Although in Arabia, under the form of marriage by sale or contract, the wife lost the right to the control of property belonging to her own gens, she did not, as in Rome, forfeit her claim to the protection of her kindred. If she received ill treatment within the home of her husband, her relatives, who were still her natural protectors, were bound to redress her wrongs. In Rome, on the contrary, under a system representing a later stage in the development of marriage, the wife was adopted into the stock of her husband whose rights over her person were supreme, at the same time that her kindred renounced the right to interfere in her behalf. It is to the fact, that in early Arabia the wife never relinquished her hold upon her own relations, that we are to look for an explanation of the high social position of Arabian women. We are assured that it is “an old Arab sentiment, and not Moslem,” that women are entitled to the highest respect, and that as mothers of the tribe they “are its most sacred trust.” According to Professor W. R. Smith in Mohammed’s time, in addition to the two forms of marriage mentioned, namely, that by capture and that by sale or contract, there existed also a more ancient form known as the _sadica_—a form of conjugal union which was a remnant of the matriarchal system. By observing the facts connected with this last-named institution, we shall be enabled to understand something of the position occupied by women during the earlier ages of human existence before wife-capture became prevalent. Among certain tribes just prior to Islam, upon the event of marriage, the man presented the woman with a sum of money, which offering was simply an acknowledgment of the favour which she was conferring upon him. The husband went to live with the wife in her tent, and as the contract was for no specified length of time, he was at liberty to go whenever he tired of the conditions imposed on him by his wife and her relations. Any children, however, that were born as a result of this union belonged to the mother and became members of her _hayy_. If she desired him to go, she simply turned the tent around, “so that if the door had faced east it now faced west, and when the man saw this he knew that he was dismissed and did not enter.” In relation to these marriage customs Professor Smith says: “Here, therefore, we have the proof of a well-established custom of that kind of marriage which naturally goes with female kinship in the generation immediately before Islam.” Of this kind of marriage the same writer observes: