We find, therefore, no uniformity in the familial organisation of the Bengalese aborigines; and it is the same in regard to their exogamy or endogamy. Exogamy is common. Thus the Juangas are divided into exogamous tribes.[1019] The Khonds think it humiliating to marry the women of their own tribe. It is more manly, in their opinion, to go and _take_ a wife from a distant neighbourhood.[1020] The Munniporees are divided into four clans, who do not intermarry.[1021] Among the Santals, it is forbidden to men to marry in their own clan; but their children belong to the paternal clan.[1022] The Limboos (near Darjeeling) are also exogamous, but evidently oscillate between the maternal and paternal family; for the daughters remain in the tribe or rather in the clan of their mother, whilst the sons belong to the paternal clan, but only after the father has paid a certain sum to the mother.[1023] The Garos are divided into several clans or _maharis_, and, amongst them, a man must not marry in his own clan, but in another appointed clan, in which from time immemorial his family has been accustomed to take wives. Other aborigines of Bengal are endogamous. Thus it is imperative for the daughters of the Abors to marry in their own clan, or the sun and moon would cease to shine.[1024] According to Heber, the Karens of Tenasserim are more than endogamous, for among them marriages between brother and sister, father and daughter, are frequent enough in the present day.[1025] What may we deduce from these contradictory facts? A general conclusion, which I have expressed several times over: namely, that in what concerns the evolution of marriage and of the family, there is no absolute law. Nevertheless, by reason of the familial and matrimonial confusion usual in the greater number of primitive societies, maternal filiation has been adopted more often than paternal, and has frequently preceded it. VI. _The Couvade._ There is a custom, at first sight extraordinary but still common enough, which must have arisen during transitional epochs, when, polygamic or monogamic marriage having become established, the husbands have exerted themselves to affirm their parental rights, and to substitute masculine filiation for the ancient uterine filiation. In the same way as in certain countries, Abyssinia,[1026] for example, in order to proclaim an adoption, the adoptive father simulates some maternal practice, sometimes goes so far as to offer his breast solemnly to his adoptive son, so, in very different countries, the husband has found no better way to prove his paternity than to simulate childbirth; and hence the very singular custom of the couvade. At first sight, it seems very foolish for the husband to take to his bed immediately after the delivery of his wife, and for a certain number of days to be nursed and tended by the mother herself.