Whether this assumption is universally
applicable or not, must remain doubtful; later ethnologists, more
particularly _von Westermarck_, deny it because it does not apply to
every savage tribe of the present day. Herodotus tells us that
promiscuity existed in historical times in countries as far removed from
each other as Ethiopia and the borders of the Caspian Sea. There can be
no reasonable doubt that sexual intercourse took the form of
group-marriage, the exchange or lending of wives, and other similar
arrangements.
The relationship between mother and child having been established by
Nature herself, the first human family congregated round the mother,
acknowledging her as its natural chief. This continued even after the
causal connection between generation and birth had ceased to be a
mystery. In all countries on the Mediterranean, more especially in
Lycia, Crete and Egypt, the predominance of the female element in State
and family is well attested; it is reflected in the natural religions of
the Eastern races--both Semitic and Aryan--and we find innumerable
traces of it in Greek mythology.
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