Where female kinship prevails, a Rajah’s son may become a hodman, taking the state of his mother—while the son of the Rajah’s sister mounts the throne.[95] [95] McLennan, _Studies in Ancient History_, p. 103. Among the Rocch tribe, a people among which descent is traced in the female line, a man goes on marriage to live with his wife and her mother, of whose family he is a subordinate member.[96] [96] C. Staniland Wake, _Marriage and Kinship_, p. 306. A Rocch man goes, on his marriage, like the _beena_ husband of Ceylon, to live with his wife and her mother; on his marriage, all his property is made over to his wife, and on her death her heirs are her daughters.[97] [97] _Studies in Ancient History_, p. 103. For the same reason that wives and husbands were debarred from sharing in each other’s property, their bodies, or more properly speaking, their bones, were separated at death, as were also the bones of father and child. The bones of the children always rested beside those of the mother. It was impious to mix the bones of unrelated persons. To such an extent was the Motherright recognized under archaic usages that the child belonged exclusively to the mother and her relations, the father having no recognized proprietary right to his offspring. Indeed, so lightly was the paternal relation regarded that the father was supposed to have little if any interest in his own children. Although the bond between a man and his offspring was weak, toward his sister’s children, as they belonged to the same gens with himself, a considerable degree of manly interest was manifested; indeed, it has been stated that about the same solicitude was evinced by him for their welfare, as was shown at a later time by fathers for the members of their own household. Observing the care manifested for a sister’s children among various tribes, certain writers have declared that the relationship existing between a child and its mother’s brother is more important than any other—that the brother is practically the head of his sister’s family. However, if we bear in mind the relative positions of the sexes in primitive groups, that women controlled their homes, and that all the rights of succession were traced through them, we shall doubtless be led to the conclusion that mothers themselves were the real heads of their own families, and that although they may have delegated to their brothers, who until marriage were permitted to reside with them, certain manly offices, they nevertheless reserved to themselves the exclusive right to the control and management of their own households. As the land belonged to the gens, and as the gentes were controlled by women, mothers were absolutely independent.