wish of both, or even of one, of the partners. In the first
case the family property is divided equally between the wife and the
husband, while if only one partner desires to be freed the property
goes to the partner who is left. The children of the marriage remain
with the mother while they are young; but the boys belong to the
father. I wish it were possible for me to give a fuller account of the
Burmese family. The freedom and active work of the women offer many
points of special interest. One thing further must be noted. The
Burmese women would seem not to be wholly satisfied with their power,
disliking the work and responsibility which their freedom entails. For
this reason many of them prefer to marry a Chinese husband; he works
for them, while with a husband of their own country they have to work
for him. This is very instructive. It points to what I believe to be
the truth. The loss of her freedom by woman is often the result of her
own desire for protection and her dislike of work, and is not caused
by man's tyranny. Woman's own action in this matter is not
sufficiently recognised. I must not enter upon this here, as I shall
return to the subject later in this chapter. We must now consider the
traces left by mother-descent in Japan and China.

In Japan, as among the Basques, filiation is subordinated to the
transmission of property. It is to the first-born, whether a boy or a
girl, that the inheritance is transmitted, and he or she is forbidden
to abandon it. At the time of marriage the husband or wife must take
the name of the heir or heiress who marries and personifies the
property. Filiation is thus sometimes paternal and sometimes maternal.
The maternal uncle still bears the name of "second little
father."[172] The children of the same father, but not of the same
mother, were formerly allowed to marry, a decisive proof of
mother-descent. The wife remained with her own relatives, and the
husband had the right of visiting her by night. The word commonly used
for marriage signified _to slip by night into the house_. It was not
until the fourteenth century that the husband's residence was the home
of the wife, and marriage became a continued living together by the
married pair. Even now when a man marries an only daughter he
frequently lives with her family, and the children take her name.
There is also a custom by which a man with daughters, but no son,
adopts a stranger, giving him one of his daughters in mar