Much trouble and confusion will be saved if we remember that, as has been said, under the ‘classificatory system,’ three sets of rules applying to marriage exist. The totem rule exists, rules as to marriage in relation to generations and so-called degrees of kindred (real or ‘tribal’) exist (‘classes’), and, thirdly, there are the rules relative to ‘phratries,’ the phratries, being, I think, in origin themselves totemic. We shall mainly consider here the so-called ‘bisection’ of a tribe into two exogamous and intermarrying ‘phratries,’ while remembering Herr Cunow’s opinion that a ‘class’ is one thing, a ‘phratry’ quite another.[3] THE VARIETIES OF MARRIAGE DIVISIONS IN AUSTRALIA Perhaps the most recent, lucid, and well-informed writer on the various divisions which regulate the marriages of the Australian tribes is Mr. R. H. Mathews.[4] In some regions, the system of two intermarrying phratries exists, without further subdivision (except in regard to totem kins). Sometimes each phratry is divided into two ‘sections’ (or ‘classes’), making four for the tribe. Again, each phratry may have four ‘subsections’ or ‘classes,’ making eight for the tribe. Each phratry, like each ‘class,’ ‘has an independent name by which its members are easily recognised.’ Obviously we need, of all tilings, to know the actual meanings of these names, but we do not usually know them. As we shall see, where a tribe has two ‘phratries’ and no subordinate ‘classes,’ the names of these ‘phratries,’ when they can be translated, are usually names of animals. In a few cases, as will later appear, when there are ‘classes’ under and in the ‘phratries’ their names seem to indicate distinctions of ‘old’ and ‘young.’ But Mr. Mathews nowhere, as far as I have studied him, gives the meanings of the ‘class’ names, some of which are of recent adoption. Mr. Mathews usually gives only ‘Phratry A’ and ‘Phratry B.’ We now cite his tables of the simple ‘phratry’ system, of the ‘phratry’ plus two classes system, and of the ‘phratry’ plus four classes system; making four, or eight, such divisions for the tribe. ‘In describing the social structure of a native Australian community, the first matter calling for attention is the classification of the people into two primary divisions, called phratries, or groups--the men of each phratry intermarrying with the women of the opposite one, in accordance with prescribed laws.’ Mr. Mathews then mentions that some tribes have (1) this simple division only (of course, as a rule, plus totem kins). (2) Elsewhere each phratry is composed of two ‘sections’ (called by us ‘classes’). (3) Elsewhere, again, each phratry has four sections (we need not discuss here the tribes where none of these things exist). Mr. Mathews now gives tables representing the working of the system in each of the three cases.[5]