pass over the female
members. This has led, I am sure, to much error.

The custom of tracing descent through the mother, either practised
consciously and completely, or only as a survival, occurs among many
primitive peoples in all parts of the world. Whether, however, it
existed universally and from all time, or whether only in certain
races, among whose institutions it remains or may still be traced, is
a much debated question. Not all barbarous tribes are in the stage of
mother-right; on the contrary many reckon descent through the father.
But even where the latter is the case, vestiges of the former system
are frequently to be found. There seems to be a common tendency to
discredit a system of relationship, which suggests even as a bare
possibility the mother, and not the father, being the head of the
family. Yet, I believe I can assign some, at least plausible, reasons
for believing that descent through women has been a stage, though not,
I think, the first stage, in social growth for all branches of the
human family.

There can be little doubt of the importance of kinship and inheritance
being reckoned through the mother. If the children belong to her, and
if by marriage the husband enters her home, the greater influence,
based on the present possession of property, and the future hope of
the family rests on the female side. Such conditions must have
exercised strong influence on the position of the women members of the
primitive clan and the honour in which they were held. It cannot be
ignored.

Of course, this does not prevent the hardships of savage life weighing
more heavily in many ways upon women than on the stronger men. In
primitive societies women have a position quite as full of anomalies
as they hold among civilised races. Among some tribes their position
is extremely good; among others it is undoubtedly bad, but, speaking
generally, it is much better than usually it is held to be.[3]
Obviously the causes must be sought in the environment and in social
organisation. The differences in the status and power of women, often
occurring in tribes at the same level of progress, would seem to be
dependent largely on economic conditions. The subject is full of
difficulties. Not only is the position of women thus variable, but our
knowledge of the matter is very defective. It is seldom, indeed, that
the question has been considered of sufficient importance to receive
accurate attention.[4] Not infrequently c