The Roman, British, and Teutonic Systems. 5 1 



connecting link in the constitution. The machinery of govern- 

 ment is too general to cover local necessities. The central 

 authority has abstracted the powers of the paterfamilias, and 

 has not been able to replace them with anything so far-reach- 

 ing. The families group themselves under individual protection 

 and start a system of local government, and that, in other 

 words, is the manor. But the policy of decentralisation is soon 

 carried too far. A common danger reminds the individual 

 that he has national interests. A reaction sets in, out of 

 which is evolved an organisation, mainly dependant for its 

 success on the spirit of patriotism, which culminates in State 

 government. 



But there are many exceptions to what has been called the 

 patriarchal theory. The custom of agnation is not universal 

 to the human race.^ Amongst the Hebrews the mother had as 

 much power as the father, and the latter parent retained a 

 claim to his daughters even after marriage. There is the Mutter 

 Recht in direct opposition to the patria protestas, closely con- 

 nected with which are cognation and esogamy. Thus, in the 

 case of the American Indians, intermarriage within the totem 

 is strictly interdicted. There is endogamy, with its caste 

 distinctions, amongst the Karems and Keokas of India. There 

 is marriage by capture, still prevalent amongst the aborigines of 

 Africa, and promiscuous intercourse amongst those of Australia. 

 Even in certain of the aboriginal tribes of Britain, about which 

 we are specially interested, Csesar has told of a polyandric 

 tendency, and all these examples militate against the generality 

 of the process through which we have just sought to trace the 

 evolution of the manorial system.^ 



But they do not really upset the broad lines of man's primi- 

 tive procedure laid down above, beyond instancing those 

 proverbial exceptions which are said to prove the rule. It is 

 probable that, without outside influences, no nationality would 

 progress beyond the tribal period ; so at least the prevalence 

 of this early stage of man's development in many parts of 

 the world at this late age would seem to prove. 



* McLennan, Patriarchal Tlieory^ Deut. xxi. 18-21 ; Gen. xxxi. 43. 

 " Csesar, Bell. Gall. v. 14. 



