$8 PRIMItiVE PATERNITY 



theme of the Father-and-Son Combat. The ultimate 

 tendency therefore of residence by the wife at the 

 husband's home would be in the direction of patrilineal 

 reckoning. Moreover, in the progress of culture 

 property of one kind or another began to be accumu- 

 lated. It was poor at the best according to our 

 standard ; but such as it was it was invaluable in the 

 struggle for subsistence, for maintenance against the 

 forces of surrounding nature or men, and for advance 

 in material civilisation. The children of a man who 

 owned property would during his lifetime share in 

 its advantages. On the occasion of his death religion 

 required much of it to be destroyed or abandoned to 

 the deceased. Under motherright the children had 

 the mortification to see what remained pass away from 

 them to their father's relations. Though on the other 

 hand they were entitled to share in what was left by 

 their mother's male kin, that perhaps hardly made up 

 to them the loss of the hunting-grounds, the woods, 

 the fields, the house, the cattle, the beasts of burden, 

 the arms and other objects hitherto associated with 

 their life and of which they had shared in the usufruct. 

 This motive, partly economical partly sentimental, 

 for a change of kinship-reckoning was not, it may 

 be conceded, everywhere potent. That it had its 

 influence however in bringing about the result is clear 

 from the fact that even under motherright the father 

 begins to take care of his children in this respect by 

 bestowing on them substantial gifts in his lifetime, 

 and from their claim, as among the Malay population 

 of Tiga Loeroeng, to a share of his property after his 

 death ; a claim logically inconsistent with mother- 

 right. 



