The Descent of Man

The indirect evidence in favour of the belief of
the former prevalence of communal marriages
is strong, and rests chiefly on the terms of relationship
which are employed between the
members of the same tribe, implying a connection
with the tribe, and not with either parent.
But the subject is too large and complex for
even an abstract to be here given, and I will
confine myself to a few remarks. It is evident in
the case of such marriages, or where the marriage
tie is very loose, that the relationship of
the child to its father cannot be known. But it
seems almost incredible that the relationship of
the child to its mother should ever be completely
ignored, especially as the women in most
savage tribes nurse their infants for a long time.
Accordingly, in many cases the lines of descent
are traced through the mother alone, to the exclusion
of the father. But in other cases the
terms employed express a connection with the
tribe alone, to the exclusion even of the mother.
It seems possible that the connection between