Soulima have, to quit their husband when they please, is perhaps of matriarchal origin also.[1]
The exogamy of the clan, which frequently coexists with uterine filiation, is met with here and there in Africa. Burton has proved the existence of it among the Somals,[2] and Du Chaillu has found it at the Gaboon.[3] Traces of the maternal family still exist, or have existed, in African societies that are more or less barbarous, but which have, however, emerged from savagery; in Madagascar, Nubia, Abyssinia, and especially in ancient Egypt. Among the Hovas of Madagascar, not only wealth, but political dignities, and even sacerdotal functions, are transmitted to the nephew, the sister's son. The Saccalavas do the same as the Hovas, and among them the women of high rank willingly take husbands of inferior rank, who simply become their servants. As for the children, they inherit the rank and rights of their mother.[4] The same customs prevail among the Nubians, or did formerly prevail; the Arab chroniclers tell us that among them the heritage belonged, not to the son of the deceased, but to the nephew, the sister's son. The Nubians justified this custom pertinaciously, by saying that the consanguinity of the sister's son had the advantage of being incontestable.[5] And lastly, Nicholas of Damascus says the same thing of the Ethiopians.[6]
Without the proof of any absolutely precise text, we have an accumulation of facts which render it very probable that, in ancient Egypt, maternal filiation was in force. In a preceding chapter I have spoken of the exceptional position granted to the free woman in the kingdom of the Pharaohs. I will recall, in passing, that until the time of Philometor, who deprived women of the right to dispose of their property, the word husband never occurs in marriage deeds.[7] Besides this, public deeds often only mention the mother, up to the time of this same King Philometor, who, being evidently a determined partisan of the patriarchate,
