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.
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