n the struggle was the one that prevailed.

This reversal in the form of the marriage brought about a
corresponding reversal in the status of women. This is so plain. The
women of the family do not now inherit property, but are themselves
property, passing from the hands of their father to that of a husband.
As purchased wives they are compelled to reside in the husband's house
and among his kin, who have no rights or duties in regard to them, and
where they are strangers. In a word, the wife occupies the same
position of disadvantage as the man had done in the maternal marriage.
And her children kept her bound to this alien home in a much closer
way than the husband could ever have been bound to her home. The
protection of her own kindred was the source of the woman's power and
strength. This was now lost. The change was not brought about without
a struggle, and for long the old customs contended with the new. But
as the patriarchate developed, and men began to gain individual
possession of their children by the purchase of their mothers, the
father became the dominant power in the family. Little by little
individual interests prevailed. Moral limits were set up. Women's
freedom was threatened on every side as the jealous ownership, which
always arises wherever women are regarded as property, asserted
itself. Mother-right passed away, remaining only as a tradition, or
preserved in isolated cases among primitive peoples. The patriarchal
age, which still endures, succeeded.

Yet in this connection it is very necessary to remember that the
reassertion of the patriarchate was as necessary a stage in human
development as the maternal stage. Whatever may have been the
advantages arising to women from the clan organisation (and that the
advantages were great I claim to have proved) such conditions could
not remain fixed for ever. For society is not stable; it cannot be, as
the need for adjustment is always arising, and at certain stages of
development different tendencies are active. No one cause can be
isolated, and, therefore, it is necessary in estimating any change to
take a synthetic view of many facts that are contemporaneous and
interacting. Yet, it would seem that the social and domestic habits of
a people are decided largely by the degree of dominance held either by
women or men; and almost everything else depends on the accurate
adjustment of the rights of the two sexes.

The social clan organised around the moth