ystem involves rule by women.
This may have happened in some cases, but I do not think that it can
ever have been common. I am very certain, however, of the error in the
view which accepts the subordination of women as the common condition
among barbarous peoples, whereas there are indications and proofs in
all directions of a more or less strong assertiveness on their part,
and always in the direction of social unity and sexual regulation. The
fact that the maternal system resulted in the limitation of the
freedom of the male members of the family is, in my opinion, to be
attributed to those powerful female qualities which exercised an
immense influence on early societies. Regarding what has been said, I
think it cannot be denied that while individual rights were of far
more importance to the males, the idea of the family and social rights
were, in their turn, essentially feminine sentiments. Thus it was in
the women's interest to consolidate the family, and by means of this
their own power; and they succeeded in doing so to an extraordinary
extent in primitive communities, without help of the maternal customs,
which, as I have tried to make clear, arose out of the conditions of
the primordial family and by the action of the united mothers. If I am
right, then, here is the primary cause of the women's position of
authority in the communal maternal family.

I am very certain of the rights such a system conferred upon women;
rights that are impossible under the patriarchal family, which
involves the subordination of the woman to her father first and
afterward to her husband. In proof of this let us now consider
marriage and divorce, the laws of inheritance, and other customs of
the Khasis. And first we may note that polygamy--the distinctive
custom of the patriarchs--does not exist; as Mr. Gurdon remarks, "such
a practice would not be in vogue among a people who observe the
matriarchate." This is the more remarkable as the Khasi women
considerably outnumber the men. In 1901 there were 1118 females to
1000 males. At the present time the people are monandrists. There are
instances of men having wives other than those they regularly marry,
but the practice is not common. Such wives are called "stolen wives,"
and their children are said "to be from the top," _i. e._ from the
branches of the clan and not the root. In the War country the children
of the "stolen wife" enjoy an equal share in the father's property
with the chil