The case of the power of the girl’s own brother is somewhat different. Prima facie it appears to owe its origin to the fact that it is the brothers who are mainly interested in the transaction, inasmuch as it is to them that wives come in exchange for the sisters given in marriage.  Consequently we cannot, as has already been the case with the so-called levirate, assign the practice definitely either to matripotestal or patripotestal customs, for father’s and mother’s authority are alike overruled.

It has already been stated that we have but few data for estimating the influence of the right of betrothal on the rule of descent.  Clearly the father has little to gain from the fact that his daughter follows him rather than the mother, when the inevitable effect of the marriage regulations is to make her children of the phratry and totem of her husband, and consequently to make them of a different phratry and totem from her father.  Under matriliny on the other hand there is nothing to prevent the grandchildren from being of the same totem as the grandfather, and they are necessarily of the same class in a four-class tribe.  If considerations with regard to the phratry and totem of the grandchildren played any part in bringing about a change in the rule of descent, this must have been based on a review of the changes that would be brought about in the position of the son’s and not the daughter’s offspring.  But this is unlikely.

But on the other hand the father’s disposal of the daughter’s hand is indirectly a means of increasing his influence both with his son and in general.  If the son gains his wife by an exchange of sisters, the father’s authority is obviously increased.  But we do not know how far this factor of the right of betrothal has operated.

Turning now to questions of inheritance, we find that properly speaking the hereditary chief is unknown in Australia.  There is a tendency for the son of the tribal headman to succeed his father, but it is subject to exceptions.  Moreover, it is by no means a universal rule for the tribe to have an over-headman; it may be ruled by the council of district headmen.  In any case the influence of the quasi-hereditary character of the over-headmanship upon the rule of descent cannot but have been comparatively slight.

It is, on the other hand, usual for the local group and the totem kin to have headmen.  In the case of the latter, age is often the qualification, as among the Dieri[27]; in such cases there is no possible effect on the rule of succession.  But among some of the Victorian tribes with matrilineal descent the rule is for the son to follow the father in the headmanship[28]; and the same is the case, as we should expect, among the patrilineal eight-class tribes[29].  The most important tribe in which hereditary headmanship is combined with female descent is the Wiradjeri[30]; their neighbours, the Kamilaroi, showed marked respect to the son of a headman, if he possessed ability, though they did not, apparently, make him his father’s successor[31].