It should not be forgotten, however, that the absolutism prevailing in the patriarchal family has its justification in a religious belief,--in the conviction that everything should be sacrificed for the sake [72] of the cult, and every member of the family should be ready to give up even life, if necessary, to assure the perpetuity of the succession. Remembering this, it becomes easy to understand why, even in communities otherwise advanced in civilization, it should have seemed right that a father could kill or sell his children. The crime of a son might result in the extinction of a cult through the ruin of the family,--especially in a militant society like that of Japan, where the entire family was held responsible for the acts of each of its members, so that a capital offence would involve the penalty of death on the whole of the household, including the children. Again, the sale of a daughter, in time of extreme need, might save a house from ruin; and filial piety exacted submission to such sacrifice for the sake of the cult. As in the Aryan family,* property descended by right of primogeniture from father to son; the eldest-born, even in cases where the other property was to be divided among the children, always inheriting the homestead. The homestead property was, however, family property; and it passed to the eldest son as representative, not as individual. Generally speaking, sons could not hold property, without the father's consent, during such time as he retained his [73] headship. As a rule,--to which there were various exceptions,--a daughter could not inherit; and in the case of an only daughter, for whom a husband had been adopted, the homestead property would pass to the adopted husband, because (until within recent times) a woman could not become the head of a family. This was the case also in the Western Aryan household, in ancestor-worshipping times. [*The laws of succession in Old Japan differed considerably according to class, place, and era; the entire subject has not yet been fully treated; and only a few safe general statements can be ventured at the present time.]