As among the lowest existing tribes—peoples which during countless ages have been unable to advance—only the ruder elements in the human composition have been developed, it is plain that from these tribes little if any information concerning an earlier or more natural age, when the animal instincts were controlled by the higher characters developed in human nature, may be obtained; but from those peoples within the several successive stages of development whose environment has been such as to admit of some degree of improvement in the arts of life, and in whom therefore the higher characters developed in their mute progenitors have not been in a state of retrogression, may be obtained a clue to many of the processes by which our present social fabric has been raised. Among such peoples will be retained certain symbols, habits, and traditions representing former modes of life, from which may be reconstructed much of the previous history of the race. For instance, by means of the symbol of wife-capture, a form of marriage which is universal among tribes in a certain stage of development, has been furnished much trustworthy information relative to the institution of marriage and the development of the modern family. It matters not that the origin of these symbols is so remote that their true significance is lost by the peoples who practise them, they nevertheless repeat with unerring fidelity the past experiences of the race and reveal the origin of later institutions. As the various tribes and races of mankind have probably sprung from a common progenitor, and as the “nerve cells in the brain of all classes and orders have had the same origin,” their development, although not identical as to time and manner of detail, has been similar in outline and in general results; so it is thought that a correct knowledge of the development of any tribe or race from savagery to civilization must necessarily involve the general history of all the tribes and races of mankind. CHAPTER III THE GENS—WOMEN UNDER GENTILE INSTITUTIONS