The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought | Page 7

mother,
mother's brother, and sister's child, whilst the father is completely
wanting, and the mother's brother takes the father's place with the
sister's children. The real father is not the father of his own children,
but of his nephews and nieces, whilst the brother of his wife is looked
upon as father to his children. The brothers and sisters of the mother
form with her a social group, to which belong also the children of the
sisters, the children of the daughters of the sisters, etc., but not the
children of the brothers, the children of the sisters' sons, etc. With every
husband the relationship ceases" (127. I. 13-14).

The system of mother-right prevails widely over the whole globe; in
some places, however, only in fragmentary condition. It is found
amongst nearly all the native tribes of America; the peoples of
Malaysia, Melanesia, Australia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, the
Dravidian tribes of India; in Africa it is found in the eastern Sahara, the
Soudan, the east and west coast, and in the centre of the continent, but
not to the exclusion, altogether, of father-right, while in the north the
intrusion of Europeans and the followers of Islam has tended to
suppress it. Traces of its former existence are discovered among certain
of the ancient tribes of Asia Minor, the old Egyptians, Arabs, Greeks,
Romans, Teutons, the Aryans of India, the Chinese, Japanese, etc.
Mother-right has been recognized by many sociologists as a system of
family relationship, perhaps the most widespread, perhaps the most
primitive of all. Dr. Brinton says:--
"The foundation of the gentile system, as of any other family life, is ...
the mutual affection between kindred. In the primitive period this is
especially between children of the same mother, not so much because
of the doubt of paternity, as because physiologically and obviously, it is
the mother in whom is formed, and from whom alone proceeds, the
living being" (412. 47).
Professor O. T. Mason, in the course of his interesting address on
"Woman's Share in Primitive Culture," remarks (112. 10):--
"Such sociologists as Morgan and McLennan affirm that the primitive
society had no family organization at all. They hypothecate a condition
in which utter promiscuity prevailed. I see no necessity for this. There
is some organization among insects. Birds mate and rear a little family.
Many animals set up a kind of patriarchal horde. On the other hand,
they err greatly who look among savages for such permanent home life
as we enjoy. Marriages are in groups, children are the sons and
daughters of these groups; divorces are common. The fathers of the
children are not known, and if they were, they would have no authority
on that account. The mother never changes her name, the children are
named after her, or, at least, are not named after the father. The system
of gentes prevails, each gens consisting of a hypothetical female

ancestress, and all her descendants through females. These primitive
men and women, having no other resort, hit upon this device to hold a
band of kin together. Here was the first social tie on earth; the
beginning of the state. The first empire was a woman and her children,
regardless of paternity. This was the beginning of all the social bonds
which unite us. Among our own Indians mother-right was nearly
universal. Upon the death of a chief whose office was hereditary, he
was succeeded, not by his son, but by the son of a sister, or an aunt, or
a niece; all his property that was not buried with him fell to the same
parties, could not descend to his children, since a child and the father
belonged to different gentes." McLennan has discussed at some length
the subject of kinship in ancient Greece (115. 193-246), and maintains
that "the system of double kinship, which prevailed in the time of
Homer, was preceded by a system of kinship through females only,"
referring to the cases of Lycaon, Tlepolemus, Helen, Arnaeus, Glaucus,
and Sarpedon, besides the evidence in the Orestes of Euripides, and the
Eumenides of Aeschylus. In the last, "the jury are equally divided on
the plea [that Orestes was not of kin to his mother, Clytemnestra, whom
he had killed, --"Do you call me related by blood to my mother?"], and
Orestes gains his cause by the casting vote of Athene." According to
tradition, "in Greece, before the time of Cecrops, children always bore
the name of their mothers," in marked contrast to tha state of affairs in
Sparta, where, according to Philo, "the marriage tie was so loose that
men lent their wives to one another, and cared little by whom children
were begotten, provided they turned out strong and healthy."
We have preserved for us, by Plutarch and others, some of the opinions
of