The importance of the customs of primitive peoples—Such knowledge necessary to an understanding of our present family system and form of marriage—My earlier book, _The Age of Mother-Power_—This work a necessary part of my present inquiry—Re-statement of my own views—An attempt to group the matter to be considered—The early period in which man developed from his ape-like ancestors—Parenthood more fixed, fewer experiments—The probable conditions of the primordial human family—Customs of brute male-ownership—This the pre-matriarchal stage of the family—Progress—The second stage—The growth of the communal clan—The increasing influence of the women—Reasons why this view may be accepted—Mother-descent and mother-rights—The importance of this early matriarchate—The maternal form of marriage—Visiting husbands—Communal dwelling houses—Contrast between the customs of the patriarchal individual family and the maternal communal clan—The power of the wife and the mother—The alien position of the husband and father—The assertion of the male force in the person of the woman’s brother—The communal clan a transitional stage—The re-establishment of the individual patriarchal family—The fixing of paternity and the rise of the father’s power—Lessons to be learnt from this past history of the family. CHAPTER VII THE MOTHER IN THE PRIMITIVE FAMILY (_A chapter which may be omitted by the reader who has no interest in the customs of primitive peoples._) “The clan exists on account of the struggle for existence, the family seeks for the enjoyment of that which they have obtained.”—STARCKE. And now having finished my preliminary study of the maternal instinct in the making, having given examples of its varied manifestations in the animal kingdom, and made clear certain general ideas on parenthood and the family, I may hope to go on to consider human mothers and fathers with a surer knowledge and less misunderstanding. The fitting method of inquiry, and the one I should like to employ would be to begin with the lowest forms of the human family. I myself am always greatly attracted by the customs of primitive peoples, for I was born amongst them. I hold that some knowledge of the family and the domestic and social conditions still to be found among uncivilised races, in all parts of the world, is essential to a complete understanding of our own social and sexual problems.