[354] LETOURNEAU, _L'évolution du mariage_, 424, thus concludes his investigation of the question of kinship: "Ce qui est vraisemblable, c'est que, dans la majorité des cas, la filiation paternelle a succédé à la filiation maternelle et à des formes familiales plus ou moins confuses." _Cf. ibid._, 399, 400. MAX MÜLLER, _Biographies of Words_, p. xvii, thinks that "we can neither assert nor deny that in unknown times the Aryans ever passed through a metrocratic stage." _Cf._ WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 104, 113. [355] "Among the lower hunters there is no matriarchate, but--if indeed one may make the distinction--only a patriarchate or rather an androcracy (_Mannesherrschaft_). Even in those Australian tribes where the custom of maternal succession exists, the woman follows the man into his horde and becomes his property. Their children remain in his horde, and not she but he has the disposition of the offspring.... This primitive patriarchate, of course, has nothing to do with that of the later patriarchal family. It is not based on any reflection regarding descent or the man's share in procreation; it rests simply on the right of the stronger, on the rude physical superiority of man, his position as winner of the greater share of the food and as protector" of the family community.--CUNOW, _op. cit._, 115, 116. III. THE PROBLEM OF EXOGAMY The case is much the same with the problem of exogamy, which is closely connected with the question of kinship. According to McLennan, as already seen, exogamy, or the prohibition of marriage within the clan, owes its rise to wife-capture occasioned by scarcity of women through female infanticide; and it is contrasted with the opposite custom of endogamy, which, it is alleged, usually implies a higher stage of civilization. This account of its origin, he thinks, is, on the whole, the "only one which will bear examination."