This strange custom, if it were unique, would look like a coarse practical joke, but appearing as it does among so many different races and in every quarter of the world, it must have its root somewhere deep in the psychology of the uncivilised man. I must refer to Mr. Tylor’s interesting remarks on the rationale of the custom, for they do not bear abridgment. Professor Max Müller humorously suggests that “the treatment which a husband receives among ourselves at the time of his wife’s confinement, not only from mothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, and other female relations, but from nurses, and from every consequential maid-servant in the house,” is but a “survival,” as Mr. Tylor would call it, of the _couvade_; or at least represents the same feeling which among those many uncivilised nations thus drove the husband to his bed, and sometimes (as among the Caribs) put him when there to systematic torture. (_Tylor_, _Researches_, 288–296; _Michel, Le Pays Basque_, p. 201; _Sketches of the Meau-tsze_, transl. by _Bridgman_ in _J. of North China Br. of R. As. Soc._, p. 277; _Hudibras_, Pt. III., canto I. 707; _Fabliaus et Contes par Barbazan, éd. Méon_, I. 408–409; _Indian Antiq._ III. 151; _Müller’s Chips_, II. 227 _seqq._; many other references in TYLOR, and in a capital monograph by Dr. H. H. Ploss of Leipzig, received during revision of this sheet: ‘_Das Männerkindbett_.’ What a notable example of the German power of compounding is that title!) [This custom seems to be considered generally as a survival of the matriarchate in a society with a patriarchal régime. We may add to the list of authorities on this subject: _E. Westermarck, Hist. of Human Marriage_, 106, _seqq._; _G. A. Wilken, De Couvade bij de Volken v.d. Indischen Archipel, Bijdr. Ind. Inst._, 5th ser., iv. p. 250. Dr. Ernest Martin, late physician of the French Legation at Peking, in an article on _La Couvade en Chine_ (_Revue Scientifique_, 24th March, 1894), gave a drawing representing the couvade from a sketch by a native artist.