200 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



materia and mater. But it is clear that in materia 

 we have the stuff useful for production, and md is used 

 in the sense we require it in matrix, and not in the 

 sense of planning. 1 Nor is this notion of the mother 

 as the moulder infrequent, and it is a use which clearly 

 shows why the term for mother is so readily transferred 

 to the womb. Thus in Nassau the people say of a 

 woman in reference to childbirth : 



Wenn eine Frau gemacht hat ; 2 



and Shakespeare writes : 



My wife comes foremost ; then the honour'd mould 

 Wherein this trunk was framed. 



From this conception of maker or moulder or 

 mould, we pass to a series of words deduced from 

 secondary forms of md, namely, mad and mal, and 

 denoting moulds, vessels, and ultimately measures, e.g. 

 Gothic mat, O.H.Gr. multra, M.L.Gr. molt, M.H.G. 

 mulde, Latin modus, and English mould. The con- 

 ception, however, of fitting, planning, measuring, seems 

 to follow, not precede, that of production. 



The mother appears in primitive times as the 

 moulder of raw material, the maker of new life, and 

 not as the planning and organising member of a complex 

 household. Early man noticed how his dead comrade 

 mouldered away to earth, and he did not hesitate to 

 identify the primary with the final process his goddess 

 of fertility was also a goddess of death. 3 This primitive 



1 I hold that there is not evidence enough to justify the root mu as at the 

 basis of the mother = slime, words. 



2 Kehrein, Volksitte in Nassau, Bd. ii. s. 173. 



3 See pp. 168, 175, 342 footnote, and 352 footnote. 



