Westermarck seeks a simple explanation of female kinship in the necessary relations of a child with its mother. "Especially among savages, the tie between a mother and a child is much stronger than that which binds a child to the father. Not only has she given birth to it, but she has also for years been seen carrying it about at her breast. Moreover, in cases of separation, occurring frequently at lower stages of civilization, the infant children always follow the mother, and so, very often, do the children more advanced in years."[339] Polygyny has doubtless favored the choice of the female line of descent;[340] and the odd custom of the couvade, found here and there among rude peoples, instead of being a mark of transition to the paternal system, only implies some connection or "some idea of relationship" between father and child;[341] and accordingly simpler and more probable reasons for its origin have been assigned.[342] Thus it may take its rise in the notion of a mysterious physical connection between the father and the child. "The well-being of the child is its object." The father occupies the so-called lying-in bed, not as a bed of sickness "affording rest and strength after travail," but he abstains from certain foods lest they should injure the child, and he fasts in order that his powers of endurance may be assured to it.[343] This view is strongly supported by the fact that among many primitive peoples, in various stages of advancement, the belief is found that the child springs from the father alone, the mother merely performing the function of nourishment.[344] Finally Westermarck's generalization as to the real import of kinship through females only may be noted. The "facts adduced as examples" of this system, he declares, "imply chiefly that children are named after their mothers, not after their fathers, and that property and rank succeed exclusively in the female line."[345] [339] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 107-13; _cf._ LUBBOCK, _Origin of Civilization_, 149 ff. [340] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 108; STARCKE, _op. cit._, 27, 28, 35, 36, 40, 41, 69 n. 4, citing WINTERBOTTOM, _An Account of the Native Africans in the Neighborhood of Sierra Leone_. _Cf._, however, DARGUN, _Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht_, 59 ff. [341] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 106, 107, 17.