300 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



prepared for the transition from motherright to father- 

 right. Meanwhile, when the family under motherright 

 emerges the power is found to be wielded not by the 

 husband but by the wife's brothers, or her maternal 

 uncles, a circle constantly narrowing until the definition 

 of these terms approximates to our own, one of whom 

 takes ultimately the lead and appropriates the greater 

 part or sometimes the whole ofthepvtestas. Nor does 

 the transition to the reckoning of descent through the 

 father entirely and at once divest him of it. Enough 

 survives in his hands to form very material evidence of 

 the more archaic social organisation which preceded 

 the establishment of fatherright. 



Such being the social organisation of motherright, 

 it is obvious that the father is a wholly subordinate 

 personage, whose identity is of comparatively small 

 importance. A juridical system, it has grown out of 

 the consciousness of kin. The origin of the conscious- 

 ness of kin it is not my purpose here to investigate. 

 However originated, it was confined to kinship through 

 one parent only : the other parent was disregarded. 

 The assertion has often been made that the reason for 

 reckoning kinship exclusively through the mother is 

 that paternity is uncertain. There is undeniably a 

 distinction between maternity and paternity in this 

 respect. As it has been cynically put, maternity is a 

 question of fact, paternity a question of opinion. 

 This, for example, is the cause assigned by the old 

 Dutch writer Schouten for the rules of inheritance 

 among the Nayars j 1 and since his day it has been 

 assigned for similar rules of many other peoples. 



Uncertainty of fatherhood would be a good reason 

 1 Schouten, 458, 459. 



