The foregoing example is exceedingly interesting; it shows women holding the position that as a rule belongs to men, and is thus worthy of most careful study, but at the same time we must guard against according it a general value which it does not possess. Such a case is exceptional, though it by no means stands alone, and the social position of Targui women is analogous to that of the women of ancient Egypt. It is important to note that their great independence arose through the persistence of maternal descent, and could not have been maintained apart from that system, which placed in their hands the strong power of wealth. Here, then, is certain proof of the favourable influence mother-descent may exercise on the status of women. It is because of this I have brought forward this example of the Targui women. Enough has now been said. I have examined the institution of the maternal family, both in the early communal stage and also under later social conditions, where, in certain cases, mother-descent has been maintained. In all the examples cited I have given the marriage customs and domestic habits of the people as they are testified to by authorities whose records cannot be questioned. Many similar examples, it may be said, might be brought forward from other races, and the proof of mother-right and mother-power greatly strengthened thereby. There is, however, so much similarity in the maternal family, so much correspondence in the marriage forms and social habits prevailing among races widely separated, that the points of difference are little in comparison with those they have in common. My object is not so much to exhaust the subject as to bring into relief the radical differences between the maternal communal clan, with its social life centred around the mothers, and the opposite patriarchal form in which the solitary family is founded on the individual father. I hold that, other conditions being equal, the one system is favourable to the authority of women, the other to the authority of men. The facts which have been cited are, I submit, amply sufficient to support this view.