Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/348

 of all degrees may inherit in default of ascendants and descendants. In all this list there is no mention of women.

In fact, whatever property a Kabyle woman may have been able laboriously to amass, it falls to the male descent, to the ascendants, or to the husband, or to the collaterals in the paternal line. It is only in default of this cloud of male heirs that the succession to the property gained by a Kabyle woman devolves at last on her daughters, or her mother or grandmother. From all the preceding facts, and in spite of gaps in our information, we may, however, suppose that in the Berber world also the family has evolved in passing through three degrees, which we have already found amongst various races, and which are the communal clan, the maternal family, and the patriarchate.

IV. The Family in Persia.

This evolution seems therefore very common; it is a general fact, but we are not yet warranted in calling it a law. Thus, as far as our information goes, which it is true is not very complete, no trace of it is to be found among the ancient Persians, with whom we will now begin our interrogation of the Aryan races, from the point of view of their familial organisation. If the familial clan with confused kinship has ever existed in ancient Persia, it can only have been at an extremely remote epoch; there is no trace of it in the Avesta. And more than this, the most ancient accounts show us the patriarchal family, in the Hebraic sense of the word, instituted among the Mazdeans: a legitimate wife, purchased from her parents, and by the side of her a greater or less number of concubines; and lastly, dominating all the rest, the father of the family, having the right of life or death over the wives and children.

Not only does the clan not exist, but exogamy is replaced by the most incestuous of endogamies. Thus Strabo relates that, following a very ancient custom, the Magi might have