it is among contemporary Berbers. We are therefore able to give a rough outline of it.
The general characteristics of the Berber family seem to have been a privileged position accorded to women and maternal filiation, with tendencies even to the matriarchate. Speaking of the Cantabrians, Strabo writes: "Among the Cantabrians usage requires that the husband shall bring a dower to his wife, and the daughters inherit, being charged with the marriage of their brothers, which constitutes a kind of gynecocracy."[1] The word gynecocracy is surely too strong. We have here probably an account of a custom which still exists in Japan, and which existed quite recently in Basque countries, that of leaving to the first-born, whether boy or girl, the administration of the inalienable patrimony of the family, and of obliging his or her wedded partner to take the name and abode of the family. This is what M. le Play has formerly called the family-stock; but this family-stock may, and doubtless must, have co-existed primitively with maternal filiation.
This last is still in force among the Touaregs of the Sahara, and I have previously spoken of the great independence which their women enjoy, and especially the rich and noble ladies. At Rhât, for example, by inheritances and by the accumulation of productions, it has come to pass that nearly the whole of the real property has fallen into the hands of the women.[2] We know that in ancient Egypt, where the Berbers were largely represented, the women also enjoyed a very similar position. As a consequence of this régime, the rights and pretensions of the Berber ladies have become so inconvenient for the men, that many of them prefer to marry slaves.[3] The family among the Touaregs will surely evolve, as it formerly did in Egypt, and as it has done with the Kabyles, where the most rigorous patriarchate has at length replaced the ancient maternal family. In Kabylie, however, traces of the ancient organisation, anterior to Rome and to Islamism, still exist. The Kabyle village has, in its tribe, a political personality which strongly recalls the clan. Many customs, indeed, are evident survivals of an ancient communal organisation. Thus, with the
