y period when descent was traced exclusively through the mother;
he gives a long list of peoples among whom the system is not
practised. These passages occur in his well-known _Criticism of the
Hypothesis of Promiscuity_,[42] and his whole argument is based on the
assumption that mother-right arose through the tie between the father
and the child being unrecognised. But mother-descent has no connection
at all with uncertainty of paternity. I venture to think Dr.
Westermarck has not sufficiently considered this aspect of the
question, and, if I mistake not, it is this confusion of
mother-descent with promiscuity which explains his attitude towards
the maternal system, and his failure to recognise its favourable
influence on the status of women. In his opinion this system of
tracing descent does not materially affect the relative power of the
two sexes.[43] In such a view I cannot help thinking he is mistaken;
and I am supported in this by the fact that he makes the important
qualification that the husband's power is impaired when he lives among
his wife's kinsfolk. Now, it is this form of marriage, or the more
primitive custom when the husband only visits his wife, that is
practised among the peoples who have preserved the complete maternal
family. Under such a domestic arrangement, which really reverses the
position of the wife and the husband, mother-right is found; this
maternal marriage is, indeed, the true foundation of the woman's
power. Where the marriage system has been changed from the maternal to
the paternal form, and the wife is taken from the protection of her
own kindred to live in the home of her husband, even when descent is
still traced through the mother, the chief authority is almost always
in the hands of the father. Thus it need not cause surprise to find
mother-descent combined with a fully established patriarchal rule. But
among such peoples practices may often be met with that can be
explained only as survivals from an earlier maternal system. Moreover,
in other cases, we meet with tribes that have not yet advanced to the
maternal stage. A study of existing tribes, and of the records of
ancient civilisations, will yield any number of examples.

[42] _History of Human Marriage_, pp. 97-104.

[43] "The Position of Woman in Early Civilisations,"
_Sociological Papers_, 1904.

Unmistakable traces of mother-right may, indeed, be found by those,
whose eyes are opened to see, in all races.