rises again as the dominant force in marriage. The father has bought back his position as patriarch. On the other hand the mother has lost her freedom that came with the protection of her kindred, under the social organisation of the clan. Looking back through the lengthening record, we find that another step has been taken in the history of the family. This time is it a step forward, or a step backward? This is a question I shall not try to answer, for, indeed, I am not sure.

Yet in case I am mistaken here, let me say at once I am certain that this return to the restricted family was a necessary and inevitable step. The individual forces had to triumph. This may seem a contradiction to all I have just said. What I wish to show is this: one and all the phases in the development of society have been needful and fruitful as successive stages in growth; yet none can continue—none be regarded as the final stage, for each becomes insufficient and narrow from the standpoint of the needs of a later stage. We have reached the third stage—the patriarchal family which still endures. And last and hardest to eradicate is that monopoly of sexual possession, which says: “This woman and her children are mine: I have tabooed her for life.” Mankind has still to outlive this brute instinct in its upward way to civilisation.

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