ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY. 141 



And the implication appears to be that this slavery of women, derived 

 from the patriarchal state, and naturally accompanied by inability to 

 hold property, has been slowly mitigated, and the right of private pos- 

 session acquired, as the primitive family has decayed. But when we 

 jiass from the progenitors of the civilized races to existing uncivilized 

 races, we meet with facts requiring us to qualify this proposition. 

 Though in tribes of primitive men, knowing no law but that of brute 

 force, entire subjection of women is tlie rule, yet there are exceptions, 

 both in societies lower than the patriarchal in organization, and in 

 higher societies whicli bear no traces of a past patriarchal state. We 

 learn from Hodgson that among the Kocch, who are mainly governed 

 by "juries of elders," " when a woman dies the family property goes 

 to her daughters." Mason tells us of the Karens, whose chiefs, of 

 little authority, are generally elective and often wanting, that " the 

 father wills his property to his children. . . . Nothing is given to the 

 widow, but she is entitled to the use of the property till her death." 

 Writing of the Khasias, Lieutenant Steel says that " the house belongs 

 to the woman ; and in case of the husband dying or being separated 

 from her, it remains her property." Among the Dyaks, whose law of 

 inheritance is not that of primogeniture, and whose chieftainships 

 where they exist are determined by merit, St. John tells us that as the 

 wife does an equal share of work with her husband, " at a divorce she 

 is entitled to half the wealth created by their mutual labprs;" and 

 Rajah Brooke writes, concerning certain Land Dyaks, that " the most 

 powerful of the people in the place were two old ladies, who often told 

 me that all the land and inhabitants belonged to them." North 

 America furnishes kindred facts. Of tlie Aleutian-Islanders, Bancroft, 

 in agreement with Bastian, tells us that " rich women are permitted 

 to indulge in two husbands " ownership of property by females being 

 implied. Among the Nootkas, in case of divorce, there is " a strict 

 division of property " the wife taking both what she brought and 

 what she has made ; and similarly among the Jpokanes, " all house- 

 hold goods are considered the wife's property," and there is an equi- 

 table division of property on dissolution of marriage. Again, of the 

 Iroquois, who, considerably advanced as we have seen, were shown, by 

 their still-surviving system of descent in the female line, never to have 

 passed through the patriarclial stage, we read that the proprietary 

 rights of husband and wife remained distinct; and, further, that in 

 case of separation the children went with the mother. Still more 

 striking is the instance supplied by the peaceable, industrious, freely- 

 governed Pueblos, whose women, otherwise occupying good posi- 

 tions, not only inherit property, but, in some cases, make exclusive 

 claims to it. Africa, too, where the condition of women is in most 

 respects low, but whei-e descent in the female line continues, furnishes 

 examples. Shabeeny tells us that in Timbuctoo a son's share of the 

 father's property is double that of a daughter. Describing the cus- 



