The chief object of this book being to study the evolution of the family and of marriage, I need not describe in detail the Greco-Roman family, which has, besides, served as a theme for so many writers. It certainly appears, contrary to the opinion of the Romans themselves, to have emerged tardily enough from the primitive clan or _gens_. This Roman _gens_ was composed, really or fictitiously, of consanguine individuals, living under an elected chief, and having the same name. The union of several _gentes_ formed the _curia_ or the _phratry_. Grouped together, the phratries or curiæ constituted _tribus_. And lastly, the assembly of the tribus formed the nation: Rome or Athens.[1087] It is therefore the clan, or _gens_, and not the family, which has been at Rome, and at Athens the _cellule_, according to the fashionable expression, of ancient society. At the dawn of history, these clans were already agnatic; they had adopted paternal filiation, and each of them claimed a common masculine ancestor; but the right of the _gens_ to the heritage, and in certain cases the possession of an _ager publicus_, still proved the antique community of property; and a number of indications and traditions bore witness in favour of the existence of a prehistoric phase of the maternal family, preceding agnation. Bachofen goes much further, and not without a show of reason. He insists, for example, that kinship in the Latin clan may at first have been confused. He alleges, on this point, that in the time of Numa the word _parricide_ signified, not the murder of a father, but that of a free man of some sort; that in the family tribunal the cognates of the wife figured, and that the cognates wore mourning for each other; that the cognates of the wife, and those of the husband of a wife, had over her the _jus osculi_, or the right of embracing her, etc.; lastly, that the Etruscan Servius, the founder of plebeian liberty, was conceived, says the legend, during a great annual festival, when the people reverted to primitive sexual disorder.[1088] The Greek γένος resembled the Roman _gens_. Its members had a common sepulture, common property, the mutual obligation of the _vendetta_, and an archon.[1089] In the protohistoric clans of Greece maternal filiation was first of all established. The Cretans said motherland (μητρίς), and not fatherland (πατρίς). In primitive Athens the women had the right of voting, and their children bore their name--privileges which were taken from them, says the legend, to appease the wrath of Neptune, after an inundation.[1090] Tradition also relates that at Athens, until the time of Cecrops, children bore the name of their mother.[1091]