in many minds
by three distinct ethnologic phenomena, which are, moreover, often
confounded: (1) kinship and heredity through females; (2) matriarchy,
or woman's rule in the family (domestic); (3) gynaicocracy, or woman's
rule in the tribe (political).

(1) It is a remarkable fact that among many tribes, especially in
Australia, America, and Africa, children are named after their mother,
while rank and property, too, are often inherited in the female line
of descent. Lafitau observed this custom among American Indians more
than a century ago, and in 1861 a Swiss jurist, Bachofen, published a
book in which he tried to prove, with reference to this "kinship
through mothers only," that it indicated that there was a time when
women everywhere ruled over men. A study of ethnologic data shows,
however, that this inference is absolutely unwarranted by the facts.
In Australia, for instance, where children are most commonly named
after their mother's clan, there is no trace of woman's rule over man,
either in the present or the past. The man treats the woman as a
master treats his slaves, and is complete master of her children.
Cunow, an authority on Australian relationships, remarks (136):

"Nothing could be more perverse than to infer from the
custom of reasoning kinship through females, that woman
rules there, and that a father is not master of his
children. On the contrary, the father regards himself
everywhere, even in tribes with a female line of
descent, as the real procreator. He is considered to be
the one who plants the germ and the woman as merely the
soil in which it grows. And as the wife belongs to him,
so does the child that comes from her womb. Therefore
he claims also those children of his wife concerning
whom he knows or assumes that he did not beget them;
for they grew on his soil."

Similarly with the American Indians. Grosse has devoted several pages
(73-80) to show that with the tribes among which kinship through
females prevails woman's position is not in the least better than with
the others. Everywhere woman is bought, obliged to submit to polygamy,
compelled to do the hardest and least honorable work, and often
treated worse than a dog. The same is true of the African tribes among
whom kinship in the female line prevails.

If, therefore, kinship through mothers does not argue female
supremacy, how did that kinship arise? Le Jeune offered