a few of the most important influences which have been at work in combining to produce civilization.

The germ of a civil state appears when several tribes unite and form a confederation for purposes of mutual protection. We saw that the Iroquois confederacy was, in many respects, like a true civil state. Yet this remarkable organization was really not advanced beyond the stage of ethnic society because it was composed of tribes of Indians who traced descent through the mother line. The change from metronymic to patronymic organization seems to have been essential in the early history of many peoples for the final great transition to civil society. This change appears to have occurred at any stage in social evolution. A patriarchal organization had been already attained by most historic peoples when their earliest known literature was written; in consequence, even down to the middle of the nineteenth century, traditions of earlier metronymic organization had passed from men's minds.1 In passing from metronymic to patronymic organization, society was deeply influenced by the economic struggle for foods. In this period human savagery had full expression. There were ruthless wars of extermination and surplus population within the group was put to death. Social regulations placed a ban upon the marriage of young men, resulting in polyandry 2 and in polygamy among the older and powerful chiefs.1

3

1 Dealey, J. Q.-The Family in its Sociological Aspects, 1912, p. 27, see also Howard's Matrimonial Institutions, Morgan's Ancient Society, Fustel de Coulanges' Ancient City, Robertson Smith's Kinship and Marriage of Early Arabia, Louis Wallis' Sociological Study of the Bible, Keller's Homeric Society, Gummere's Germanic Origins, and Hearn's Aryan Household. 2 A marriage system in which a woman has several husbands. 3 A marriage system in which a man has several wives.

4 Dealey, op. cit., p. 23.

1

One of the important factors in the change seems to have been the practice of obtaining wives by capture. Under the system of mother descent the husband came to live with his wife's kindred and the children were claimed by the mother clan and took its name. In the new relations which grew out of the system of wife capture, the children of the captured wife quite naturally belonged to the kin of the father as long as he chose to keep them and their mother, and if he cared enough for them to hold them as his property until their maturity, they took his name. This transition is described by Tylor as taking place under his observation among the Malayan tribes of the Baber Archipelago.5 Powell has described how force of circumstances consequent upon the conditions of life in the desert region has caused the Pueblo Indians, a matriarchal people with female descent, to place the control of family affairs temporarily in the hands of the husbands and fathers. As water is scarce for irrigation in their desert region, these Indians are obliged to separate widely for the cultivation of lands at a distance from the central pueblo. The consequence is that the control of the families and the training of children are temporarily taken out of the hands of the mother's kin.

Economic changes of vast importance occurred at about the time this system of wife capture was originating. These changes operated to strengthen the motive to obtain possession of offspring. In early stages men obtained their food by hunting wild animals. Under cer

5 Tylor, E. B. Jour. of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xviii, p. 261. 6 Powell, J. W.-Letter quoted by Tylor, ibid., p. 258.

7 Giddings, Descrip. and Hist. Sociology, p. 464, Principles, p. 288; Dealey, op. cit., p. 24.

tain circumstances where game had become scarce, it was discovered, at first by mere accident, that a less precarious food supply could be secured by preserving various animals and caring for their increase, rather than by devouring at once the entire produce of the chase. "Domestication of animals was a discovery of momentous import, and with their multiplication first for food, then for transport, and finally for clothing, protection and pleasure, we have the conditions for the transition to the pastoral stage."s The chief result of the domestication of animals was assurance of a permanent food supply, and henceforth man, in place of relying on natural production, gorging himself in one season, starving in another, was able to store his food supply into flocks and herds, thereby securing a constant and abundant source of flesh and milk." Thus there was afforded an opportunity to accumulate wealth which stimulated the ambition of man to devote himself to activities other than those of war and the chase. "In the pastoral life was born the desire to multiply herds and herdsmen, and to transmit property to sons." 10 Male children of the wife by capture, proved an asset of considerable importance to the strong man who had plundered his foe's herds. Consequently there was an economic motive to reinforce the social usage of wife capture and retain possession of children.

"Under these new conditions courage and vigor were in demand, since the race had of necessity to be brave in the defense of its wealth and aggressive against robber bands and carnivorous beasts. The inert and the cowardly were killed, or as slaves received life in return for labor. In this way developed a breed of masterly 8 Seligman, op. cit., p. 71. 9 Dealey, op. cit. 10 Giddings, op. cit.

11

men who loved war with its turmoil and bloodshed and who ruled with an iron hand over slave and family alike. These dominating males, as warriors, priests, and judges, were the heads of powerful families and groups, owning slaves, flocks and herds, and wide areas of grazing-lands." The industry developed under these new conditions, diverted attention from war, and marriage by purchase gradually succeeded marriage by capture. This new form of marriage gave the husband even greater authority over the wife than he secured by capture, since his right to the purchased wife cannot be denied by her kinsmen. She was wholly surrendered by her kinsmen and could cherish no hope of restoration to them.12 The husband's authority was further increased by religion. Ordinarily the children would follow the totem of the mother, but if the totems of the two parents were hostile, confusion resulted. Hence there developed the system of adopting the captured or purchased wife into the clan and totem of the husband. In this way the children became in every sense the kindred of the father. McLennan has described a transition of this sort among the Guinea negroes. The chief's principal wife and her children must be of the clan and totem of her kinsmen by blood, but the husband often purchases a slave or a friendless girl and by consecrating her to his bossum, or god, he makes her of his kin and faith. The bossum wife and her children are under the husband's control, and it is the bossum wife who is sacrificed at the chief's death, that her spirit may follow his.13 By means of these different usages the father's power was finally established over his small community.

11 Dealey, op. cit., pp. 24-25.

12 Giddings, op. cit.

13 McLennan, The Patriarchal Theory, pp. 235-236.

Population multiplied rapidly under these improved. conditions, and the food supply became inadequate in certain densely peopled regions. Presumably by accident, it was found that the seeds would multiply themselves, and that the stick was more effective for grubbing than the hand; when these discoveries were made we have the beginning of the cultivation of the soil. But we must not think of this agricultural stage of food getting as always following upon the nomadic or pastoral stage, because the resources of many regions will never admit of agriculture and can only furnish a scant subsistence for an occasional wandering herd. Thus the transition was not an invariable one from pastoral to agricultural, but quite as likely there was the change from hunting to agriculture, since we often find among primitive peoples a degree of agriculture combined with the hunting or fishing stage. We cannot assert the exact chronological sequence of these stages because knowledge of all the details is lacking. Some of the most careful investigators now believe that the domestication of animals was not the achievement of the hunter at all, but of the primitive farmer, and that the pastoral stage was an outgrowth of early agriculture. At any rate, it is reasonably sure that the primitive tilling of the soil was carried on by the hunters' wives and daughters as a subordinate and auxiliary means of support. Only at a much later period did agriculture acquire more importance. Not until the game supply had been practically exhausted and the roving life of the hunter made impracticable was chief reliance put upon agriculture.1 If the food supply was bettered by the system of raising flocks and herds it was made doubly secure by crop raising. As grain and wheat 14 Seligman, op cit.