Note 106 — Chapter VI · ToC

Strabo, IV. 5, 4. Hartland, Primitive Paternity, Vol. II. p. 132. It must not be thought that mother-descent was always accompanied by promiscuity, or even with what we should call laxity of morals. We shall find that it was not. But the early custom of group marriages was frequent, in which women often changed their mates at will, and perhaps retained none of them long. We shall see that this freedom, whatever were its evils, carried with it many privileges for women.