There is, however, another side to the matter. In the face of what we have established, it must, I think, be accepted that women held considerable power in this period of mother-descent and under the maternal form of marriage. The mother was dominant in the family in this second stage of its development. This is still denied by some authorities. There are many facts of the early power of women which the great world does not know. How, then, are we to come to a decision? Shall we look back to the maternal stage as the golden period of the family wherein were realised conditions of free motherhood, which even to-day have not been established? It is a question very difficult to answer, and we must not in any haste rush into mistakes. And unfortunately the limitation of my space can allow only the briefest consideration of the matter. We find that the mother-age was a transitional stage in the history of the growth of society, and we can trace the stages of its gradual decline. There is nothing to show that the customs of maternal communism, dependent on descent traced in the female line and the maternal form of marriage, have ever been permanently maintained in any progressive society. The enlarged family of the maternal clan is thus proved to have been a less stable social system than the patriarchal single family which again succeeded it, or it would not have perished in the struggle with it. I think this must be accepted. Within the large and undivided group-family of the clan, the restricted family became gradually re-established by a reassertion of domestic interests. In proportion as the family gained in importance (which would arise as the struggle for existence lessened and the need of association was less imperative) the interests of the individual members would become separated from the group to which they belonged. As society advanced and personal property began to be acquired, each man would aim at gaining a more exclusive right over his wife and children; he would not willingly submit to the bondage of the maternal form of marriage. We find the husband and father moving towards the position of a fully acknowledged legal parent by a system of buying off his wife and her children from their clan-group. Then the payment of a bride-price was claimed from the bridegroom by the bride’s relations, and an act of purchase was accounted essential before marriage; it was, however, regarded as a condition, not so much of the marriage itself, but of the transference of the wife to the home of the husband and of the children to his kindred. The change was, of course, effected slowly; often we find the two forms of marriage—the maternal form and the purchase-marriage—occurring side by side. What, however, is certain is that the purchase-marriage in the struggle was the one which prevailed.