[37] ROBERTSON SMITH, _Kinship and Marriage_; WILKEN, _Das Matriarchat bei den alten Arabern_, a work suggested by SMITH'S "Animal Worship and Animal Tribes," _Journal of Philology_, IX, 75-100. These writers have found among these Semitic tribes the system of kinship through the mother in actual use, with traces of polyandry, exogamy, and the totem _gens_; and Wilken believes that he finds evidences of early promiscuity. See especially KOHLER, _Ueber das vorislamitische Recht der Araber_, _ZVR._, VIII, 238-61; and FRIEDRICHS, _Das Eherecht des Islam_, _ibid._, VII, 240-84, especially 255 ff., who shows that the Mohammedan house-father exercises great authority over his wife, yet she has her own property and receives a dower. At present, relationship in Arabia is generally counted in the male line; and therefore, WESTERMARCK, _Human Marriage_, 102, note 4, regards the conclusion of Smith that originally the system of female kinship exclusively prevailed as "a mere hypothesis." [38] WAKE, _Marriage and Kinship_, 244. [39] According to EWALD the ancient Hebrew father might "sell his child to relieve his own distress, or offer it to a creditor as a pledge."--_The Antiquities of Israel_ (London, 1876), 190; WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 228; and the Levitical law prescribes death as the penalty for striking a parent (Leviticus 20:9; Exodus 21:15, 17); but the penalty could only be administered through appeal to the whole community, WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 228. _Cf._ MICHAELIS, _Commentaries on the Laws of Moses_, I, 444, who shows that the mother, as well as the father, might sometimes choose wives for the sons; while McLennan and Locke prove that the position of the mother in Israel was higher than is consistent with Roman patriarchalism. III. THE THEORY IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH