Presentation copy of the rare first edition of William Robertson Smiths influential work of on kinship and marriage in early Arabia. It examines the evidence for a pre-Islamic matriarchal kinship and corresponding laws of marriage and tribal organization that was superceded in Arabia at the time of Mohammed. Robertson Smith, Lord Almoners Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge, concluded that male kinship had been preceded by female kinship and "drew a line of evolutionary progress in family forms from a totemist matriarchy to exogamy" (Joseph). His work proved very influential, because it was one of the first anthropological analyses of kinship in the Middle East that tried to reconcile conflicting theories on this topic.
With the bookplate of David James Benjamin on the front pastedown and a presentation inscription in ink on the second free endpaper: "with the author's kind regards". In very good condition, only some foxing on the free endpapers and on the last pages of the book. Arab Family Studies: Critical Reviews, p. 352; Bahrain Through the Ages - the Archaeology, p. 407; Islam and New Kinship: Reproductive Technology and the Shariah in Lebanon, p. 51; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Worldcat (2 copies).