Proto Oceanic Society was Matrilineal

Abstract

Matrilineal descent is still general, but even this seems to have become only one of several means for the regulation of marriage; it carries with it few, if any, of the other social functions which are shown by tradition and survivals to have been once essential to its nature. It is evident that great changes have taken place in Melanesia in these respects, and that the existing matrilineal descent is little more than the last surviving relic of a social state in which matrilineal institutions were far more general and important.