t in making unfamiliar sexual alliances. But,
quite aside from its origin, exogamy is an energetic expression of
the male nature. Natural selection favors the process by sparing the
groups which by breeding out have heightened their physical vigor.[96]
There results from this a social condition which, from the standpoint
of modern ideas, is very curious. The man makes, and, by force of
convention, finally must make, his matrimonial alliances only with
women of other groups; but the woman still remains in her own group,
and the children are members of her group, while the husband remains
a member of his own clan, and is received, or may be received, as
a guest in the clan of his wife. Upon his death his property is
not shared by his children, nor by his wife, since these are not
members of his clan; but it falls to the nearest of kin within his
clan--usually to his sister's children.

The maternal system of descent is found in all parts of the world
where social advance stands at a certain level, and the evidence
warrants the assumption that every group which advances to a culture
state passes through this stage. Morgan gives an account of this
system among the Iroquois:

Each household was made up on the principle of kin. The
married women, usually sisters, own or collateral, were of
the same gens or clan, the symbol or totem of which was often
painted upon the house, while their husbands and the wives of
their sons belonged to several other gentes. The children were
of the gens of their mother. While husband and wife belonged
to different gentes, the predominating number in each
household would be of the same gens, namely, that of their
mothers. As a rule the sons brought home their wives, and in
some cases the husbands of the daughters were admitted to
the maternal household. Thus each household was composed of
a mixture of persons of different gentes, but this would not
prevent the numerical ascendency of the particular gens to
whom the house belonged. In a village of one hundred and
twenty houses, as the Seneca village of Tiotohatton described
by Mr. Greenbalge in 1677, there would be several houses
belonging to each gens. It presented a general picture of the
Indian life in all parts of America at the epoch of European
discovery.[97]

Morgan also quotes Rev. Ashur Wright, for many years a missionary
among the Senecas and familiar with