All this seems to hold good for the father, as well as for the mother. In the majority of statements both the parents are mentioned indiscriminately. Some of them say expressly that they refer to the father also (Meyer, Wilhelmi, Moore Davis, Br. Smyth, Fraser, Gason, Mathew, Spencer and Gillen, Mrs. Parker, Salvado). Nevertheless we must assume that owing to the closer tie in daily life the relationship between mother and child was a yet more intimate one (Lumholtz, Salvado). There seems to have been but little difference made between male and female children. We read in a few places (Schürmann, Spencer and Gillen) that boys were more welcome than girls, and that infanticide was more frequently carried out amongst the latter. But this is contradicted elsewhere,[747] where we read that in several tribes no difference in infanticide was made between boys and girls. [747] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 748-750. Parallel with great affection towards the children ran considerable leniency of treatment. In about eighteen of our statements (_i. e._ in all of those in which there is anything said about treatment besides affection) we read that the natives treat their children with kindness, absolute leniency and indulgence, never chastise them, and give them their own way in everything. It is well to notice that these two things--real love on the one hand and leniency of treatment on the other--must be treated as two independent phenomena. Affection may be perfectly well combined with severity and rigour; and a want of punishment need not be necessarily based upon love; it may result just as well from carelessness. But this latter does not seem to be the case; we know that the parents are not careless about their children; that on the contrary they take the greatest trouble about them and look carefully after all the necessities of their life. Here the leniency of treatment seems to be exclusively due to excessive fondness for their children and the resulting weakness shown towards them. In other societies the reason of the same phenomenon is often (especially in the case of male children) the wish not to frighten the boy and not to make him a coward, in which belief magical elements may also play a rôle. (Compare Steinmetz, article in _Z.f.S._ i.) A suggestion of such a reason is contained in only one of our statements (Roth in _Trans. R.S.Q._) In general it may be said that the way in which the aborigines treat their children is a symptom of their great parental love.[748] Only in two places (Spencer and Gillen, Lumholtz) is it said that in fits of anger and impatience the natives chastise their children, and even this seems to be quite exceptional. Very interesting is Gason's statement, according to which it seems that the father was even more lenient than the mother; and this seems quite natural, for the mother had much more opportunity to get angry with the child.