In the gens women sometimes ruled with severity, and woe to the man who was too lazy or too clumsy to contribute his share to the common sustenance. He was cast out and was obliged either to return to his own gens, where he was not likely to be received kindly, or to gain admission into another gens where he was judged less harshly. That this form of matrimony has been maintained by the natives of Central Africa to this very day was experienced by Livingstone, to his great surprise, as related by him in his book, “Missionary Travels and Researches in Southern Africa.” At the Zambesi he encountered the Balonda, a strong and handsome Negro tribe, engaged in agricultural pursuits, and was soon able to confirm the reports made to him by Portugiese, which he had at first declined to believe, that the women held a superior position among them. They are members of the tribal council. When a young man marries, he must migrate from his village into the one in which his wife resides. He must at the same time pledge himself to provide his mother-in-law with kindling wood for lifetime. The woman, in turn, must provide her husband’s food. Although minor quarrels between man and wife occasionally occurred, Livingstone found that the men did not rebel against female supremacy. But he found, on the other hand, that when men had insulted their wives, they were severely punished--by their stomachs. The man--so Livingstone relates--comes home to eat, but is sent from one woman to another and is not given anything. Tired and hungry, he finally climbs upon a tree in the most populous part of the village and exclaims, with a woe-begone voice: “Hark, hark! I thought I had married women, but they are witches! I am a bachelor; I have not a single wife! Is that just and fair to a lord like myself?!” [7] Frederick Engels: “Origin of the Family.” [8] Havelock Ellis: “Man and Woman.” CHAPTER II. Conflict between Matriarchate and Patriarchate. 1.--Rise of the Patriarchate.