PHYSIOLOGICAL IGNORANCE 283 



Anthropological research has abundantly demonstrated 

 that among the lowest races kinship is with some 

 exceptions reckoned exclusively through the mother, 

 and where it is reckoned exclusively through the father 

 there are generally indications of a previous stage in 

 which it was reckoned through the mother ; whereas the 

 contrary case of kinship reckoned through the mother 

 with traces of a previous reckoning through the father 

 is not known to exist. We are accordingly justified 

 in postulating the reckoning of kinship through the 

 mother (called motherright) as the earlier. In strict 

 motherright the father is not considered as belonging 

 to the kin of the children, the headship of the family 

 is vested in the mother's brothers or maternal uncles, 

 the father does not transmit his name or property 

 to his children ; on the other hand, he is often placed 

 by the operation of the blood-feud in an antagonistic 

 position towards them. 



We examined the theory which accounts for mother- 

 right as founded on the uncertainty of paternity and 

 rejected it on the ground that while motherright 

 prevails not only where paternity is uncertain but also 

 where it is practically certain, the opposite organisa- 

 tion of fatherright is founded on no guarantee of 

 certainty. On the contrary, licence is often as great in 

 fatherright as in motherright and the legal father may 

 be perfectly well known not to have begotten the 

 children. Without pretending to trace exhaustively 

 the history of the transition from motherright to father- 

 right, we considered some of its stages and came to 

 the conclusion that whereas motherright was founded 

 on the recognition of a common blood, fatherright was 

 traceable to social and economic causes of a different 



