be, that is so important, but the fact that by
the change in the form of marriage the wife and her children were cut
off from the woman's clan-kindred, whose duty to protect them was now
withdrawn. Here, then, was the reason of the change from mother-right
to father-right. The monopolist desire of the husband to possess for
himself the woman and her children (perhaps the deepest rooted of all
the instincts) reasserted itself. But the regaining of this individual
possession by man was due, not to male strength, but to purchase. I
must insist upon this. As soon as women became sexually marketable
their freedom was doomed.

There are many interesting cases of transition in which the children
belong sometimes to the mother and sometimes to the father. Again I
can give one or two examples only. In the island of Mangia the parents
at the birth of the child arranged between themselves whether it
should be dedicated to the father's god or to the mother's. The
dedication took place forthwith, and finally determined which parent
had the ownership of the child.[134] Among the Haidis, children belong
to the clan of the mother, but in exceptional cases when the clan of
the father is reduced in numbers, the new-born child may be given to
the father's sister to suckle. It is then spoken of as belonging to
the paternal aunt and is counted to its father's clan.[135] It is also
possible to transfer a child to the father by giving it one of the
names common to his clan. There are many curious customs practised by
certain tribes, wavering between mother and father descent. In Samoa
religion decides the question. At the birth of a child the totem of
each parent is prayed to in turn (usually, though not always, starting
with that of the father) and whichever totem happens to be invoked at
the moment of birth is the child's totem for life and decides whether
he or she belongs to the clan of the mother or the father.[136]
Equally curious was the custom of the Liburni, where the children were
all brought up together until they were five years old. They were then
collected and examined in order to trace their likeness to the men and
they were assigned to their fathers accordingly. Whoever received a
boy from his mother in this way regarded him as his son.[137]
Similarly with the Arabs, where one woman was the wife of several men,
the custom was either for the woman to decide to which of them the
child was to belong, or the child was assigned by