I. _The Family in China._--Filiation in Japan--Traces of ancient fraternal filiation in China--Fictitious kinship in China--The patriarchate in China--The Chinese clan--The idea of the family in the political organisation. II. _The Family among the Semitic Races._--The primitive clan among the Arabs--The primitive clan among the Hebrews--Laws of inheritance among the Hebrews--The uterine sister and the german sister--The maternal family in Phœnicia. III. _The Family among the Berbers._--Meaning of the word “Berber”--Maternal filiation among the ancient Berbers and Touaregs--Traces of the ancient organisation of the clan among the Kabyles--The actual patriarchate among the Kabyles--Categories of heirs. IV. _The Family in Persia._--No trace of the familial clan and of exogamy--Incestuous endogamy--Marriage by rent in modern Persia--The right of primogeniture. V. _The Family in India._--The family in Vedic India--The patriarchate in the Code of Manu--The right of primogeniture--Paternity by suggestion--Traces of the familial clan and of the maternal family in Tamil India and Ceylon. VI. _The Greco-Roman Family._--The primitive _gens_--Maternal filiation in Crete, in primitive Athens--Uterine fraternity and german fraternity--Paternal filiation in the _Orestes_--The _Patria potestas_ at Rome. VII. _The Family in Barbarous Europe._--The Celtic clan--Incestuous endogamy of the Irish--The Slav _mir_--Traces of maternal filiation in Germany and among the Picts. I. _The Family in China._ In order to study the family under the latest forms that it has assumed, we must set aside all strict distinction of race. Doubtless the white races have ended by excelling the others, and by attaining a higher degree of moral, social, and intellectual development. Nevertheless, the ethnic groups, belonging to the races classed together _en bloc_ as inferior, have emerged from savagery, and formed large societies, which have been veritable training schools for the men of their race. Now, in all the States which have succeeded in attaining some degree of civilisation, the paternal family is the type that has been finally adopted. It was thus in Peru, in Mexico, and even in ancient Egypt, where King Philometor gave the finishing stroke to the maternal family which had so long flourished in the valley of the Nile. With much more reason in China, a country very civilised after its own fashion, an analogous evolution must have been effected. Indeed, in China proper, there are scarcely any traces of the maternal family left; but they are still visible in Japan, whose civilisation has been entirely borrowed from China.