SEX AND SOCIETY 219 



distinctive features and the patriarchate has 

 not yet been differentiated. The kin-alder- 

 man usurps chief power in the group and 

 dominates the women. " The property still 

 passes through the women, but the king has 

 taken possession of them. The sex-custom 

 of the group has become exogamous, but 

 property does not descend from father to 

 son." This is a period to which hundreds of 

 fairy tales refer, notably of the Ashiepattle 

 and Cinderella type, in which the son of the 

 people, helped by the wise woman to whom 

 he is kind in the forest, travels to another 

 kingdom, and, after exploits, marries the king's 

 daughter and inherits his domain. 



PATRIARCHAL PERIOD. Let us now turn 

 for a little to the definitely patriarchal period, 

 with early phases of which the Old Testament 

 has made us familiar, in which descent 

 through the male line has been established, in 

 which women have lost most of their com- 

 munal influence. To this day some will 

 speak of " the head of the house," going back 

 to the time of the tribal father with his 

 subject wives, when the women of the house 

 did not inherit property, but were property. 



It is the fashion of some women especially 

 to find nothing but abuse for the patriarchal 

 order, but the nature of things is to some 

 extent independent of their organisational 

 form. " For forms of government let fools 

 contest; whate'er is best administered is 

 best " may be a mugwump's doctrine, but 

 there is some sense in it. Given sound 

 economic conditions, wholesome occupations, 



