Under earlier conditions of the human race women as bearers and protectors of the young were regarded as the natural land-owners; hence, they did not leave their own homes to follow the fathers of their children. The woman who left her own relations for the _hayy_ of her husband could no longer exercise control over the possessions of her own gens, neither could she at a later period inherit property from her kindred for the reason that her interests were identical with those of her children and her children belonged to another clan. As property could not be transferred from the group in which it originated, she was disinherited. Through marriage women gave up their natural right to the soil, and consequently to independence. A knowledge of the facts connected with the origin of the institution of marriage, reveals the fact that women lost their influence and power, not because of their weakness, but because they were foreigners and dependents in the homes of their husbands. The statement was made at the beginning of this chapter that the origin of marriage and the establishment of the family with man at its head involve the subject of economies. When property began to accumulate in the hands of men, when women were forced to relinquish their right to the soil and thus to become dependent on men for their support, their slavery was inevitable. Later, when through the exigencies of the situation, woman went without protest to the home of her master, there to become a pensioner upon his bounty, her slavery was complete. In process of time, women bound to foreign tribes by the children which they had borne, began to accommodate themselves to the situation, and even to claim an interest in the home of their adoption, whereupon friendly relations began to be established between the tribe of the mother and that of the father. Hence may be observed the fact that the maternal instinct was the agency by which the barriers between unrelated groups were gradually broken down, and by which a spirit of friendliness was established between hitherto hostile tribes. As the coherence of the group and the combination of the gentes to form the tribe had been possible only by means of this instinct, so the confederacy of tribes to form the nation was accomplished in the same manner. The change from female supremacy to male dominion is among the most important of the evolutionary processes. From the facts underlying the development of human society, and especially those underlying the two diverging lines of sex-demarcation, it is evident that evolution does not proceed in an undeviating line toward progress. It is perceived, that seeming retrogressions always involve a gain—a gain which could have been accomplished in no other way.