As for ancient peoples, Bachofen has adduced from the works of classical writers evidence for the uterine line having prevailed among several of them. But, to quote Sir Henry Maine, “the greatest races of mankind, when they first appear to us, show themselves at or near a stage of development in which relationship or kinship is reckoned exclusively through males.”[567] Several writers have, it is true, endeavoured to prove that, among the primitive Aryans, descent was traced through females only;[568] but the evidence does not seem to be conclusive. Much importance has been attributed to the specially close connection which, according to Tacitus, existed between a sister’s children and their mother’s brothers;[569] but Dr. Schrader observes that, in spite of this prominent position of the maternal uncle in the ancient Teutonic family, the _patruus_ distinctly came before the _avunculus_, the agnates before the cognates, in testamentary succession. He also suggests that, when the head of a household died, the women of his family passed under the guardianship of the eldest son, and that a woman’s children had therefore, quite naturally, a peculiarly intimate relation to their maternal uncle.[570] It is safe to say with Professor Max Müller, that we can neither assert nor deny that in unknown times the Aryans ever passed through a metrocratic stage.[571] Even if it could be proved—which is doubtful—that, in former times, a system of “kinship through females only,” fully developed, prevailed among all the peoples whose children take the mother’s name and are considered to belong to her clan, though succession runs in the male line, we should still have to account for the fact that a large number of peoples exhibit no traces of such a system.[572] And to them belong many of the rudest races of the world—such as the aborigines of Brazil, the Fuegians, Hottentots, Bushmans, and several very low tribes in Australia and India. The inference that “kinship through females only” has everywhere preceded the rise of “kinship through males,” would, then, be warranted only on condition that the cause, or the causes, to which the maternal system is owing, could be proved to have operated universally in the past life of mankind. From Mr. McLennan’s point of view, such an inference would be inadmissible, as he cannot prove the former occurrence of a universal stage of promiscuity or polyandry, leading to uncertain paternity—the cause to which he attributes that system.