However the children are distributed, it will be the older woman or women in the household who will control them. This household system is one that gives position and considerable authority to the elder women—until the women are too old, people say, to be of any use. (In spite of this irony, I have heard of but one old woman who was neglected by her household.) An older woman who is the female head of the household is greatly respected by her daughters and sons-in-law and grandchildren, as well as by the sons or brothers who continually visit the household and often, as temporary celibates, return to live in it.