242 Ethics need Facts, not Theories. 



though iii general he managed to eviscerate it 

 by adapting them to some extraneous speculation, 

 cosmic or sociological. 



Many of the more striking facts known in re 

 gard to family relations have already been men 

 tioned in connection with the theories into which 

 they have been woven. If these theories have 

 been rejected, it was not from any desire to min 

 imize the revolting character of the marital con 

 nections between men and women in many savage 

 or barbarous tribes. There is no evidence that 

 every people once lived in absolute promiscuity 

 or in consanguine families ; but it is a fact that 

 among the Todas of the NeUgkerry Hills the 

 husband s brothers become husbands of the wife, 

 and the wife s sisters become common wives of 

 all her husbands. 



The custom of reckoning kinship through fe 

 males may not always have preceded the cus 

 tom of reckoning kinship through males, but 

 McLennan, Bachofen, Eobertson Smith, and Lip- 

 pert have shown that it was at least a widely ex 

 tended practice. It is found among the natives 

 of America, Australia, and Africa. It prevailed 

 also in the ancient world. The Egyptians long 

 held the mother s name indispensable ; the Ly- 

 cians, as Herodotus narrates fully, traced gene- 



