[748] Compare also the general reason given by Steinmetz for the prevalence of this indulgence among savage peoples. _Zeitschr. für Sozialwissenschaft_, Band i. pp. 254-285. It is characteristic that even those authors who write in strong terms of the bad treatment which the husband shows towards his wife (compare the statements above) say nothing of the kind as to the treatment of the children by their fathers. On the contrary, we read in several places of the tyranny of the young boy, under which often his mother and sisters and sometimes even his father had to suffer (Curr in several places, especially in the story of Old Davie; J. Moore Davies, Oldfield, Salvado). But two other writers (Lumholtz and Bonney) inform us that in spite of the entire lack of severity the children are not naughty at all, as might have been expected. It may be safely concluded that the evidence gives a quite true picture of the parental feelings. The latter may be considered as elements which essentially characterize the relation of parents to children. And it may be said that in Australia the parents are most devoted and loving to their children. The importance of this conclusion in regard to our ideas of parental kinship in Australia has been argued sufficiently above.[749] [749] See pp. 191 _sqq._ The facts stated in this conclusion seem to have an important bearing upon the relation between husband and wife. This point is completely ignored by the first-hand observers, who never troubled to inquire deeper into the mutual dependence of such most important sociological facts, viz. of the relationship between parents and children on the one hand and between husband and wife on the other. There are no statements on this point, and consequently one is obliged to draw the inference for oneself. But the bearing of the parental relationship upon the conjugal relations is so obvious and the mutual dependence of marriage and family so clear, that the following inference seems not at all hypothetical and arbitrary. If both parents are strongly attached to their children, if their feelings are so outspoken, these must constitute a strong binding tie between them. It is hardly possible to think that a man could be merely a brutal master and tyrant to his wife if they both had the same feelings for the same object. But it is still less possible to admit that a man and a woman would on the first occasion, or even without any reason, part and form new unions if they were both attached so strongly to the same person--an attachment which, as in so many examples, sometimes amounted to a real passion.