Note 11 — Chapter II

It cannot be said that the ordinary theory of the development of kinship in the female line is satisfactory. The consanguine relation of mother and child does not appear to be a complete answer to the question why kinship—an entirely different thing—was reckoned through the mother; the alleged uncertainty of fatherhood is in the first place closely connected with an unproven stage of promiscuity and consequently hardly a vera causa, until further evidence of such a stage has been produced; and again among the Arunta, it is rather potestas than physical fatherhood which, on their theory, determines the kinship of the child so far as the class is concerned. For the primitive group therefore we cannot assert any predominant interest of the mother in the children nor yet admit that it would necessarily be important if it were shown to exist.