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.
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