Much has been written in the attempt to explain the practice of infanticide which to some extent seems to have prevailed during a certain stage of human development; but with the exception of those cases in which children of both sexes were slain because of scarcity of food, the one cause, namely, the dread of capture, is sufficient to explain this unnatural practice. Although to a considerable extent, men had come to depend on foreign tribes for their wives, they nevertheless found little pleasure in furnishing their quota of women in return, and as mothers doubtless preferred the death of their female children to the degradation and suffering which was inevitable in case of capture, female infanticide no doubt seemed the wisest and in fact the only expedient. The blood-tie of ancient society which bound together all those born of the women of the group irrespective of their fathers, must have emphasized the influence of mothers in the matter of infanticide. It is not reasonable to suppose that the law of sympathy which had united the members of a clan by a bond stronger than that which binds together the members of a modern family was reversed without some deeper cause than has thus far been assigned for it. It is indeed difficult to believe, in opposition to all the facts before us, that a practice which involved the destruction of the female members of the group would have gained the sanction of the tribe to such an extent that it would have become an established rule among them. Regarding the destruction of female infants among early races, Mr. Darwin remarks: They would not at that period have lost one of the strongest of all instincts common to all lower animals, namely the love of their young offspring, and consequently they would not have practised female infanticide.[143] [143] _Descent of Man_, p. 594. Another reason why female infanticide could not have prevailed to any considerable extent is seen in the fact that any diminution in the number of females, would have involved a scarcity of warriors, thus weakening their means of defence. From available facts it is quite evident that the practice of female infanticide throws no light on wife-capture. Mr. McLennan declares that women among rude tribes are usually depraved and inured to scenes of depravity from their earliest infancy; hence when property began to amass in the hands of men, in order to assure paternity, it became necessary, that women be brought under subjection. As the female, when free, is unwilling to pair with individuals for whom she feels no affection, and as under earlier conditions of human society women chose their mates, and so long as they remained together were true to them, it is reasonable to suppose that paternity was known, or at least that it might have been readily determined.