What this fact suggests is a problem to which it is very difficult even to guess at an answer. Does this lack of differentiation in the physiognomy of the Indians point to something much deeper? Are the men really like the women? Such a conception opens up considerations of very great significance. So far as I understand the matter, it appears that, as well as the deep inherent differences between the two sexes, there are other differences due to divergence in function. It seems probable that changes in environment or in function (as when one sex, for some reason or other, performs the duties usually undertaken by the other sex), may alter or modify the differences which tend to thrust the sexes apart. I feel very sure that there can be changes in the secondary sexual characters of the male and female. This is sufficiently proved by many examples. Can we, then, accept the theory that an environment, which favours women’s forceful function, may modify the infinitely complicated characters of sex, which, as yet, we so imperfectly understand? I do not know with any certainty. Yet I can see no other interpretation; and, if I mistake not, it may be possible in this way to cast a light on one of the most difficult problems with which we are faced to-day. CHAPTER VI THE MATERNAL FAMILY AMONG THE KHASIS There are, perhaps, no people among whom the family in the full maternal form can be studied with more advantage than the Khasi Hill tribes, in the north-east of India. This race has a special interest as a people who, in modern times, have preserved their independence and their ancestral customs through many centuries. We find mother-descent strictly practised, combined with great and even extraordinary rights on the part of the women. The isolation of the Khasis may account for this conservatism, but, as will appear later, there are other causes to explain the freedom and power of the Khasi women. We are fortunate in having a fuller knowledge of the Khasi tribes, than is common of many primitive peoples. Their institutions and interesting domestic customs have been carefully noted by ethnologists and travellers, and in all accounts there is united testimony to the high status of the women. I will quote a statement of Sir Charles Lyell,[73] which affirms this fact very strongly-- [73] In an Introduction to _The Khasis_, by P. R. Gurdon. This work, written by one who had a long and intimate knowledge of the Khasi tribes, gives an admirable account of the people, their institutions and domestic life. See also Sir J. Hooker, _Himalayan Journal_, Vol. II, pp. 273 _et seq._; Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_; and a series of papers by J. R. Logan, in the _Journal of the Indian Archipelago_, 1850-1857. Mr. Frazer (_The Golden Bough_, Part IV, _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, p. 387) gives a short account of the Khasis; also McGee in the article _The Beginning of Marriage_ already quoted.