322 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



a device for gathering into the husband's kin all the 

 children of his wives to whom any semblance of a claim 

 can be made. Among the Galla of north-eastern 

 Africa, who are Moslem, the illegitimate children of a 

 woman married by the solemn rite of the rakkd are 

 legally descendants of the husband. 1 



Customs similar to those prescribed in the ancient 

 Indian law-books have even been in use in Europe. 

 A Spartan law attributed to Lycurgus required an old 

 man who had a young wife to introduce to her a young 

 man whose bodily and mental qualities he approved, 

 that he might beget children on her. 2 The primary 

 object indeed of this law and of others fathered on the 

 same law-giver was said to be what is called in modern 

 scientific jargon Eugenics. However that may have 

 been as regards the form in which they are reported to 

 us, there can be little doubt that they are formulations 

 of pre-existing custom which enabled the continuance 

 of the husband's family by another man. At all events 

 at Athens a law ascribed to Solon was in force which 

 provided that if the next-of-kin who had in accordance 

 with law successfully claimed an heiress for himself 

 were impotent, his place should be supplied by some 

 of his relatives (cum mariti adgnatis concubitd). This 

 as McLennan points out is identical with the law of 

 Manu cited above. In both cases the object was to 



Paulitschke, ii. 142. As to the rakko see Ibid. 47. I am not 

 aware whether the Boni, a subject people among the Galla and 

 Somali, are Mohammedans, or whether they are, as has been sug- 

 gested, of Galla origin. " There is no divorce among these people, 

 all the children of one woman, by whatever father, are the property 

 of the woman's original husband, if alive ; if dead, of her brother " 

 (Capt. Salkeld, Man (1905), 169 (par. 94). 



1 Xenophon, Rep. Laced, i. 9 ; Plutarch, Lycurgus. 



