hat is now lost. It must
then belong to primitive man, and not to civilised man, and must be
judged by the standard of morals belonging to primitive man. It is not
sufficient, or, indeed, in any way to the point, to say that the idea
of marrying one's own daughter is horrible and detestable to modern
ideas; we must place ourselves in a position to judge of such a state
of affairs from an altogether different standpoint. And what do we
find in primitive society? We find that women were the property, not
the helpmates, of their husbands. And the question hence arises, in
what relation did the children stand in respect to their parents? The
answer comes from almost all parts of the primitive world that, in
certain stages of society, the children were related to their mother
only. It is worth while pausing one moment to give evidence upon the
fact. Thus McLennan says of the Australians, "it is not in quarrels
uncommon to find children of the same father arrayed against one
another, or indeed, against their father himself; for by their
peculiar law _the father can never be a relative of his
children_."[73] This is not the language, though it is the evidence,
of the latest research, and another phase of it is represented by the
custom, as among the Ahts of Vancouver Island, that in case of
separation while the children are young, the children go always with
the mother to their own tribe.[74]

Here we see that the relationship between father and daughter was in
no way considered in ancient society of the type to which Australians
and Ahts belonged, and it is now one of the accepted facts of
anthropology that at certain stages of savage life fatherhood was not
recognised. That this non-relationship of the father very often
resulted in the further stage of the father marrying his daughter, is
exemplified by many examples. The story of Lot and his daughters, for
instance, will at once occur to the reader, and upon this Mr. Fenton
has some observations, to which I may refer the student who wishes to
pursue this curious subject further,[75] while Mr. Frazer, in his
recent study of Adonis, has discussed the practice with his usual
extent of knowledge.[76] Again, it should be remembered that in our
own chronicle histories Vortigern is said to have married his own
daughter, though the legend and the supposed consequences of the
marriage have been twisted from their original primitive surroundings
by the monkish chroniclers, through w