five
entire ethnical periods, and the greater part of a sixth,
behind it; and its institutions were, comparatively speaking,
modern.]

[Footnote 59: McLennan's _Studies in Ancient History,
comprising a reprint of Primitive Marriage_, etc. London, 1876,
p. 421.]

[Footnote 60: There is much that is unsound in it, however, as
is often inevitably the case with books that strike boldly into
a new field of inquiry.]

[Footnote 61: A general view of the subject may be obtained
from the following works: Bachofen, _Das Mutterrecht_,
Stuttgart, 1871, and _Die Sage von Tanaquil_, Heidelberg, 1870;
McLennan's _Studies in Ancient History_, London, 1876, and _The
Patriarchal Theory_, London, 1884; Morgan's _Systems of
Consanguinity_ (Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol.
xvii.), Washington, 1871, and _Ancient Society_, New York,
1877; Robertson Smith, _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_,
Cambridge, Eng., 1885; Lubbock, _Origin of Civilization_, 5th
ed., London, 1889; Giraud-Teulon, _La Mere chez certains
peuples de l'antiquite_, Paris, 1867, and _Les Origines de la
Famille_, Geneva, 1874; Starcke (of Copenhagen), _The Primitive
Family_, London, 1889. Some criticisms upon McLennan and Morgan
may be found in Maine's later works, _Early History of
Institutions_, London, 1875, and _Early Law and Custom_,
London, 1883. By far the ablest critical survey of the whole
field is that in Spencer's _Principles of Sociology_, vol. i.
pp. 621-797.]

[Sidenote: Original reason for the system.]

[Sidenote: The primeval human horde.]

[Sidenote: Earliest family-group: the clan.]

[Sidenote: "Exogamy."]

If now we ask the reason for such a system of reckoning kinship and
inheritance, so strange according to all our modern notions, the true
answer doubtless is that which was given by prudent ([Greek:
Pepnymenos]) Telemachus to the goddess Athene when she asked him to tell
her truly if he was the son of Odysseus:--"My mother says I am his son,
for my part, I don't know; one never knows of one's self who one's
father is."[62] Already, no doubt, in Homer's time there was a gleam of
satire about this answer, such as it would show on a modern page; but in
more primitive times it was a very serious