_tribe_, which here undoubtedly stands in the place of the original family group, in which both male and female kinship, with their special duties, was recognised, represented by its male head. This group we must suppose, therefore, had much in common with Sir Henry Maine’s patriarchal family. Under the head of the oldest living male ancestor, it embraced wife or wives, children and dependents. The repugnance to marriages between blood relations, which seems almost instinctive to man, would prevent such alliances between the members of the group. The male children, when they reached the age of manhood, would leave the paternal roof, and obtain wives from other groups, with which they would become associated on the principle of adoption, while, on the other hand, young men from other groups would take their places as the husbands of the female children. It would be during this primitive period that the idea of a special relationship subsisting between a mother and her children, on which the custom of tracing descent through the female is founded, would become formed, as already mentioned. The importance attached to female kinship would be increased by the development of a fraternal feeling among the children of the same mother, a feeling which would be strengthened if, as would probably not seldom be the case, men, after some years of cohabitation with their wives, left their children solely to the mother’s care. Under the influence of these various ideas and circumstances the custom of tracing kinship for certain purposes in the female line would be developed by the time that the habit had been formed of wives leaving their parents to reside among their husband’s family. As when this took place, the custom would be firmly established under the influence of polygamy, the development of the gentile organisation would almost necessarily follow. The primitive idea of kinship through the father would, however, still remain in full force with the attributes which originally appertained to it—namely, the headship in the family group of the eldest male ancestor, whose authority is practically represented by the tribe, and the non-intermarriage of those thus connected. FOOTNOTES: [250] “Studies in Ancient History,” p. 444. [251] Ditto, p. 181. [252] “Studies in Ancient History,” pp. 54, 57. [253] Ditto, pp. 104, 110. [254] Ditto, p. 174. [255] Ditto, p. 112. [256] Ditto, p. 139. [257] Ditto, p. 113. [258] “Ancient Society,” p. 512. [259] Ditto, p. 511. [260] Ditto, p. 69. [261] “Ancient History,” p. 124. [262] Ditto, p. 139. [263] _Loc. cit._, p. 418. [264] _Loc. cit._, p. 419. [265] M’Lennan, p. 150. [266] M’Lennan, p. 134. [267] “Ancient Society,” p. 516. [268] “Ancient Society,” p. 67. [269] Ditto, p. 60. [270] “Principles of Sociology,” vol. i., p. 662. [271] Ditto, p. 665. [272] Ditto, p. 666. [273] Ditto, p. 667. [274] Lahontan, “Mémoires,” ii., pp. 144, _et seq._ [275] “Te Ika A Maui,” p. 357. [276] Ditto, p. 337.