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 79 2 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

is group-homogeneity to a greater or less degree. Figuratively speaking, it is the process by which the aggregation of peoples is changed from a mere mechanical mixture into a chemical compound.

Assimilation arises with the very beginnings of human association. Various modes of intercourse may have prevailed among primitive men. Their meetings may have been friendly, as is the case with the Eskimos today, or they may have been warlike. It is possible that the original state of human associa- tion was that of peace as it was that of independence. Quite likely is it, indeed, that this should have been the case, at a time when authority was not yet established, when customs were not yet formed, when association was yet so loose that even the bond of kinship was scarcely felt. Whatever may have been the organization of primitive society, whether promiscuity reigned and the mother-right, in consequence, had precedence over the father-right, as Bachofen, 1 McLennan, 2 and Morgan 3 would have

'BACHOFEN, Das Mutterrecht, pp. xix, xx, 10. See McLENNAN, Studies in Ancient History, pp. 319-25, for a brief outline of Bachofen's views.

" McLENNAN, Studies in Ancient History, pp. 92-5.

3 MORGAN, Ancient Society, chap. i. Bachofen from the study of myths, McLennan from the study of ceremonials, and Morgan from the study of American tribal institu- tions arrived at the conclusion that promiscuity was the original state of the human family. POSADA, Theories modernes sur les Origines de la Famille, de la Soci^te et de rtat, pp. 48-53. SPENCER, in Principles of Sociology, Vol. I, p. 602, says: "We have thus to begin with a state in which the family, as we understand it, does not exist. In the loose groups of men first formed there is no established order of any kind : everything is indefinite and unsettled. As the relations of men to one another are undetermined, so are the relations of men to women. In either case there are no guides save the passions of the moment, checked only by fear of consequences." Also ibid., p. 610. LUBBOCK, in the Origin of Civilization, p. 99, asserts that there was a period when kinship was determined by feminine filiation, but repudiates the idea of a period when feminine power was supreme. GIRAUD-TEULON, in his Origines du Mariage et de la Famille, pp. 240, 241, admits that there was an epoch when the preservation of the species was the principal social and religious law. Thus he was led to assert the essential early predominance of woman and to say that " the great religious and political function of the queens of Egypt was maternity." The aim of DR. LOTHAR VON DARGUN'S book Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht is to show the distinction between relationship and power. The fact that relationship is traced through the mother in a certain group does not necessarily mean that feminine power is dominant in that group.