334 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



servant Jarha, an Egyptian, and the offspring of this union were 

 regarded as Israelites (I Chronicles, ii, 34, 35) — that is to say, they 

 traced descent and nationality through the mother. Here, then, 

 we have three cases, one in which the male parent is an Israelite, 

 and two in which the female parent is. In the former case the 

 son is not considered an Israelite, and in the two latter he is — 

 that is, in each case he is regarded as belonging to the nation 

 of his mother. In this connection it is curious to note that in 

 the list of the kings of Edom given in Genesis, xxxvi, 31-39, no 

 king is the son of his predecessor; and in verse 39 we have a 

 clear case of descent being traced through females : " His wife's 

 name was Mehetabel, the daughter of Matred, the daughter of 

 Mezahab." 



All these examples are found prior to the Babylonian captiv- 

 ity, after which the custom was changed. In Ezra, ii, 61, and 

 Nehemiah, vii, 63, we read that the children of a daughter of Bar- 

 zillai, the Gileadite, were called after her family name, and were 

 reckoned as not of Israel, because "they could not show their 

 father's house, and their seed, whether they were of Israel " (Ezra, 

 ii, 59).* Before the captivity Amasa, the son of an Israelitish 

 woman by an Ishmaelite, and Attai, the son of an Israelitish 

 woman by an Egyptian (I Chronicles, ii, 35), were reckoned as of 

 Israel, the maternal descent was sufficient; but after the cap- 

 tivity it was considered necessary to show " the father's house." 

 This seems to indicate that the change from a system of descents 

 through females to one through males, which had no doubt 

 been gradually taking place for some generations, was fully 

 accomplished by the time that the two tribes returned from 

 Babylon. 



A point not to be overlooked is the inferior position held by 

 women in post-captivity times. When kinship is traced through 

 females, the position of women is necessarily high, for they are 

 the heads of families ; but when they lose the latter position 

 through a change in the system of descents, they are commonly 

 reduced to a condition more or less servile. Now we have some 

 cases of women holding high positions before the captivity, 

 notably Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah. The first is mentioned 

 in Micah, vi, 4, as the equal of Moses and Aaron : " For I brought 

 thee out of the land of Egypt, . . . and I sent before thee Moses, 

 Aaron, and Miriam." In Exodus, xv, 20, she is styled a prophet- 

 ess, and in Numbers, xii, 2, she and Aaron rebel against the lead- 

 ership of Moses. She was evidently a person of authority, and so 

 was Deborah the prophetess, for she judged Israel (Judges, iv, 4). 



* In I Esdras, v, 38, this family is called " the sons of Addus, who married Augia, one 

 of the daughters of Berzelus, and was named after his name." 



