rabs--The custom of _beena_ marriage--Position of women in the
Mariana Islands--Rebellion of the husbands--Use of religious
symbolism--The slave-wife--Her consecration to the Bossum or
god in Guinea.

IV.--_The Transition to Father-right_

The position of women in Burma--The code of Manu--Women's activity
in trade--Conditions of free-divorce--Traces of mother-descent
in Japan--In China--In Madagascar--The power of royal
princesses--Tyrannical authority of the princesses of
Loango--In Africa descent through women the
rule--Illustrations--The transition to father-right--The power
passing from the mother into the hand of the maternal
uncle--Proofs from the customs of the African tribes--The rise
of father-right--Reasons which led to the change--Marriage by
capture and marriage by purchase--The payment of a
bride-price--Marriage with a slave-wife--The conflict between
the old and the new system--Illustration by the curious
marriage customs of the Hassanyeh Arabs of the White
Nile--Father-right dependent on economic
considerations--_Resume_--General conclusions to be drawn from
the mother-age--Its relation to the present revolt of
women--The bright side of father-right.

CHAPTER VI

THE MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION

I.--_Progress from Lower to Higher Forms of the Family Relationship_

"The reader who grasps that a thousand years is but a small
period in the evolution of man, and yet realises how diverse
were morality and customs in matters of sex in the period which
this essay treats of" (_i.e._ _Mother-Age Civilisation_), "will
hardly approach modern social problems with the notion that
there is a rigid and unchangeable code of right and wrong. He
will mark, in the first place, a continuous flux in all social
institutions and moral standards; but in the next place, if he
be a real historical student, he will appreciate the slowness of
this steady secular change; he will perceive how almost
insensible it is in the lifetime of individuals, and although he
may work for social reforms, he will refrain from constructing
social Utopias."--Professor KARL PEARSON.

Our study of the sexual associations among animals has brought us to
understand how large a part the gratification of the sex-instincts
plays in animal life, equalling and, indeed, overmasteri