280 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



One of the important factors in the change seems to 

 have been the practice of obtaining wives by capture. 

 Under the system of mother descent the husband came to 

 live with his wife 's kindred and the children were claimed 

 by the mother clan and took its name. In the new re- 

 lations which grew out of the system of wife capture, 

 the children of the captured wife quite naturally belonged 

 to the kin of the father as long as he chose to keep them 

 and their mother, and if he cared enough for them to 

 hold them as his property until their maturity, they took 

 his name. This transition is described by Tylor as tak- 

 ing place under his observation among the Malayan tribes 

 of the Baber Archipelago. 5 Powell has described how 

 force of circumstances consequent upon the conditions 

 of life in the desert region has caused the Pueblo In- 

 dians, a matriarchal people with female descent, to place 

 the control of family affairs temporarily in the hands 

 of the husbands and fathers. As water is scarce for ir- 

 rigation in. their desert region, these Indians are obliged 

 to separate widely for the cultivation of lands at a dis- 

 tance from the central pueblo. The consequence is that 

 the control of the families and the training of children 

 are temporarily taken out of the hands of the mother T s 

 kin. 6 



Economic changes of vast importance occurred at about 

 the time this system of wife capture was originating. 

 These changes operated to strengthen the motive to ob- 

 tain possession of offspring. 7 In early stages men ob- 

 tained their food by hunting wild animals. Under cer- 



5 Tylor, E. B. Jour, of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xviii, p. 261. 



6 Powell, J. W. Letter quoted by Tylor, ibid., p. 258. 



7 Giddings, Descrip. and Hist. Sociology, p. 464, Principles, p. 288 ; 

 Dealey, op. cit., p. 24. 



