2 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



interest in them, that the authority over them is vested 

 in the head of the mother's kin at large or (where the 

 true family has begun to emerge) in the head of the 

 mother's family usually the eldest male, her brother 

 or uncle, and finally that the chasm between the 

 father and husband on the one side and the wife and 

 her kin on the other is so wide that he is liable to them 

 in the blood-feud, in which even his children join 

 against him and inflict the extreme reprisal of death or 

 receive a share of the compensation paid in its place. 

 As the rights and position of the father are gradually 

 strengthened inroads are made on this social organi- 

 sation, so that all its characteristics are now seldom 

 found in full force even where descent is still reckoned 

 in the maternal line. The customs adduced from 

 various parts of the world are however sufficient to 

 show what was originally involved in the organisation. 

 An exhaustive examination of the social condition of 

 peoples in the lower culture, had that been possible 

 within the limits of this essay, would have exhibited it 

 still more clearly without diverging it is believed in 

 any essential respect from the lines thus laid down. 



We next proceed to examine some of the stages by 

 which fatherright has become dominant over a large 

 portion of the earth. The way for this inquiry has 

 been prepared by a consideration of the cause formerly 

 and sometimes even yet alleged for the reckoning of 

 descent through the mother only, namely, the greater 

 certainty. I have proved that this is not the cause. 

 It is in fact a crude attempt by persons accustomed to 

 a very different social condition to solve the unexpected 

 and in their view wholly exceptional problem of 

 motherright. So far from being exceptional, mother- 



