t least normally
monogamous. When a young man wishes to marry a girl he speaks first to
her parents; if they are willing, he addresses himself to her. On the
day of the marriage he goes alone to her home, carrying his presents
wrapped in a blanket, his father and mother having preceded him
thither. When the young people are seated together the parents address
them in turn enjoining unity and forbearance. This constitutes the
ceremony. Tribal custom requires the bridegroom to reside with the
wife's family.[133]

Now I submit to the judgment of my readers--what do these examples of
mother-right among the aboriginal tribes of America show, if not that,
speaking broadly, women were the dominant force in this early stage
of civilisation? In some instances, it is true, their power was
shared, or even taken from them, by their brothers or other male
relatives. This I believe to have been a later development--a first
step in the assertion of male-force. In all cases the alien position
of the father, without tribal rights in his wife's clan and with no
recognised authority over her children, is evident. If this is denied,
the only conclusion that suggests itself to me is, that those who seek
to diminish the importance of mother-rule have done so in
reinforcement of their preconceived idea of male superiority as the
natural and unchanging order in the relationship between the sexes. I
have no hesitation as the result of very considerable study, in
believing that it is the exact opposite of this that is true. The
mother, and not the father, was the important partner in the early
stages of civilisation; father-right, the form we find in our sexual
relationships, is a later reversal of this natural arrangement, based,
not upon kinship, but upon property. This we shall see more clearly
later.

Thomas[134] suggests another reason for the general tendency among
many investigators to lessen the importance of the mother-age
civilisations. He thinks it due to dislike in acknowledging the theory
of promiscuity (notably Westermark in his _History of Human
Marriage_). This view would seem to be connected with the mistaken
opinion that womb-kinship arose through the uncertainty of paternity.
But this was not the sole reason, or indeed the chief one, of descent
being traced through the mother. We have found mother-rule in very
active existence among the Pueblo peoples, who are monogamists, and
where the paternity of the child must be known.