8. Famihj Relations amonr/ Savages. — That the mar- riage system in such imperfect stages of development as we find it to be among savage races cannot furnish any of the advantages guaranteed by the Biblical mar- riage system, will appear to all a matter hardly neces- sary to be dwelt upon. Yet there are some faint ideas of the family relation, as we conceive it, prevailing among ruile nations also. That polyandry, polygamy, and communism cannot establish the relationship of father and mother, is clearly apparent. Exogamj', how- ever, will do this measurably, especially where it ap- proaches the monogamous sj-stcm. In communal mar- riage no man can identify his father; the child is raised by the mother as a sort of tribal property, and naturally enough assumes her name, and only considers parentage as existing in the female line. This gave rise to the wide-spread sj-stem of kinship throiirjh the mother only, continuing to exist in many cases, though the
cause which provoked it has disappeared. There is good reason to believe that this system formerly existed among the Celts, and Max Midler {Chips from a Ger- man Wo7-kshop) has traced it to the ancient Brahmins. It also appears to have been in existence in the Shemi- tic races, and is traceable in the Grecian systems. Its effect is visible in the habits of many modern tribes, and shows itself evidently in the wide-spread habit, of which we liave already given several instances, of nam- ing the child after the clan of its mother, and consider- ing it as belonging especially to her family. Another cause of this lack of knowledge of tlie paternal relation might be habits similar to those attributed by Lafitau to the North American Indians, who, he says, visited their wives, as it were, by stealth : " lis n'osent aller dans les cabanes particuliers ou habitent leurs epouses, que du- rent I'obscurite de la nuit. . . . ce serait un action ex- traordinaire de s'y presenter le jour" (i, 57G). Herodo- tus says that the Lycians named the children from the mother. On the Etruscan tombs descent is traced in the female line. IMany modern instances exist besides those we have already mentioned. We may instance the Nairs, and other peoples of India ; the Saporogian Cossacks, certain Chinese communities, the Berberts of Sahara, and various other African tribes. Among the Buntar — the highest rank of Sudras in Tulava — a man's children arc not his heirs. During his lifetime he may give them money, but all of which he dies possessed goes to his sisters and to their children. AVhen a rich man died in Guinea, his property descended to his sis- ter's son. Battel says tlie town of Loango was gov- erned by four chiefs, the sons of the king's sister ; for king's sons never became kings. Quatremere relates that, " Chez les Nuljiens, dit Abon Selah, lorsqu'un roi vient a mourir et qu'il laisse un tils et un neveu du cote de sa soBur, celui-ci monte sur le trone de preference a I'heritier naturel" (Geoffr-aph. sur rEe/i/pte, etc.). M'Len- nan (Primif. Marriage, p. '247) thus traces the develop- ment of the family relation to our present status ; and, though we have said from the outset that we cannot sanction the position taken by liim and others of his class, we will not refuse them an introduction to our readers: "The polyandry, in which all the husbands were brothers, would establish the certainty of the chil- dren being of their own blood. In time the eldest broth- er became considered, by a species of fiction, the father of all the children ; the mother was deposed from the headship of the family, and kinship became established in the paternal line. The elder brother became a sort of paterfamilias; the right of succession being in the j'ounger brothers in their order, and, after them, in the eldest son. Thus the idea of fatherhood grew up through the Thibetan system of polj-andrj-. In most races, though, as the sexes became more evenly bal- anced, through progress toicards civilization, the system of monogamj^ or of polygamy would arise. Paternity thus becoming certain, the practice of sons succeeding as heirs direct to their father's estates woidd ensue, and, as this idea of paternal kinship arose, that of maternal relationship would die away." "Our family system, in which the child is equally related to both its parents," says Lubbock (p. 110), "appears at first sight the only natural one, but it is merely so in connection with our marriage system, there being sufficient reason to con- clude, as we have seen, that the child is first related to the family group only; then to the mother, and not to the father; afterwards to the father, and not to the mother; and, only as a final result of civilization, be- comes related to both." Maine {Ancient Law) and oth- er writers of his class, however, hold to a theorj^ that considers man's history, in the light of divine revela- tion, to open with perfect recognition of such kinship. In their view the family, under the father's government, was considered the primary unit, containing the germs of the state and of royalty. The family gathers other families about it, becoming the centre of a group ; and these groups, tracing back their descent to a common