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 CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MATERNAL FAMILY.

I. The Familial Clan and the Family properly so-called.—The probable evolution of the family—It cannot have been uniform—Why the uterine family has been common. II. The Family in Africa.—The maternal family among the negroes of Africa, in Egypt, in Abyssinia, in Madagascar, among the Arabs and Kabyles. III. The Family in Malaya.

IV. The Family among the Naïrs of Malabar.—The female progenitrix, the mother-bee—The uncle among the Naïrs. V. The Family among the Aborigines of Bengal.—Co-existence of the maternal and paternal family; exogamy and endogamy. VI. The Couvade.—It exists in very different countries—The couvade in antiquity—The couvade in contemporary Europe—Signification of the couvade. VII. The Primitive Family.

I. The Familial Clan and the Family properly so-called.

At the conclusion of the preceding chapter I have ventured to sketch the probable evolution of the family, or at least that which must have been effected among the greater number of Melanesians, Polynesians, American Redskins, Tamils, and ancient Mongols. The small primitive societies founded by these races seem to have begun, not with the family, in the sense we give to this word, but by groups of consanguine individuals with still very confused filiation. The familial form which first emerged from this primitive clan was most often a matrimonial association between several sisters on the one hand and several brothers on the other. Then, from this