Note 398 — Chapter XIV · - CHANGE OF DESCENT FROM THE FEMALE TO THE MALE LINE.

Bachofen, speaking of the Cretan city of Lyktos, remarks that “this city was considered a Lacedaemonian colony, and as also related to the Athenians. It was in both cases only on the mother’s side, for only the mothers were Spartans; the Athenian relationship, however, goes back to those Athenian women whom the Pelasgian Tyrrhenians are said to have enticed away from the Brauron promontory.”—Das Mutterrecht, ch. 13, p. 31.

With descent in the male line the lineage of the women would have remained unnoticed; but with descent in the female line the colonists would have given their pedigrees through females only.