oved.
I am thus brought into agreement with Dr. Westermarck, Mr. Crawley,
and Mr. Lang, in his examination of Mr. Atkinson's _Primal Law_, as
well as with other writers, all of whom have shown that promiscuity
cannot be accepted as a stage in the early life of the human family.

I have now to show how far this rejection of promiscuity affects our
position with regard to mother-descent and mother-right. It is clearly
of vital importance to any theory that its foundations are secure. One
foundation--that of promiscuity, on which Bachofen and McLennan, the
two upholders of matriarchy, base their hypothesis--has been
overthrown. It thus becomes necessary to approach the question from an
altogether different position. Mother-right must be explained without
any reference to unregulated sexual conduct. I am thus turned back to
examine the opposing theory to matriarchy, which founds the family on
the patriarchal authority of the father. Nor is this all. What we must
expect a true theory to do is to show conditions that are applicable
not only to special cases, but in their main features to mankind in
general. I have to prove that such conditions arose in the primitive
patriarchal family as it advanced towards social aggregation, that
would not only make possible, but, as I believe, would necessitate the
power of the mothers asserting its force in the group-family. Only
when this is done can I hope that a new belief in mother-right may
find acceptance.

The patriarchal theory stated in its simplest form is this: Primeval
man lived in small family groups, composed of an adult male, and of
his wife, or, if he were powerful, several wives, whom he jealously
guarded from the sexual advances of all other males. In such a group
the father is the chief or patriarch as long as he lives, and the
family is held together by their common subjection to him. As for the
children, the daughters as soon as they grow up are added to his
wives, while the sons are driven out from the home at the time they
reach an age to be dangerous as sexual rivals to their father. The
important thing to note is that _in each group there would be only one
adult polygamous male, with many women of different ages and young
children_. I shall return to this later. Such is the marked difference
in the position of the two sexes--the solitary jealously unsocial
father and the united mothers. I can but wonder how its significance
has escaped the attention of the many