168 UNIVERSALITY OF DEGENERATIVE EVOLUTION 



2. The Patriarchy. The Patriarchy, which was 

 a system of family community, is still exhibited in 

 the participanze of Italy, the companion de Galicia 

 of Spain, the parsonneries of France, the Haus- 

 genossenschaften of Germany, and the zadrugas of 

 the Balkan peninsular. Besides these, the family 

 system of to-day, according to Sumner-Maine, 

 affords constant evidences of a patria protestas 

 in process of decay and of declining male property 

 rights. 



Survivals from the old patriarchal system abound 



in modern legislation. Take the following examples : 



(a) The limitations imposed on a testator with 



regard to leaving his property away from 



his family (Civ. Code, 213 and following). 



(&) The legal opposition to a woman's equality 



in succession. 



The more barbarous laws, if not actually 

 excluding women from succession, at least 

 excluded their succession to landed estate, 

 in order to keep the family property intact. 

 In France the privilege of sex was main- 

 tained in some respects, even among the 

 peasants, up to the close of the old 

 regime, and it still exists in the present 

 day in different degrees in Scandinavia, 

 Russia, Servia, and some of the Swiss 

 Cantons. 



c) The inequality of the sexes as regards con- 

 jugal fidelity. 



