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MATRIARCHATE (" See also: term used to express a supposed earliest and lowest See also: form of See also: family See also: life, typical of See also: primitive See also: societies, in which the promiscuous relations of the sexes result in the See also: child's See also: father being unknown (see FAMILY)
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In such communities the See also: mother took precedence of the father in certain important respects, especially in See also: line of descent and See also: inheritance
.
Matriarchate is assumed on this theory to have been universal in prehistoric times
.
The prominent position then naturally assigned See also: women did not, however, imply any See also: personal power, since they were in the position of See also: mere chattels: it simply constituted them the See also: sole relatives of their See also: children and the only centre of any such family life as existed
.
The See also: custom of tracing descent through the See also: female is still observed among certain savage tribes
.
In See also: Fiji father and son are not regarded as relatives
.
Among the Bechuanas the chieftainship passes to a See also: brother, not to a son
.
In See also: Senegal, See also: Loango, See also: Congo and See also: Guinea, relationship is traced through the female
.
Among the Tuareg See also: Berbers a child takes See also: rank, freeman's or slave's, from its mother
.
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