The existence of mother-descent among the peoples of Western Asia has been ascertained with regard to some ancient tribes; but I may pass these over, as they offer no points of special interest. I must, however, refer briefly to the evidence brought forward by the late Prof. Robertson Smith[115] of mother-right in ancient Arabia. We find a decisive example of its favourable influence on the position of women in the custom of _beena_ marriage. Under this maternal form, the wife was not only freed from any subjection involved by the payment of a bride-price in the form of compulsory service or of gifts to her kindred (which always places her more or less under authority), but she was the owner of the tent and the household property, and thus enjoyed the liberty which ownership always entails. This explains how she was able to free herself at pleasure from her husband, who was really nothing but a temporary lover. Ibn Batua, even in the fourteenth century found that the women of Zebid were perfectly ready to marry strangers. The husband might depart when he pleased, but his wife in that case could never be induced to follow him. She bade him a friendly adieu and took upon herself the whole charge of any children of the marriage. The women in Jâhilîya had the right to dismiss their husbands, and the form of dismissal was this: “If they lived in a tent they turned it round, so that if the door faced east it now faced west, and when the man saw this, he knew he was dismissed and did not enter.” The tent belonged to the woman: the husband was received there, and at her good pleasure. We find many cases of _beena_ marriage among widely different peoples. Frazer[116] cites an interesting example among the tribes on the north frontier of Abyssinia, partially Semitic peoples, not yet under the influence of Islam, who preserve a maternal marriage closely resembling the _beena_ form, but have as well a purchase marriage, by which a wife is acquired by the payment of a bride-price and becomes the property of her husband. [115] _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia._ See also Barton, _Semitic Origins_. [116] _Academy_, March 27, 1886. A very curious form of conjugal contract is recorded among the Hassanyeh Arabs of the White Nile, where the wife passed by contract for a portion of her time only under the authority of her husband. It illustrates in a striking way the conflict in marriage between the old rights of the woman and the rising power of the husband.