578 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1880- 



inheritance and blood revenge, which do not recognise 

 relationship on the female side. The extreme develop 

 ment of this principle is naturally associated with poly 

 gamy and the inferiority of woman. But it is certain 

 that this system is not primitive. We have express 

 evidence that polyandria once prevailed in Arabia, and 

 traces of this practice and of female kinship are to be 

 found to a comparatively late date. The social system 

 of Islam had to fight against many remains of the earlier 

 polyandria. Among the Bedouins, travellers of quite 

 recent date have observed usages which point to exo 

 gamy, marriage by capture, female kinship, and other 

 practices, all of which are now known, mainly through 

 the researches of Mr. M Lennan, to hang together and 

 belong to the gradual development, of which polyandria 

 is one stage. So far as I can learn, usages of this kind 

 are not known to the Hejaz tribes. I cannot find any 

 trace of such a form of capture as is still practised in 

 the Peninsula of Sinai, and Yemenite customs, point 

 ing distinctly to female kinship, were related to me 

 as a contrast to Hejaz usage. Thus, it is considered a 

 peculiarity of Yemen that the Dokhla, or consummation 

 of marriage, takes place in the bride s house, and that 

 the bridegroom stays for some nights with the bride s 

 people if he be inborn, but if from abroad must settle 

 with them. In the Hejaz the dokhla takes place in the 

 house of the bride s family only if the bridegroom has 

 no house of his own. This statement agrees very well 

 with all that one reads in mediaeval accounts. It was in 

 southern Arabia that relics of polyandria and female 

 kinship survived. And with this difference, it goes 

 naturally enough that, while the Hejaz women are 

 carefully veiled, and in Taif the principle of female 

 seclusion is carried farther than in any other part of 

 Arabia, the women of the Aseer and of Hadhramaut 

 appear unveiled in the street, and before guests whom 

 they serve, though they do not eat with them. More- 



