the provisions were held in common; but woe to the luckless husband or lover who was too indolent or too clumsy to contribute his share to the common stock. No matter how many children or how much private property he had in the house, he was liable at any moment to receive a hint to gather up his belongings and get out. And he could not dare to venture any resistance; the house was made too hot for him and he had no other choice but to return to his own clan or, as was mostly the case, to look for another wife in some other clan. The women were the dominating power in the clans and everywhere else."
Bachofen discovered that in the communistic household, the supremacy of woman was caused by the fact that the women all belonged to the same gens while the men came from different gentes.
During this period the children belonged to the same gens as the mother and took
