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What really matters
is that the royal stock, on which the prosperity and even the
existence of the people is supposed to depend, should be perpetuated
in a vigorous and efficient form, and for this purpose it is
necessary that the women of the royal family should bear children to
men who are physically and mentally fit, according to the standard
of early society, to discharge the important duty of procreation.
Thus the personal qualities of the kings at this stage of social
evolution are deemed of vital importance. If they, like their
consorts, are of royal and divine descent, so much the better; but
it is not essential that they should be so.
At Athens, as at Rome, we find traces of succession to the throne by
marriage with a royal princess; for two of the most ancient kings of
Athens, namely Cecrops and Amphictyon, are said to have married the
daughters of their predecessors. This tradition is to a certain
extent confirmed by evidence, pointing to the conclusion that at
Athens male kinship was preceded by female kinship.


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