[175] LIPPERT, _op. cit._, 30 ff.; KOHLER, _Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe_, 4, 5, where Hildebrand is criticised; HELLWALD, _op. cit._, 197 ff., who declares that in the history of civilization it is "undoubtedly more correct to regard, not pastoral life and agriculture, but nomadic life and settled life as the marks of two diverse culture-phases." [176] GROSSE, _op. cit._, 29 ff. Among the peoples classed as "lower hunters," even the most backward, exists the individual family; and in the majority of cases it is founded on monogamic marriage, for promiscuity nowhere appears. The authority of the husband is patriarchal. "He procures his wife by exchange or service; and in consequence he is her owner and lord." The "great-family" and the _gens_ (_sippe_) are also found among these peoples; but they are relatively little developed. _Gentes_ which have become unions for protection and control of territory are father-_gentes_; while those in which the kinship is traced through the mother are not unions for the purposes of the common life, but for maintenance of the common name.[177] The case is practically the same for the "upper hunters." Wife-purchase, however, is more pronounced. The individual monogamic family still predominates. Kinship through the mother is not so much a "motive for union as it is for separation of those related by blood."[178] Here as among the lower hunters it is the paternal _gens_ which forms an actual union for the common life; and there is "not the least ground for assuming" that a patriarchal gentile constitution has replaced an earlier matriarchal form. Among peoples leading a pastoral life, even more than with those devoted to the chase, the chief economic production lies in the hands of the man. Accordingly he has the place of power and honor. Through him descent and kinship are usually traced. Nowhere is the paternal system so one-sided and so stringently carried out as among pastoral tribes. Woman is oppressed and degraded. She is bought or stolen by her lord. Polygyny, with all its attendant evils, flourishes. The individual family has a thoroughly patriarchal stamp; but it is still the most conspicuous social fact, surpassing in practical significance for the needs of the pastoral life the great-family, and far more the _gens_. On the contrary, among the lower cultivators woman holds an economic position at least equal in social importance to that of man. As a rule, therefore, she is no longer his slave, but his companion, sometimes even his superior. She gains a corresponding share in the control of the children. The great-family is in like manner affected by the new economic conditions. Communal agriculture gives a mighty impulse to the growth of the gentile constitution; and now among many peoples, under influence of the new and higher position of woman, the maternal _gens_, perhaps existing side by side with the paternal _gens_, is developed into a firm social, economic, and political union.