PATERNAL REGULATION. 493 



sister or nearest female relative : so ensuring descent in the 

 male line as well as in the female line. 



Mitigation of that harsh treatment to which, in early 

 stages of human progress, women have been subject, has re 

 sulted in some cases; and occasionally they have acquired 

 both social and domestic power. This was conspicuously the 

 case in Egypt, where autocratic queens were not unknown; 

 and among a few uncivilized tribes it happens that chieftain 

 ship descends to women. Improvement in their domestic 

 position caused by this system of kinship was shown in Tahiti, 

 where a wife could divorce herself as well as a husband. 

 Among the Tongans, too, the status of wives was good. Still 

 better evidence is yielded by the Malagasy: the balance of 

 power inclines in women s favour. But in the majority of 

 cases descent in the female line seems to have had little or no 

 effect in qualifying the absolute subjection and domestic 

 slavery of wives. In illustration may be named the Austra 

 lians, Tasmanians, Snakes, Chippewayans, Dakotas, Creeks, 

 Guiana tribes, Arawaks, Caribs, and many others. The 

 pow r er of the husband and father is exercised without 

 limit, notwithstanding the fact that in all tribal relations 

 the children are not reckoned as his but as their 

 mother s. 



Africa furnishes mixed evidence which must be noticed. 

 There is descent in the female line among the Western 

 Bantus, and along with it there go both inferiorities and 

 superiorities of domestic position. One inferiority is seen in 

 the fact that wives are &quot; usually inherited, together with 

 other property &quot; ; and yet the wife owns her own hut, field, 

 and poultry. But a special influence qualifies the domestic 

 relation. A wife s death is apt to bring on the husband a 

 charge of guilt and a fine payable to her relatives, and fear 

 of this leads to lax control of the wife and subjection to 

 her family. Here it would seem then that descent in the 

 female line qualifies male authority : one further indication 

 of this being that the power of the father is unlimited over 

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