Note 401.1 — Chapter XV · THE COUVADE AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE STRENGTH OF THE BLOOD-TIE—CONCLUSION OF THE INQUIRY INTO THE THEORY OF THE LIFE-TOKEN.

Prominent among them is the custom to which the name of the Couvade has been given: a name too deeply rooted now to be changed, albeit one founded on a mistake as to the use of the word and a limitation, untenable on scientific grounds, though inevitable in the then state of our knowledge, to certain remarkable developments of the usage. Dr. Tylor was the first to examine the custom in a critical manner. Since the publication of his Researches into the Early History of Mankind, it has been considered by numerous anthropologists, notably by Dr. Ploss, Dr. Wilken, Mr. im Thurn, and more recently by Dr. von Dargun and Mr. Ling Roth; while Dr. J. A. H. Murray in his letters to The Academy has once for all disposed of the evidence for its existence in modern Europe and for the use of the word by the Béarnese, or by any French writers of authority, as a technical term in describing the alleged Béarnese custom. Mr. Ling Roth’s comprehensive paper on the subject happily relieves me from the necessity of dealing with it at length here.401.1