I. _The Familial Clan and the Family properly so-called._--The probable evolution of the family--It cannot have been uniform--Why the uterine family has been common. II. _The Family in Africa._--The maternal family among the negroes of Africa, in Egypt, in Abyssinia, in Madagascar, among the Arabs and Kabyles. III. _The Family in Malaya._ IV. _The Family among the Naïrs of Malabar._--The female progenitrix, the mother-bee--The uncle among the Naïrs. V. _The Family among the Aborigines of Bengal._--Co-existence of the maternal and paternal family; exogamy and endogamy. VI. _The Couvade._--It exists in very different countries--The couvade in antiquity--The couvade in contemporary Europe--Signification of the couvade. VII. _The Primitive Family._ I. _The Familial Clan and the Family properly so-called._ At the conclusion of the preceding chapter I have ventured to sketch the probable evolution of the family, or at least that which must have been effected among the greater number of Melanesians, Polynesians, American Redskins, Tamils, and ancient Mongols. The small primitive societies founded by these races seem to have begun, not with the family, in the sense we give to this word, but by groups of consanguine individuals with still very confused filiation. The familial form which first emerged from this primitive clan was most often a matrimonial association between several sisters on the one hand and several brothers on the other. Then, from this household, at once polygamic and polyandric, sprang sometimes the polyandric family, when several brothers had a single wife in common, and sometimes the polygynic family, when a single man married or bought several women, who might, or might not, be sisters to each other. But has the familial group evolved in the same manner all over the earth and among all races? Except for the countries previously enumerated, precise and detailed information is wanting, and we are reduced to conjectures which are more or less probable. With rare exceptions, the races which it remains for us to examine have definitely emerged from primitive familial confusion, and they have adopted either maternal or paternal filiation. Have they first passed through the familial clan with classes of fictitious or real relations? We cannot certainly affirm it. The existence of a _totem_ and the custom of exogamy seem to bear witness in favour of this hypothesis; but these are insufficient proofs. The _totem_ does not necessarily imply consanguinity; and exogamy may be dictated by very diverse reasons, for we often find exogamic tribes living side by side with endogamic tribes.