196 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



ehe-man, pruti-gomo, shows us that there was no primi- 

 tive word for husband, and that man and gomo were 

 far from originally conveying this idea. We see indeed 

 that the words ultimately adopted for the male and 

 female of a permanent monogamic union originally 

 signified on the male side no sexual function at all, and 

 on the female side a far more general sexual function- 

 namely, the simple act of reproduction without regard 

 to any individual male. 



(3) The next word of relationship to which I pass is 

 mother Sanskrit mdtr, Latin mater, Greek /-wfnj/o, O.H.G. 

 muotar, mddor, and English mother. According to the 

 philologists the fundamental root is md, signifying first 

 consider, think, and then build, prepare, plan, produce. 

 Thus Jakob Grimm holds the mother to be the thinking, 

 the planning one, and Deecke the managing, the order- 

 ing one ; both derivations suppose a fairly complete 

 home organisation, and a developed system of abstract 

 ideas, as preceding a name for one of the most primitive 

 and obvious relationships. From the anthropological 

 standpoint, recognition of a concrete fact precedes the 

 formation of an abstract idea ; and the patent fact about 

 the mother is the production of the child ; that she plans 

 and thinks for the household is a much later conception. 

 Such activity might be a function of womankind in 

 general, but it is difficult to see why it should have 

 been specialised for mothers in particular. Still more 

 remarkable is it, if mother signified originally the 

 thinker, that the word should have been transferred at 

 a very early date to the female of animals and to the 

 womb. In opposition to Professor Skeat, I think there 



