The Kabyle _Kanouns_ admit six categories of heirs: 1st, the _açeb_ or universal heirs--that is to say, all the male descent, the direct line through males, and all the collaterals descending through males of the paternal branch; 2nd, the ascendants through males on the paternal side--the father, grandfather, and great-grandfather; 3rd, the uterine brother, heir to a legal portion; 4th, the master and the freed man, _açeb_ heirs of each other; 5th, the _karouba_--that is to say, the community having its assembly of major citizens, the _djemâa_, and being a civil personage;[1063] 6th, the _ensemble_ of the _karoubas_, constituting the village. However, the collaterals of all degrees may inherit in default of ascendants and descendants.[1064] In all this list there is no mention of women. In fact, whatever property a Kabyle woman may have been able laboriously to amass, it falls to the male descent, to the ascendants, or to the husband, or to the collaterals in the paternal line. It is only in default of this cloud of male heirs that the succession to the property gained by a Kabyle woman devolves at last on her daughters, or her mother or grandmother.[1065] From all the preceding facts, and in spite of gaps in our information, we may, however, suppose that in the Berber world also the family has evolved in passing through three degrees, which we have already found amongst various races, and which are the communal clan, the maternal family, and the patriarchate. IV. _The Family in Persia._ This evolution seems therefore very common; it is a general fact, but we are not yet warranted in calling it a law. Thus, as far as our information goes, which it is true is not very complete, no trace of it is to be found among the ancient Persians, with whom we will now begin our interrogation of the Aryan races, from the point of view of their familial organisation. If the familial clan with confused kinship has ever existed in ancient Persia, it can only have been at an extremely remote epoch; there is no trace of it in the _Avesta_. And more than this, the most ancient accounts show us the patriarchal family, in the Hebraic sense of the word, instituted among the Mazdeans: a legitimate wife, purchased from her parents, and by the side of her a greater or less number of concubines; and lastly, dominating all the rest, the father of the family, having the right of life or death over the wives and children.[1066]