124 TRANSACTIONS OP THE 



but having polygamic marriage and marriage by legal appointment, 

 and with these, marriage by elopement, by capture, and by duel. 



In the family law of very early society descent is in the female 

 line, the control of the children belongs to the mother and her 

 consanguineal kindred, and the father and his kindred have no 

 control over the family. The husband is but the guest of the wife 

 and her friends. 



During the process of development from communal marriage, 

 and the system of kinship involved, to monogamic marriage and 

 its system of kinship, a change from descent in the female to 

 descent in the male line occurs, and with this change the control of 

 the family is relegated to the husband and father, and rapidly this 

 control becomes absolute, and the patriarchal family is established, 

 in which the father has power of life and death over his wives and 

 children and all their descendants ; but gradually this power is 

 regulated by law. 



A method by which descent is changed from the female to the 

 male line, that is, by which mother-right is changed to father-right, 

 appears among the North American Indians. When the gentes of 

 which a tribe is composed do not live in a compact village but are 

 spread over a large area of country, so that each gens lives alone, 

 separated by miles of distance from the others, the consanguineal 

 relatives of the wives, who are the guardians and masters of the 

 family, are not present and cannot exercise control. Under such 

 circumstances authority is gradually assumed by the husbands, and 

 the line of descent is ultimately changed. There may be other 

 methods by which this change is made. 



PROPERTY LAW. 



Property law is naturally divided into two classes — property in 

 chattels and property in land. 



To a large extent in primitive society chattel property is com- 

 munal — owned by classes or clans — but a few articles, such as cloth- 

 ing, ornaments, and some implements and utensils, are owned by in- 



