th entirely different
interests.

According to the mother-right, i. e., so long as descent followed only
in female line, the custom was that the gentile relatives inherited from
the deceased gentile fellow-members on the mother's side. The property
remained in the gens. The children of the deceased father did not belong
to his gens, but to that of the mother: accordingly, they did not
inherit from the father; at his death his property fell back to his own
gens. Under the new conditions, where the father was the
property-holder, i. e., the owner of herds and slaves, of weapons and
utensils, and where he had become a handicraftsman, or merchant, his
property, so long as he was still considered of the gens of his mother,
fell after his death, not to his own children, but to his brothers and
sisters, and to the children of his sisters, or to the successors of
his sisters. His own children went away empty-handed. The pressure to
change such a state of things was, accordingly, powerful;--and it was
changed. Thereupon a condition arose that was not yet monogamy, but that
approximated it; there arose the "pairing family." A certain man lived
with a certain woman, and the children, born of that relation, were that
couple's own children. These pairing families increased in the measure
in which the marriage inhibitions, that flowed from the gentile
constitution, hampered marriage, and in which the above mentioned
economic grounds rendered desirable this new form of family life.
Personal property accorded ill with the old condition of things, which
rested upon the community of goods. Both _rank_ and _occupation_ now
decidedly favored the necessity for the choice of a domicile. The
production of merchandise begot commerce with neighboring and foreign
nations; and that necessitated money. It was man who led and controlled
this development. His private interests had, accordingly, no longer any
real points of contact with the old gentile organization, whose
interests often stood in opposition to his own. Accordingly, the
importance of the gentile organization sank ever more. The gens finally
became little more than the center of the religious functions for the
family, its economic significance was gone. The complete dissolution of
gentile organization became only a question of time.

With the dissolution of the old gentile organization, the influence and
position of woman sank rapidly. The mother-right vanished; the
father-right step