parents at her marriage. And this is very far from being all the advantage they derive from her. Her husband has to feed them in peace, and to fight for them in war. Thus an Australian native divides all the game he takes according to certain established rules, and the choicest bits go to his wife's father. That a man has to fight on his father-in-law's side among many tribes who reckon descent through females has been recorded by several observers of savage life; and it is worthy of note that this duty still devolves upon him in some tribes, which, though they have advanced to descent through males, have not yet been able to free themselves from the traditions of the older line. Thus the Rev. R. Taylor says of the Maori who keep records, carefully carved in wood, of long lines of male ancestors reaching up to the Nichts und Alles—that the son-in-law had to go into his father-in-law's hapu (clan) and "in case of war was often obliged to fight against his own relatives.[1] The custom was evidently on the way to extinction among the Maori, though still retaining great strength. This is evident from the fact that there was much rebellion against it on the part of the young men, some of whom, within Mr. Taylor's knowledge, refused to obey, and lost their wives in consequence; and, whenever there is as much opposition as this to an ancient custom among savages, we may be sure that a new custom has gained a footing strong enough to afford a sanction to the malcontents. That this custom is likely to be of general prevalence among the lower savages is evident from the fact that it is the logical result of their group relationships when descent is through the mother. Among them it is not that a man has to leave his own clan and go into his father-in-law's when he marries. He is of his father-in-law's clan by birth. Thus, if Dog and Snake be the totems, or badges, of two intermarrying clans: with descent through females the daughter of Dog is Snake, and the son of Snake is Dog. This Dog, the son of Snake, marries Snake, the daughter of Dog. That is, father-in-law and son-in-law are of the same totem, where there are but two intermarrying gentes; and a strong probability can be shown that this is the earliest form of a tribe with exogamous intermarrying divisions.
Therefore, since women are in no respect an incumbrance to the lower savages, but the reverse, it is evident that we do not find in the reasons given by Sir John Lubbock and Mr. McLennan a preferential motive for female infanticide.
And something more than this can be shown. Another motive for killing female children rather than male is found among agricultural tribes, who have descent through the father, in the fact that a woman can transmit neither the family name nor the family estate. She passes out of the line by marriage. And this with tribes who have that line of descent, and therefore—wherever they accept its consequences—ancestral worship offered to males alone by males alone, this
- ↑ "Te Ika a Maui," p. 337."
