Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/773

 RELATION OF SEX TO PRIMITIVE SOCIAL CONTROL 759

In Africa descent through females is the rule, with excep- tions. The practice of the Wamoima, where the son of the sister is preferred in legacies, because "a man's own son is only the son of his wife," is typical. 1 Battel reported that the state of Loango was ruled by four princes, the sons of the former king's sister, since the own sons of the king never succeeded. 2

Traces of this system are found in China and Japan, and it is still in full force in parts of India. Among the Kasias of northeast India the husband resides in the house of his wife, or visits her occasionally. "Laws of rank and property follow the ^strictest maternal type ; when a couple separate, the children remain with the mother ; the son does not succeed his father, but the raja's neglected offspring may become a common peasant or laborer; the sister's son succeeds to rank, and is heir to the property." 3

Male kinship prevails among the Arabs, but Professor Robert- son Smith has discovered abundant evidence that the contrary practice prevailed in ancient Arabia. "The women of the Jahiliya, or some of them, had the right to dismiss their hus- bands, and the form of dismissal was this: If they lived in a tent, they turned it round, so that, if the door had faced east, it now faced west, and when the man saw this, he knew that he was dismissed, and did not enter." 4 And after the establishment of the male system the women still held property a survival from maternal times. A form of divorce pronounced by a husband was, " Begone ! for I will no longer drive thy flocks to the pas- ture." 5 " Our evidence seems to show that, when something like regular marriage began, and a free tribeswoman had one husband or one definite group of husbands at a time, the husbands at first came to her and she did not go to them." 6

Numerous survivals of the older system are also found among the Hebrews. The servant of Abraham anticipated that the bride whom he was sent to bring for Isaac might be unwilling to leave

J. I.IPPF.RT. Kulturzesfhithte. Vol. II, p. 57.

LUBBOCK, Origin of Civilisation, \>. ' TV LOR. loc. <//., p. 87.

4 \V. ROBERTSON SMI I ll. AV<*// n<i M Arabia, p. 65.

s SMITH, Av. eit., p. oj. 173,