traced through the mother. But is this really so? The
evidence of the Australian tribes points to the exact opposite
opinion. For what do we find? The tribes that have established
mother-descent have advanced further, with a more developed social
organisation, which could hardly be the case if they were the more
primitive. To this question Starcke, in _The Primitive Family_, has
drawn particular attention; he regards "the female line as a later
development," arrived at after descent through the father was
recognised, such change being due to an urgent necessity which arose
in the primitive family for cohesion among its members, making
necessary sexual regulation and the maternal clan.

It is certainly difficult to decide on the priority of this or that
custom. But what is significant is that in Australia the tribes which
maintain the male line of descent must be assigned to the lowest stage
of development. The rights established by marriage among them are less
clearly defined, and the use of the totem marks, with the sexual
taboos arising from them, are less developed. Everything tends to show
that clan organisation and union in peace have arisen with
mother-descent, which cannot thus be regarded as a survival from the
earlier order, but as a later development--a step forward in progress
and social regulation.

I take this as being exceedingly important: it serves to establish
what it has been my purpose to show, that in the first stage the
family was patriarchal--small hostile groups living under the jealous
authority of the fathers; and that only as advancement came did the
maternal clan develop, since it arose through a community of purpose
binding all its members in peace, and thereby controlling the warring
individual interests. The reasons for mother-descent have been
altogether misunderstood by those who regard it as the earliest phase
of the family, and connect the custom with sexual disorder and
uncertainty of paternity. In all cases the clan system shows a marked
organisation, with a much stronger cohesion than is possible in the
restricted family, which is held together by the force of the father.
It was within the clan that the rights of the father and husband were
endangered: he lost his position as supreme head of the family, and
became an alien member in a free association where his position was
strictly defined. The incorporation of the family into the clan arose
through the struggle for existence for