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Even though war passes away entirely, nations can never escape this competition with one another. While the competition may not be upon the low and brutal plane of war, it will certainly go on upon the higher plane of commerce and industry, and will probably be on this higher plane quite as decisive in the life of peoples in future as war was in the past.

While the primary struggle within the human species has been in the historic period between nations and races, this is not saying, of course, that struggle and competition have not gone on within these larger groups. On the contrary, as has already been implied, a continual struggle has gone on between classes, first perhaps of racial origin, and later of economic origin. Also there is within the nation a struggle between parties and sects, and sometimes between "sections" and communities. Usually, however, the struggle within the nation is a peaceful one and does not come to bloodshed.

Again, within each of these minor groups that we have mentioned struggle and competition in some modified form goes on between its members. Thus within a party or class there is apt to be a struggle or competition between factions. There is, indeed, no human group that is free from struggle or competition between its members, unless it be the family. The family seems to be so constituted that normally there is no competition between its members,--at least, there is good ground tor believing that competition between the members of a family is to be considered exceptional, or even abnormal.

From what has been said it is evident that competition and co?peration are twin principles in the evolution of social groups. While competition characterizes in the main the relation between groups, especially independent political groups, and while co?peration characterizes in the main the relation of the members of a given group to one another, still competition and co?peration are correlatives in practically every phase of the social life. Some degree of competition, for example, has to be maintained by every group between its members if it is going to maintain high standards of efficiency or of loyalty. If there were no competition with respect to the matters that concern the inner life of groups, it is evident that the groups would soon lose efficiency in leadership and in membership and would sooner or later be eliminated. Consequently society, from certain points of view, presents itself to the student at the present time as a vast competition, while from other standpoints it presents itself as a vast co?peration.

It follows from this that competition and co?peration are both equally important in the life of society. It has been a favorite idea that competition among human beings should be done away with, and that co?peration should be substituted to take its place entirely. It is evident, however, that this idea is impossible of realization. If a social group were to check all competition between its members, it would stop thereby the process of natural selection or of the elimination of the unfit, and, as a consequence, would soon cease to progress. If some scheme of artificial selection were substituted to take the place of natural selection, it is evident that competition would still have to be retained to determine who were the fittest. A society that would give positions of trust and responsibility to individuals without imposing some competitive test upon them would be like a ship built partially of good and partially of rotten wood,--it would soon go to pieces.

This leads us to emphasize the continued necessity of selection in society. No doubt natural selection is often a brutal and wasteful means of eliminating the weak in human societies, and no doubt human reason might devise superior means of bringing about the selection of individuals which society must maintain. To some extent it has done this through systems of education and the like, which are, in the main, selective processes for picking out the most competent individuals to perform certain social functions. But the natural competition, or struggle between individuals, has not been done away with, especially in economic matters, and it is evidently impossible to do away with it until some vast scheme of artificial selection can take its place. Such a scheme is so far in the future that it is hardly worth talking about. The best that society can apparently do at the present time is to regulate the natural competition between individuals, and this it is doing increasingly.

What people rightfully object to is, not competition, but unregulated or unfair competition. In the interest of solidarity, that is, in the interest of the life of the group as a whole, all forms of competition in human society should be so regulated that the rules governing the competition may be known and the competition itself public. It is evident that in politics and in business we are very far from this ideal as yet, although society is unquestionably moving toward it.

A word in conclusion about the nature of moral codes and standards from the social point of view. It is evident that moral codes from the social point of view are simply formulations of standards of conduct which groups find it convenient or necessary to impose upon their members. Even morality, in an idealistic sense, seems from a sociological standpoint to be those forms of conduct which conduce to social harmony, to social efficiency, and so to the survival of the group. Groups, however, as we have already pointed out, cannot do as they please. They are always hard-pressed in competition by other groups and have to meet the standards of efficiency which nature imposes. Morality, therefore, is not anything arbitrarily designed by the group, but is a standard of conduct which necessities of social survival require. In other words, the right, from the point of view of natural science, is that which ultimately conduces to survival, not of the individual, but of the group or of the species. This is looking at morality, of course, from the sociological point of view, and in no way denies the religious and metaphysical view of morality, which may be equally valid from a different standpoint.

Finally, we need to note that natural selection does not necessitate in any mechanical sense certain conduct on the part of individuals or groups. Rather, natural selection marks the limits of variation which nature permits, and within those limits of variation there is a large amount of freedom of choice, both to individuals and to groups. Human societies, therefore, may be conceivably free to take one of several paths of development at any particular point. But in the long run they must conform to the ultimate conditions of survival; and this probably means that the goal of their evolution is largely fixed for them. Human groups are free only in the sense that they may go either backward or forward on the path which the conditions of survival mark out for them. They are free to progress or to perish. But social evolution in any case, in the sense of social change either toward higher or toward lower social adaptation, is a necessity that cannot be escaped. Sociology and all social science is, therefore, a study not of what human groups would like to do, but of what they must do in order to survive, that is, how they can control their environment by utilizing the laws which govern universal evolution.

From this brief and most elementary consideration of the bearings of evolutionary theory upon social problems it is evident that evolution, in the sense of what we know about the development of life and society in the past, must be the guidepost of the sociologist. Human social evolution, we repeat, rests upon and is conditioned by biological evolution at every point. There is, therefore, scarcely any sanity in sociology without the biological point of view.

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THE FUNCTION OF THE FAMILY IN SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

Instead of continuing the study of social evolution in general it will be best now, before we take up some of the problems of modern society, to study the evolution of some important social institution, because in so doing we can see more clearly the working of the biological and psychological forces which have brought about the evolution of human institutions. An institution, as has already been said, is a sanctioned grouping or relation in society. Now, there can be scarcely any doubt that the two most important institutions of human society are the family and property. In Western civilization these take the form of the monogamic family and of private property. It is upon these two institutions that our civilization rests. The state is a third very important institution in society, but it exists largely for the sake of protecting the family and property.

Of the two institutions, the family and property, the family is without doubt prior in time and more fundamental,--more important in human association. We shall, therefore, study very briefly the origin and development of the family as a human institution in order to illustrate some of the principles of social evolution in general. But before we can take up the question of the origin of the family it will be well for us to see just what the function of this institution is in the human society of the present, in order to justify the assertion just made that it is the most important and fundamental institution of humanity.

The Family the Primary Social Institution.--Let us note first of all that in society, as it exists at present, the family is the simplest group capable of maintaining itself. It is, therefore, we may say, the primary social structure. Because it contains both sexes and all ages it is capable of reproducing itself, and so of reproducing society. For the same reason it contains practically all social relations in miniature. It has therefore often been called, and rightly, "the social microcosm". The relations of superiority, subordination, and equality, which enter so largely into the structure of all social institutions, are especially clearly illustrated in the family in the relations of parents to children, of children to parents, of parents to each other, and of children to one another. Comte, for this reason, claimed that the family was the unit of social organization, not the individual. However this may be, it is evident that families do enter, as units, very largely into our social and industrial life. While the tendency may be to make the individual the unit of modern society, it is nevertheless true that the family remains the simplest social structure in society, and from it, in some sense, all other social relations whatsoever are evolved.

THE PRIMARY FUNCTION OF THE FAMILY is continuing the life of the species; that is, the primary function of the family is reproduction in the sense of the birth and rearing of children. While other functions of the family have been delegated in a large measure to other social institutions, it is manifest that this function cannot be so delegated. At least we know of no human society in which the birth and rearing of children has not been the essential function of the family. From a sociological point of view the childless family is a failure. While the childless family may be of social utility to the individuals that form it, nevertheless from the point of view of society such a family has failed to perform its most important function and must be considered, therefore, socially a failure.

The Function of the Family in Conserving the Social Order.--The family is still the chief institution in society for transmitting from one generation to another social possessions of all sorts. Property in the form of land or houses or personal property, society permits the family to pass along from generation to generation. Thus, also, the material equipment for industry, that is capital, is so transmitted. While it is obvious that the material goods of society are thus transmitted by the family from one generation to another, it is perhaps not quite so obvious, but equally true, that the spiritual possessions of the race are also thus transmitted. For example, language is very largely transmitted in the family, and students tell us that each family has its own peculiar dialect. Literature, ideas, beliefs on government, law, religion, moral standards, artistic tastes and appreciation--all of these are still largely transmitted in society from one generation to another through the family. While public institutions, such as libraries, art galleries, universities, scientific museums, and the like, are often adopted to conserve and transmit these spiritual possessions of the race, yet it is safe to say that if it were possible for society to depend upon these institutions to transmit knowledge, artistic standards, and moral ideals, there would be great discontinuity in social life. The family has been in the past, and is still, the great conserving agency in human society, preserving and transmitting from generation to generation both the material and spiritual possessions of the race.

The Function of the Family in Social Progress.--While the conservative function of the family is very obvious, its function in furthering social progress is perhaps not so obvious. Nevertheless, this is one of the greatest functions of the family life, because the family is the chief or almost sole generator of altruism in human society, and it is upon altruism that society depends for every upward advance in co?peration. It is in the family that children learn to love and obey, to be of service, and to respect one another's rights. The amount of altruism in a given group has a very close relation to the quality of its family life. If the family fails to teach the spirit of service and self-sacrifice to its members, it is hardly probable that they will get very much of that spirit from society at large. The ideal of a human brotherhood has no meaning unless family affection gives it meaning. If the family is the chief generator of altruism in human society and if society depends upon altruism for each forward step in moral progress, then the family is the chief source of social progress.

What we have said is a brief presentation of the claims of the family in modern society to count not only as the primary but also as the most important human institution. The family, it is evident, is charged by society with the most important task, not only of producing the new individuals in society, but of training each individual as he comes on the stage of life, adjusting him to society in all of its aspects, such as industry, government, and religion. If the family fails to perform these important functions the chances are that unsocialized individuals will take important places in society, and this means ultimately social anarchy.

In primitive communities and in newly settled districts the family often carries on all essential industrial activities. It produces all the raw material, manufactures the finished products, and consumes the same. But with the growth of complex societies there has come a great industrial division of labor, and the family has delegated industrial activity after activity to some other institution until at the present time the modern family performs scarcely any industrial activities, except the preparation of food for immediate consumption. Even this, however, in modern cities seems about to be delegated to some other institution.

All that need be said at present about the delegation of the industrial activities of the family to other industrial institutions is that the movement is not one which need cause any anxiety so long as it does not interfere with the essential function of the family, namely, the birth and rearing of children. Even though children can no longer learn the rudiments of industry in their home life, still it is possible through manual and industrial training in our public schools to teach all children this. And the removal of industries from the home, even such essential industries as the preparation of food, is to be regarded as a boon if it gives more time to the parents, especially to the mother, for the proper care and bringing up of their children.

But the removal of industries from the family group has not always had the beneficent effect of simply giving more time to the parents for the proper care of their children. On the contrary, the removal of these industries has often been followed by the removal of the parents themselves from the home and the practical disintegration of the family. This has been particularly the case where married women have gone into factories. Under such circumstances children have often been neglected, allowed to grow up on the streets, and to grow up as unsocialized individuals in general. It would seem that the labor of married women outside of the home should be forbidden by the state, except in certain instances, with a view to assuring to the state itself a better citizenship. The labor of children in factories and other industrial institutions has sprung very largely from the same general causes. While child labor may have the merit of giving the child some industrial training, still it has been shown that it dwarfs the child in body and mind, produces a one-sided development, fails to prepare for citizenship in the higher sense, and so must be regarded as altogether an evil. Even the labor of the young unmarried women in factories and shops, when they should be preparing for the duties of wifehood and motherhood, is to some extent an evil in society, though not by any means of the same proportions as the labor of married women.

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THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY

We must understand the biological roots of the family before we can understand the family as an institution, and especially before we can understand its origin. Let us note, then, briefly the chief biological facts connected with the family life.

While the differences between the sexes have been mainly elaborated through the differences of reproductive function, yet these differences have come to be fundamental to the whole nature of the organism. In the higher animals, therefore, the sexes differ profoundly in many ways from each other. Biologists tell us that the chief difference between the male and female organism is a difference in metabolism, that is, in the rapidity of organic change which goes on within the body. In the male metabolism is much more rapid than in the female; hence the male organism is said to be more katabolic. In the female the rapidity of organic change is less; hence the female is said to be more anabolic. Put in more familiar terms, the male tends to expend energy, is more active, hence also stronger; the female tends more to store up energy, is more passive, conservative, and weaker. These fundamental differences between the sexes express themselves in many ways in the social life. The differences between man and woman, therefore, are not to be thought of as due simply to social customs and usages, the different social environment of the two sexes, but are even more due to a radical and fundamental difference in their whole nature. The belief that the two sexes would become like each other in character if given the same environment is, therefore, erroneous. That these differences are original, or inborn, and not acquired, may be readily seen by observing children of different sex. Even from their earliest years boys are more active, restless, energetic, destructive, untidy, and disobedient, while little girls are quieter, less restless, less destructive, neater, more orderly, and more obedient. These different innate qualities fit the sexes naturally for different functions in human society, and there is, therefore, a natural division of labor between them from the first. Indeed, the division of labor between the two sexes may be said to be the fundamental division of labor in human society.

The causes which produce sex in the individual are not known to any extent and are probably beyond the control of man. In each species the relative number of the two sexes is fixed by nature, probably through some obscure working of natural selection, and in practically all of the higher species of animals, man included, the number of the two sexes is relatively equal. In human society much depends upon this relative numerical equality of the two sexes. Hence it can be readily seen that it is fortunate that man does not know how to control the sex of offspring, for if he did the numerical equality of the two sexes might be disturbed and serious social results would follow.

If it is allowable at this point to generalize from the facts given, it must be said that the family life is essentially a device of nature for the preservation of offspring through a more or less prolonged infancy. The family group and the instincts upon which it rests were undoubtedly, therefore, instituted by natural selection. Summing up, we may say, then, the animal family group owes its existence, first, to the production of child or immature forms that need more or less prolonged care; secondly, to the prolongation of this period of immaturity in the higher animals, and especially in man; thirdly, to the development, parallel with these two causes, of parental instincts which keep male and female together for the care of the offspring. It is evident, then, that the family life rests, not upon sex attraction, but upon the fact of the child and the corresponding psychological fact of parental instinct. The family, then, has been created by the very conditions of life itself and is not a man-made institution.

None of these peculiarities of human family life are found in the family life of any animal species below man. It might seem, therefore, that man's family life must be regarded as a special creation unconnected with the family life of the brutes below him. But this view is hardly probable, rather is impossible from the standpoint of evolution. We must say that these peculiarities of human family life are to be explained through the fact that man has passed through many more stages of evolution, particularly of intellectual evolution, than any of the animals below him. If we examine these peculiarities of man's family life carefully, we will see that they all can be explained through natural selection and man's higher intellectual development. That man has no pairing season, has fewer offspring born, and a longer period of dependence of the offspring upon parents, and the like, is directly to be explained through natural selection; while seeking the indorsement of society before forming a new family, sexual modesty, tendencies to artificial adornment, and the like, are to be explained through man's self-consciousness and higher intellectual development, also through the fuller development of his social instincts. The gap between the human family life and brute family life is, therefore, not an unbridgeable one.

That this is so, we see most clearly when we consider the family life of the anthropoid or manlike apes--man's nearest cousins in the animal world. All of these apes, of which the chief representatives are the gorilla, orangutan, and the chimpanzee, live in relatively permanent family groups, usually monogamous. These family groups are quite human in many of their characteristics, such as the care which the male parent gives to the mother and her offspring, and the seeming affection which exists between all members of the group. Such a group of parents and offspring among the higher apes is, moreover, a relatively permanent affair, children of different ages being frequently found along with their parents in such groups. So far as the evidence of animals next to man, therefore, goes, there is no reason for supposing that the human family life sprang from confused or promiscuous sex relations in which no permanent union between male and female parent existed. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe, as Westermarck says, that human family life is an inheritance from man's apelike progenitor.

In 1876 Mr. J.F. McLennan, a Scotch lawyer, put forth, independently, practically the same theory, basing it upon certain legal survivals which he found among many peoples. With Bachofen, he argued that this matriarchal period must have been characterized by promiscuous relations of the sexes. In 1877 Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, an American ethnologist and sociologist, put forth again, independently, practically the same theory, basing it upon an extensive study of the North American Indian tribes. Morgan had lived among the Iroquois Indians for years and had mastered their system of relationship, which previously had puzzled the whites. He found that they traced relationship through mothers only, and not at all along the male line. This method of reckoning relationship, moreover, he found also characterized practically all of the North American Indian tribes, and he argued that the only explanation of it was that originally sexual relations were of such an unstable or promiscuous character that they would not permit of tracing descent through fathers.

Objections to the Hypothesis of a Primitive State of Promiscuity.--We may now briefly sum up the main criticisms of this theory of a primitive state of promiscuity, not only as we may derive them from inductive study of the higher animals and the lower peoples, but also as we may deduce them from known psychological and biological facts or principles.

In the first place, then, the animals next to man, namely, the anthropoid apes, do not show a condition of promiscuity.

The evidence from the lower peoples does not show that such a condition exists or has ever existed among them.

A third argument against this hypothesis may be gained from what we know of primitive economic conditions. Under the most primitive conditions, in which man had no mastery over nature, food supply was relatively scarce, and as a rule only very small groups of people could live together. The smallness of primitive groups, on account of the scarcity of food supply, would prevent anything like promiscuity on a large scale.

A fourth argument of a deductive nature is that the jealousy of the male, which characterizes all higher animals and especially man, would prevent anything like the existence of sexual promiscuity. The tendency of man would have been to appropriate one or more women for himself and drive away all rivals. Long ago Darwin argued that this would prevent anything like the existence of a general state of promiscuity.

A fifth argument against this theory may be got from the general biological fact that sexual promiscuity tends to pathological conditions unfavorable to fecundity, that is, fertility, or the birth of offspring. Physicians have long ago ascertained this fact, and the modern prostitute gives illustration of it by the fact that she has few or no children. Among the lower animal species, in which some degree of promiscuity obtains, moreover, powerful instincts keep the sexes apart except at the pairing season. Now, no such instincts exist in man. Promiscuity in man would, therefore, greatly lessen the birth rate, and any group that practiced it to any extent would soon be eliminated in competition with other groups that did not practice it.

We have finally the general social fact that promiscuity would lead to the neglect of children. Promiscuity means that the male parent does not remain with the female parent to care for the offspring and, therefore, in the human species it would mean that the care of children would be thrown wholly upon the mother. This means that the children would have less chance of surviving. Not only would promiscuity lead to lessening the birth rate, but it would lead to a much higher mortality in children born. This is found to be a striking fact wherever we find any degree of promiscuity among any people. Hence, promiscuity would soon exterminate any people that practiced it extensively in competition with other peoples that did not practice it.

From all of these lines of argument, without going over the evidence in greater detail, it seems reasonable to conclude with Westermarck "that the hypothesis of a primitive state of promiscuity has no foundation in fact and is essentially unscientific." The facts put forth in support of the theory do not justify the conclusion, Westermarck says, that promiscuity has ever been a general practice among a single people and much less that it was the primitive state. Promiscuity is found, however, more or less in the form of sexual irregularities or immorality among all peoples; more often, however, among the civilized than among the uncivilized, but among no people has it ever existed unqualified by more enduring forms of sex relation. Moreover, because promiscuity breaks up the social bonds, throws the burden of the care of children wholly upon the mother, and lessens the birth rate, we are justified in concluding that promiscuity is essentially an antisocial practice. This agrees with the facts generally shown by criminology and sociology, that the elements practicing promiscuity to any great extent in modern societies are those most closely related with the degenerate and criminal elements. Those elements, in other words, in modern society that practice promiscuity are on the road to extinction, and if a people generally were to practice it there is no reason to believe that such a people would meet with any different fate.

SOME GENERAL CONCLUSIONS, both of theoretical and practical bearing, may here be pointed out. We have seen that the biological processes of life have created the family, and that the family, as an institution, rests upon these biological conditions. Hence it is not too much to say, first, that the family is not a man-made institution; and, secondly, that it rests upon certain fundamental instincts of human nature. Now, both of these statements are also true to a certain extent as to human society in general. There is a sense in which social organization is not wholly man-made, and it is true that all human institutions rest to some extent upon human instincts. This is not saying, of course, that man has not modified and may not modify social organization and human institutions through his reason, but it is saying that the essential elements in human institutions and in the social order must correspond to the conditions of life generally and to the instincts which natural selection has implanted in the species. To attempt to reorganize human society or to reconstruct institutions regardless of the biological conditions of life, or regardless of human instincts, is to meet with certain failure.

A practical conclusion which may be drawn also is that those people who advocate sexual promiscuity in present society, or free love, as they please to style it, are advocating a condition which would result in the elimination of any group that practiced it. Promiscuity, or even great instability in the family life, as we have already seen, would lead to the undermining of everything upon which a higher civilization rests. The people in modern society who advocate such theories as free love, therefore, are more dangerous than the worst anarchist or the most revolutionary socialist. In other words, the modern attack upon the family is more of a menace to all that is worth while in human life than all attacks upon government and property, although it is not usually resented as such; and it is one of the most serious signs of the times that many intellectual people have indorsed such views. We must reemphasize, therefore, the fact that the family is the central institution of human society, that industry and the state must subordinate themselves to its interest. Neither the state nor industry has had much to do with the origin of the family, and neither the state nor industry may safely determine its forms independent of the biological requirements for human survival. Moreover, it is evident that human society from the beginning has in more or less instinctive, and also in more or less conscious, ways attempted to regulate the relations between the sexes with a view to controlling the reproductive process. While material civilization is mainly a control over the food process, moral civilization involves a control over the reproductive process, that is, over the birth and rearing of children; and such control over the reproductive process, which has certainly been one of the aims of all social organization in the past, whether of savage peoples or of civilized peoples, evidently precludes anything like the toleration of promiscuity or even of free love.

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THE FORMS OF THE FAMILY

The family as an institution has varied greatly in its forms from age to age and from people to people. This is what we should expect, seeing that all organic structures are variable. Such variations in human institutions are due partially to the influences of the environment, partially to the state of knowledge, and partially to many other causes as yet not well understood. The family illustrates in greater or less degree the working of these causes of variation and of change in human institutions.

The Maternal and Paternal Families.--As regards the general form of the family we have to note first of all the two great forms which we may characterize respectively as "the maternal family" and "the paternal family." As we have already seen, Bachofen, Morgan, and others discovered a condition of human society in which relationship was traced through mothers only, and in which property or authority descended along the female line rather than along the male line. Further investigation and research have shown that up to recent times, say up to fifty years ago, one half of all the peoples of the world, if we reckon them by nations and tribes rather than by numbers, practiced this system of reckoning kinship through mothers only, and passed property and authority down along the female line. Ethnologists and sociologists have practically concluded, from the amount of evidence now collected, that this maternal or metronymic system was the primitive system of tracing relationships, and that it was succeeded among the European peoples by the paternal system so long ago that the transition from the one to the other has been forgotten, except as some trace of it has been preserved in customs, legends, and the like.

Among many tribes of the North American Indians this metronymic or maternal system was peculiarly well-developed. Children took their mother's name, not their father's name; belonged to their mother's clan, not their father's clan; and the chief transmitted his authority, if hereditary, not to his own son, but to his eldest sister's son. The relatives on the father's side, indeed, were quite ignored. Frequently the maternal uncle had more legal authority over the children than their own father, seeing that the children belonged to his clan, that is, to their mother's clan.

Now, Bachofen claimed not only that in this stage was kinship reckoned through mothers only, but that women were dominant socially and politically; that there existed a true matriarchy, or rule of the mothers. Do the facts support Bachofen's theory? Let us see. The Iroquois Indians, among whom Morgan lived, were a typical maternal or metronymic people. Among them, without any doubt, the women had a position of influence socially and even politically which often is not found among peoples of higher culture. For example, among the Iroquois the government of the clan was in the hands of four women councilors , who were elected by all the adults in the clan. These four women councilors, however, elected a Peace Sachem, who carried out the will of the clan in all matters pertaining to peace generally. Moreover, the councilors of the several clans, four fifths of whom were women, met together to form the Tribal Council; but in this Tribal Council the women sat separate, not participating in the deliberations, but exercising only a veto power on the decisions of the men. In matters of war, however, government was intrusted to two war chiefs elected from the tribe generally, the women here only having the right to veto the decision of the tribe to enter upon the warpath. Thus we see that while the women of the Iroquois Indians had a great deal of social and political influence, the actual work of government was largely turned over by them to the men, and especially was this true of directing the affairs of the tribe in time of war. There is no doubt, however, that in the maternal stage of social evolution women had an influence in domestic, religious, and social matters much greater than they had at many later stages of social development. Among the Zuni of New Mexico, for example, another well-developed maternal people, marriage is always arranged by the bride's parents. The husband goes to live with his wife, and is practically a guest in his wife's house all his life long, she alone having the right of divorce. Indeed, among all maternal peoples the rule is that the husband goes to live with the wife, and not the wife with the husband, the children, as we have already seen, keeping the mother's name and belonging to her kindred or clan.

Nevertheless we cannot agree with Bachofen that a true matriarchy, or government by women, ever existed. On the contrary, among all of these maternal peoples, while the women may have much influence socially and politically, the men, on account of their superior strength, are intrusted with the work not only of protecting and providing for the families and driving away enemies, but also largely with the work of maintaining the internal government and order of the people. Strictly speaking, therefore, there has never been a matriarchal stage of social evolution, but rather a maternal or metronymic stage.

We have already said that this stage was probably the primitive one. How are we to explain, then, that primitive man reckoned kinship through mothers only? Was this due, as Morgan thought, to a primitive practice of promiscuity which prevented tracing relationships through fathers? The reply is, that among the many maternal peoples now well known, among whom relationships are traced through mothers only, we find no evidence of the practice of general promiscuity now or even in remote times. The North American Indians, for example, had quite definite forms of the family life and were very far removed from the practice of promiscuity, though they traced relationship through mothers only. It is evident that the causes of the maternal family and the maternal system of relationship are not so simple as Morgan supposed. What, then, were the causes of the maternal system? It is probable that man in the earliest times did not know the physiological connection between father and child. The physiological connection between mother and child, on the other hand, was an obvious fact which required no knowledge of physiology to establish; therefore, nothing was more natural than for primitive man to recognize that the child was of the mother's blood, but not of the father's blood. Therefore, the child belonged to the mother's people and not to the father's people. If it be asked whether it is possible that there could be any human beings so ignorant that they do not know the physiological connection between father and child, the reply is, that this is apparently the case among a number of very primitive peoples, even down to recent times. It is not infrequent among these peoples to find conception and childbirth attributed to the influence of the spirits, rather than to relations between male and female. While, therefore, a social connection between the father and the children was recognized, leading the father to provide in all ways for his children, as fathers do whether among civilized or uncivilized peoples, yet the blood relationship between the father and the child could not have been clear in the most primitive times.

Perhaps an even more efficient cause, however, of the maternal system was the fact that the mother in primitive times was the stable element in the family life, the constant center of the family. The husband was frequently away from home, hunting or fighting, and oftentimes failed to return. Nothing was more natural, therefore, than that the child should be reckoned as belonging to the mother, take her name and belong to her kindred or clan. Moreover, after the custom of naming children from mothers and reckoning them as belonging to the mother's clan was established, it could not be displaced by the mere discovery of the physiological connection between the father and the child. On the contrary social habits, like habits in the individual, tend to persist until they work badly. We find, therefore, the maternal system persisting among peoples who for many generations had come fully to recognize the physiological connection of father and child. Indeed, the maternal system could never have been done away with if social evolution had not brought about new and complex conditions which caused the system to break down and to be replaced by the paternal system.

War was unquestionably a cause of the breakdown of the maternal system through the fact that women were captured in war, held as slaves, and made wives or concubines by their captors. These captured wives were regarded as the property of the captor. Any children born to them were, therefore, also regarded as the property of the captor. Furthermore, these captured wives were separated from their kindred, and their children could not possibly belong to any clan except their husband's. Manifestly this cause could not have worked in the earliest times, when slave captives were not valuable; but as soon as slavery became instituted in any form, then women slaves were particularly valued, not only for their labor, but because they might be either concubines or wives. It is evident, then, that war and slavery would thus indirectly tend to undermine the maternal system.

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