[162] When personal names came to be generally introduced, the genesis of the individual family might soon follow, but the family could scarcely have come into existence in the absence of personal names.

As a rule, in the exogamous clan with female descent no regard was paid to the chastity of women, and they could select their partners as they pleased.

Mr.Hartland has shown in _Primitive Paternity_ that in a large number of primitive communities the chastity of women was neither enforced nor desired by the men, this state of things being probably a relic of the period of female descent.

Thus exogamy first arose through the women of the clan resorting to men outside it.

When we consider the extreme rigour of life and the frequent danger of starvation to which the small clans in the hunting stage must have been exposed, it does not seem impossible that the evil effects of marriage within the clan may have been noticed.