Note 67 — Chapter VII · THE MOTHER IN THE PRIMITIVE FAMILY

I would wish to say here that I did not consider this question sufficiently when I wrote The Age of Mother-Power. I was, perhaps, carried away by the advantages to women of the maternal system of reckoning descent. Such a system could be preserved only under the conditions of the communal clan. This necessitated the absorption of the individual family, which must consist of father, mother and children. I hold this to be a greater evil than the wrongs—great as those wrongs undoubtedly were—that came in family relationships with the re-establishment of the patriarchal home.