familiar with the results of the commerce of the sexes. The practice
of exogamy was no doubt, as shown by Dr. Westermarck, favoured and
supported by the influence of novelty in sexual attraction, since
according to common observation and experience sexual love or desire
is more easily excited between strangers or slight acquaintances than
between those who have long lived together in the same household or
in familiar intercourse. In the latter case the attraction is dulled
by custom and familiarity.

69. Exogamy with female descent.

The exogamous clan, with female descent, was, however, an unstable
social institution, in that it had no regular provision for marriage
nor for the incorporation of married couples. The men who associated
with the women of the clan were not necessarily, nor as a rule,
admitted to it, but remained in their own clans. How this association
took place is not altogether clear. At a comparatively late period in
Arabia, according to Professor Robertson Smith, [163] the woman would
have a tent, and could entertain outside men for a shorter or longer
period according to her inclination. The practice of serving for a wife
also perhaps dates from the period of female descent. The arrangement
would have been that a man went and lived with a woman's family
and gave his services in return for her conjugal society. Whether
the residence with the wife's family was permanent or not is perhaps
uncertain. When Jacob served for Leah and Rachel, society seems to have
been in the early patriarchal stage, as Laban was their father and
he was Laban's sister's son. But it seems doubtful whether his right
was then recognised to take his wives away with him, for even after
he had served fourteen years Laban pursued him, and would have taken
them back if he had not been warned against doing so in a vision. The
episode of Rachel's theft of the images also seems to indicate that
she intended to take her own household gods with her and not to adopt
those of her husband's house. And Laban's chief anxiety was for the
recovery of the images. A relic of the husband's residence with his
wife's family during the period of female descent may perhaps be found
in the Banjara caste, who oblige a man to go and live with his wife's
father for a month without seeing her face. Under the patriarchal
system this rule of the Banjaras is meaningless, though the general
practice of serving for a wife survives as a method of purchas