The Dorian stock alone seems to have preserved the ancient customs, and among these peoples, wherever they are found, woman’s influence is in the ascendency. According to Herodotus and Aristotle, the Spartans, the Cretans, and the Lycians were related. The people of Crete still preserved their ancient usages, hence may be observed the reason why Lycurgus visited that country in quest of information before enunciating the laws which were to restore order among the Spartans. In Lycia, as in Crete, woman’s influence must still have been considerable. Of the Lycians Herodotus says: Their customs are partly Cretan, partly Carian.... They take the mother’s and not the father’s name. Ask a Lycian who he is, and he answers by giving his own name, that of his mother, and so on in the female line. Moreover, if a free woman marry a man who is a slave, their children are full citizens; but if a free man marry a foreign woman, or live with a concubine, even though he be the first person in the state, the children forfeit all the rights of citizenship.[215] [215] Book i. On the manner of reckoning descent through women which prevailed in Lycia, Curtius remarks that the usage extends far beyond the territory commanded by the Lycian nationality. It is still extant in India; it was practised in ancient Egypt, among the Etruscans, and among the Cretans, who were closely related to the Lycians. This writer observes that if Herodotus regards the usage in question as thoroughly peculiar to the Lycians, it must have maintained itself longest among them of all the nations related to the Greeks, as is also proved by the Lycian inscriptions.[216] [216] _History of Greece_, book i., Ward’s translation. As the Sabines who united with the Romans in founding Rome claimed relationship with the Dorians, we may reasonably expect to find among them somewhat of that womanly influence which characterized the Spartans, and some hint among their customs of an earlier age of female independence. Although the Sabine women did not “voluntarily” assume the position of wives to the Romans but were captured by them, when the two nations united, the Sabines were regarded rather in the light of conferring honour upon Rome than as detracting from its dignity. Of the early Romans, Ortolan says: The _connubium_, or right of marriage, did not exist between males and females of different cities unless by special agreement between those cities. Thus it was that the primitive Romans, according to tradition, were compelled to resort to ambuscade and force in order to carry off their first wives.[217] [217] _History of Roman Law_, p. 79. The Roman family, like the Roman state, began with slavery. Of the Romans it has been said that they acquired their territory, their property, and even their wives by the lance.