PART II HISTORICAL SECTION

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CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VI

THE MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION

I.—Progress from Lower to Higher Forms of the Family Relationship

Primitive human love—The same domination of sex-needs in man as among the animals—Different conditions of expression—Acquisition of a new element—The individuation of love—Sex uninterruptedly interesting—The human need for sexual variety—The personal end of passion—Primitive sex-customs and forms of marriage—Superabundance of evidence—An attempt to group the periods to be considered—An early period in which man developed from his ape-like ancestors—Illustrations from primitive savages—First formation of tribal groups—Second period—Mother-descent and mother-rights—The position of women—The importance of this early matriarchate—The transitional period from mother-right to father-right—The assertion of the male force in the person of the woman's brother—This alien position of the husband and father—The formation of the patriarchal family—The change a gradual one and dependent upon property—Civilisation started with the woman as the dominant partner—Traces of mother-descent found in all parts of the world—Evidence of folk-lore as legends—Examples of mother-descent in the early history of England, Scotland, and Ireland—The freedom enjoyed by women—Survival of mother-right customs among the ancient Hebrews.

II.—The Matriarchal Family in America

Traces of mother-descent frequent in the American continent—Mother-rule still in force in some districts—Morgan's description of the system among the Iroquois—The customs of Iroquois tribes—Communal dwellings—The authority of the women—The creeping in of changes leading to father-right—The system of government among the Wyandots—Further examples of the sexual relationships—The interesting customs of the Seri tribe—The probation of the bridegroom—His service to the bride's family—Stringent character of the conditions imposed—The freedom granted to the bride—A decisive example of the position of power held by women—The Pueblos—The customs of these tribes—Monogamic marriage—The happy family relationship—This the result of the supremacy of the wife in the home—Conclusions to be drawn from these examples of mother-rights among the Aboriginal tribes of America—Women the dominant force in this stage of civilisation—Why this early power of women has been denied—A meeting with a native Iroquois—He testifies to the high status and power of the Indian women.

III.—Further Examples of the Matriarchal Family in Australia, India and other Countries

The question of the position of women during the mother-age a disputed one—Bachofen's opinion—An early period of gynÆocracy—This view not accepted—Need for unprejudiced opinion—Women the first owners of property—Their power dependent on this—Further examples of mother-right customs—The maternal family in Australia—Communal marriage—Mother-right in India—The influence of Brahmanism—Traces of the maternal family—Some interesting marriage customs—Polyandry—Examples of its practice—Great polyandrous centres—The freedom enjoyed by women—The causes of polyandry—Matriarchal polyandry—The interesting custom of the Nayars—The Malays of Sumatra—The ambel-anak marriage—Letter from a private correspondent—It proves the high status of women under the early customs of mother-descent—Traces of the maternal family among the Arabs—The custom of beena marriage—Position of women in the Mariana Islands—Rebellion of the husbands—Use of religious symbolism—The slave-wife—Her consecration to the Bossum or god in Guinea.

IV.—The Transition to Father-right

The position of women in Burma—The code of Manu—Women's activity in trade—Conditions of free-divorce—Traces of mother-descent in Japan—In China—In Madagascar—The power of royal princesses—Tyrannical authority of the princesses of Loango—In Africa descent through women the rule—Illustrations—The transition to father-right—The power passing from the mother into the hand of the maternal uncle—Proofs from the customs of the African tribes—The rise of father-right—Reasons which led to the change—Marriage by capture and marriage by purchase—The payment of a bride-price—Marriage with a slave-wife—The conflict between the old and the new system—Illustration by the curious marriage customs of the Hassanyeh Arabs of the White Nile—Father-right dependent on economic considerations—RÉsumÉ—General conclusions to be drawn from the mother-age—Its relation to the present revolt of women—The bright side of father-right.


CHAPTER VIToC

THE MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION

I.—Progress from Lower to Higher Forms of the Family Relationship

"The reader who grasps that a thousand years is but a small period in the evolution of man, and yet realises how diverse were morality and customs in matters of sex in the period which this essay treats of" (i.e. Mother-Age Civilisation), "will hardly approach modern social problems with the notion that there is a rigid and unchangeable code of right and wrong. He will mark, in the first place, a continuous flux in all social institutions and moral standards; but in the next place, if he be a real historical student, he will appreciate the slowness of this steady secular change; he will perceive how almost insensible it is in the lifetime of individuals, and although he may work for social reforms, he will refrain from constructing social Utopias."—Professor Karl Pearson.

Our study of the sexual associations among animals has brought us to understand how large a part the gratification of the sex-instincts plays in animal life, equalling and, indeed, overmastering and directing the hunger instinct for food. If we now turn to man we find the same domination of sex-needs, but under different conditions of expression.[97] Man not only loves, but he knows that he loves; a new factor is added, and sex itself is lifted to a plane of clear self-consciousness. Pathways are opened up to great heights, but also to great depths.

We must not, therefore, expect to take up our study of primitive human sexual and familial associations at the point where those of the mammals and birds leave off.[98] We have with man to some extent to begin again, so that it may appear, on a superficial view, that the first steps now taken in love's evolution were in a backward direction. But the fact is that the increased powers of recollection and heightened complexity of nervous organisation among men, led to different habits and social customs, separating man radically in his love from the animals. Man's instincts are very vague when compared, for instance, with the beautiful love-habits of birds; he is necessarily guided by conflicting forces, inborn and acquired. Thus precisely by means of his added qualities he took a new and personal, rather than an instinctive, interest in sex; and this after a time, even if not at first, aroused a state of consciousness in love which made sex uninterruptedly interesting in contrast with the fixed pairing season among animals. Hence arose also a human and different need for sexual variety, much stronger than can ever have been experienced by the animals, which resulted in a constant tendency towards sexual licence, of a more or less pronounced promiscuity, in group marriage and other forms of sexual association which developed from it.

This is so essential to our understanding of human love, that I wish I could follow it further. All the elaborate phenomena of sex in the animal kingdom have for their end the reproduction of the species. But in the case of man there is another purpose, often transcending this end—the independent significance of sex emotion, both on the physical and psychical side, to the individual. It seems to me that women have special need to-day to remember this personal end of human passion. This is not, however, the place to enter upon this question.

I have now to attempt to trace as clearly as I can the history of primitive human love. To do this it will be necessary to refer to comparative ethnography.[99] We must investigate the sex customs, forms of marriage and the family, still to be found among primitive peoples, scattered about the world. These early forms of the sexual relationship were once of much wider occurrence, and they have left unmistakable traces in the history of many races. Further evidence is furnished by folk stories and legends. In peasant festivals and dances and in many religious ceremonies we may find survivals of primitive sex customs. They may be traced in our common language, especially in the words used for sex and kin relationships. We can also find them shadowed in certain of our marriage rites and sex habits to-day. The difficulty does not rest in paucity of material, but rather in its superabundance—far too extensive to allow anything like adequate treatment within the space of a brief and necessarily insufficient chapter. For this reason I shall limit my inquiry almost wholly to those cases which have some facts to tell us of the position occupied by women in the primitive family. I shall try to avoid falling into the error of a one-sided view. Facts are more important here than reflections, and, as far as possible, I shall let these speak for themselves.

In order to group these facts it may be well to give first a rough outline of the periods to be considered—

1. A very early period, during which man developed from his ape-like ancestors. This may be called the pre-matriarchal stage. With this absolutely primitive period we are concerned only in so far as to suggest how a second more social period developed from it. The idea of descent was so feeble that no permanent family groups existed, and the family remains in the primitive biological relation of male, female and offspring. The Botocudos, Fuegians, West Australians and Veddahs of Ceylon represent this primitive stage, more or less completely. They have apparently not reached the stage where the fact of kinship expresses itself in maternal social organisation.[100] A yet lower level may be seen among certain low tribes in the interior of Borneo—absolutely primitive savages, who are probably the remains of the negroid peoples, believed to be the first inhabitants of Malaya. These people roam the forests in hordes, like monkeys; the males carry off the females and couple with them in the thickets. The families pass the night under the trees, and the children are suspended from the branches in a sort of net. As soon as the young are capable of caring for themselves, the parents turn them adrift as the animals do.[101]

It was doubtless thus, in a way similar to the great monkeys, that man first lived. With the chimpanzee these hordes never become large, for the male leader of the tribe will not endure the rivalry of the young males, and drives them away. But man, more gregarious in his habits, would tend to form larger groups, his consciousness developing slowly, as he learnt to control his brute appetites and jealousy of rivals by that impulse towards companionship, which, rooted in the sexual needs, broadens out into the social instincts.

It is evident that the change from these scattered hordes to the organised tribal groups was dependent upon the mothers and their children. The women would be more closely bound to the family than the men. The bond between mother and child, with its long dependence on her care, made woman the centre of the family. The mother and her children, and her children's children, and so on indefinitely in the female line, constituted the group. Relationship was counted alone through them, and, at a later stage, inheritance of property passed through them. And in this way, through the woman, the low tribes passed into socially organised societies. The men, on the other hand, not yet individualised as husbands and fathers, held no rights or position in the group of the women and their children.

2. This leads us to the second period of mother-descent and mother-rights. It is this phase of primitive society that we have to investigate. Its interest to women is evident. Just as we found in our first inquiry that, in the beginnings of sexuality the female was of more importance than the male, so now we shall find society growing up around woman. It is a period whose history may well give pride to all women. Her inventive faculties, quickened by the stress of child-bearing and child-rearing, primitive woman built up, by her own activities and her own skill, a civilisation which owed its institutions and mother-right customs to her constructive genius, rather than to the destructive qualities which belonged to the fighting male.

3. But again we find, as in the animal kingdom, that step by step the forceful male asserts himself. We come to a third transitional period in which the male relatives of the woman—usually the brother, the maternal uncle—have usurped the chief power in the group. Inheritance still passes through the mother, but her influence is growing less. The right to dispose of women and the property which goes with them is now used by the male rulers of the group. The sex habits have changed; endogamous unions, or kin marriages within the clan, have given place to exogamy, where marriage only takes place between members of different groups. But at first the position of the husband and father is little changed; he marries into the wife's group and lives with her family, where he has no property rights or control over his wife's children, who are now under the rule of the uncle.

4. It is plain that this condition would not be permanent. The male power had yet to advance further; the child had to gain a father. We reach the patriarchal period, in which descent through the male line has replaced the earlier custom. Woman's power, first passing to her brother or other male relative, has been transferred to the husband and father. This change of power did not, of course, take place at once, and even under fully developed father-right systems many traces of the old mother-rights persist.

What it is necessary to fasten deeply in our minds is this: the father as the head of the woman and her children, the ruler of the house, was not the natural order of the primitive human family. Civilisation started with the woman being dominant—the home-maker, the owner of her children, the transmitter of property. It was—as will be made abundantly clear from the cases we shall examine—a much later economic question which led to a reversal of this plan, and brought the rise of father-right, with the father as the dominant partner; while the woman sank back into an unnatural and secondary position of economic dependence upon the man who was her owner—a position from which she has not even yet succeeded in freeing herself.

The maternal system of descent is found in all parts of the world where social advance stands at a certain level. This fact, added to the widespread traces the custom has left in every civilisation, warrants the assumption that mother-right in all cases preceded father-right, and has been, indeed, a stage of social growth for all branches of the human race.[102]

I shall not attempt to give the numerous traces of mother-descent that are to be found in the early histories of existing civilised nations, for to do this would entail the writing of the whole chapter on this subject. For the same reason I must reluctantly pass over the abundant evidence of mother-right that is furnished in folk-lore, in heroic legends, and in the fairy stories of our children. These stories date back to a time long before written history; they are known to all of us, and belong to all countries in slightly different forms. We have regarded them as fables; they are really survivals of customs and practices once common to all society. Wherever we find a king ruling as the son of a queen, because he is the queen's husband, or because he marries a princess, we have proof of mother-descent. The influence of the mother over her son's marriage, the winning of a bride by a task done by the wooer, the brother-sister marriage so frequent in ancient mythologies, the interference of a wise woman, and the many stories of virgin-births—all are survivals of mother-right customs. Similar evidence is furnished by mother-goddesses, so often converted into Christian local saints. I wish it were possible to follow this subject,[103] whose interest offers rich rewards. Perhaps nowhere else can we gain so clear and vivid a picture as in these ancient stories and legends of the early powerful position of woman as the transmitter of inheritance and guardian of property.

It may interest my readers to know that mother-descent must once have prevailed in Britain. Among the Picts of Scotland kingship was transmitted through women. Bede tells us that down to his own time—the early part of the eighth century—whenever a doubt arose as to the succession, the Picts chose their king from the female rather than from the male line.[104] Similar traces are found in England: Canute, the Dane, when acknowledged King of England, married Emma, the widow of his predecessor Ethelred. Ethelbald, King of Kent, married his stepmother, after the death of his father Ethelbert; and, as late as the ninth century, Ethelbald, King of the West Saxons, wedded Judith, the widow of his father. Such marriages are intelligible only if we suppose that the queen had the power of conferring the kingdom upon her consort, which could only happen where matrilineal descent was, or had been, recognised.[105] In Ireland (where mother-right must have been firmly established, if Strabo's account of the free sexual relations of the people[106] is accepted) women retained a very high position and much freedom, both before and after marriage, to a late period. "Every woman," it was said, "is to go the way she willeth freely," and after marriage "she enjoyed a better position and greater freedom of divorce than was afforded either by the Christian Church or English common law."[107]

Similar survivals of mother-right customs among the ancient Hebrews are made familiar to us in Bible history. To mention a few examples only: when Abraham sought a wife for Isaac, presents were taken by the messenger to induce the bride to leave her home; and these presents were given to her mother and brothers. Jacob had to serve Laban for fourteen years before he was permitted to marry Leah and Rachel,[108] and six further years of service were given for his cattle. Afterwards when he wished to depart with his children and his wives, Laban made the objection, "these daughters are my daughters, and these children are my children."[109] Such acts point to the subordinate position held by Jacob, which is clearly a survival of the servitude required from the bridegroom by the relatives of the woman, who retain control over her and her children, and even over the property of the man, as was usual under the later matriarchal custom. The injunction in Gen. ii. 24, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife," refers without any doubt to the early marriage under mother-right, when the husband left his own kindred and went to live with his wife and among her people. We find Samson visiting his Philistine wife, who remained with her kindred.[110] Even the obligation to blood vengeance rested apparently on the maternal kinsmen (Judges viii. 19). The Hebrew father did not inherit from his son, nor the grandfather from the grandson,[111] which points back to an ancient epoch when the children did not belong to the clan of the father.[112] Among the Hebrews individual property was instituted in very early times (Gen. xxiii. 13); but various customs show clearly the ancient existence of communal clans. Thus the inheritance, especially the paternal inheritance, must remain in the clan. Marriage in the tribe is obligatory for daughters. "Let them marry to whom they think best; only to the family of the tribe of their father shall they marry. So shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe."[113] We have here an indication of the close relation between father-right and property.Under mother-descent there is naturally no prohibition against marriage with a half-sister upon the father's side. This explains the marriage of Abraham with Sara, his half-sister by the same father. When reproached for having passed his wife off as his sister to the King of Egypt and to Abimelech, the patriarch replies: "For indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife."[114] In the same way Tamar could have married her half-brother Amnon, though they were both the children of David.[115] The father of Moses and Aaron married his father's sister, who was not legally his relation.[116] Nabor, the brother of Abraham, took to wife his fraternal niece, the daughter of his brother.[117] It was only later that paternal kinship became recognised among the Hebrews by the same title as the natural kinship through the mother.[118]

Other examples might be added. All these survivals of mother-descent (and they may be discovered in the early history of every people) have their value; they are, however, only survivals, and their interest rests mainly in comparing them with similar facts among other peoples among whom the presence of mother-right customs is undisputed. To these existing examples of the primitive family clan grouped around the mother we will now turn our attention.

II.—The Matriarchal Family in America

Traces of mother-descent are common everywhere in the American continent; and in some districts mother-rule is still in force. Morgan, who was commissioned by the American Government to report on the customs of the aboriginal inhabitants, gives a description of the system as it existed among the Iroquois—

"Each household was made up on the principle of kin. The married women, usually sisters, own or collateral, were of the same gens or clan, the symbol or totem of which was often painted upon the house, while their husbands and the wives of their sons belonged to several other gentes. The children were of the gens of their mother. As a rule the sons brought home their wives, and in some cases the husbands of the daughters were admitted to the maternal household. Thus each household was composed of persons of different gentes, but the predominating number in each household would be of the same gens, namely that of the mother."[119]

There are many interesting customs belonging to the Iroquois; I can notice a few only. The gens was ruled by chiefs of two grades, distinguished by Morgan as sachem and common chiefs. The sachem was the official head of the gens. The actual occupant of the office was elected by the adult members of the gens, male and female, the own brother or son of a sister being most likely to be preferred.[120] The wife never left the parental home, because she was considered the mistress, or, at least, the heiress; her husband lived with her. In the house all the duties and the honour as the head of the household fell on her. She was required in case of need to look after her parents. The Iroquois recognised no right in the father to the custody of his children; such power was in the hands of the maternal uncle.[121] Marriages were negotiated by the uncles or the mothers; sometimes the father was consulted, but this was little more than a compliment, as his approbation or opposition was usually disregarded.[122] The suitor was required to make presents to the bride's family. It was the custom for him to seek private interviews at night with his betrothed. In some instances, it was enough if he went and sat by her side in her cabin; if she permitted this, and remained where she was, it was taken for consent, and the act would suffice for marriage. If a husband and wife could not agree, they parted, or two pairs would exchange husbands and wives. An early French missionary remonstrated with a couple on such a transaction, and was told: "My wife and I could not agree. My neighbour was in the same case. So we exchanged wives, and all four are content. What can be more reasonable than to render one another mutually happy, when it costs so little and does nobody any harm?"[123] It would seem that these primitive people have solved some difficulties better than we ourselves have!Among the Senecas,[124] an Iroquoian tribe with a less organised social life, the authority remained in the hands of the women. These people led a communal life, dwelling in long houses, which accommodated as many as twenty families, each in its own apartments.[125]

"As to their family system, it is probable that some one clan predominated (in the houses), the women taking in husbands, however, from the other clans, and sometimes for novelty, some of their sons bringing in their young wives until they felt brave enough to leave their mothers. Usually the female portion ruled the house, and were doubtless clannish enough about it. The stores were in common, but woe to the luckless husband or lover who was too shiftless to do his share of the providing. No matter how many children or whatever goods he might have in the house, he might at any time be ordered to pack up his blanket and budge, and after such orders it would not be healthful for him to attempt to disobey; the house would be too hot for him, and, unless saved by the intercession of some aunt or grandmother, he must retreat to his own clan, or, as was often done, go and start a new matrimonial alliance in some other. The women were the great power among the clans as everywhere else. They did not hesitate, when occasion required, to 'knock off the horns,' as it was technically called, from the head of a chief and send him back to the ranks of the warrior. The original nomination of the chiefs also always rested with them."

This last detail is very interesting; we find the woman's authority extending even over warfare, the special province of men.The Wyandots, another Iroquoian tribe, camp in the form of a horse-shoe, every clan together in regular order. Marriage between members of the same clan is forbidden; the children belong to the clan of the mother. The husbands retain all their rights and privileges in their own gentes, though they live in the gentes of their wives. After marriage the pair live for a time, at least, with the wife's mother, but afterwards they set up housekeeping for themselves.[126]

We may note here the creeping in of changes which led to father-right. This is illustrated further by the Musquakies, also belonging to the Algonquian stock. Though still organised in clans, descent is no longer reckoned through the mother. The bridegroom, however, serves his wife's mother, and he lives with her people. This does not make him of her clan; she belongs to his, till his death or divorce separates her from him. As for the children, the minors at the termination of the marriage belong to the mother's clan, but those who have had the puberty feast are counted to the father's clan.[127]

The male authority is chiefly felt in periods of war. This may be illustrated by the Wyandots, who have an elaborate system of government. In each gens there is a small council composed of four women, called yu-waÍ-yu-wÁ-na; chosen by the women heads of the household. These women councillors select a chief of the gens from its male members, that is from their brothers and sons. He is the head of the gentile council. The council of the tribe is composed of the aggregated gentile councils, and is thus composed of four-fifths of women and one-fifth of men. The sachem of tribes, or tribal-chief is chosen by chiefs of the gentes. All civil government of the gens and of the tribe is carried on by these councils, and as the women so largely outnumber the men, who are also—with the exception of the tribal chief chosen by them—it is surely fair to assume that the social government of the gens and tribe is largely directed by them. In military affairs, however, the men have sole authority; there is a military council of all the able-bodied men of the tribe, with a military chief chosen by the council.[128] This seems a very wise adjustment of civic duties; the constructive civil work directed by the women; the destructive work of war in the hands of men.

Some interesting marriage customs of the Seri, on the south-west coast, now reduced to a single tribe, are described by McGee.[129] The matriarchal system exists here in its early form, it is, therefore, an instructive example by which to estimate the position held by the women—

"The tribe is divided into exogamous totem clans. Marriage is arranged exclusively by the women. The elder woman of the suitor's family carries the proposal to the girl's clan-mother. If this is entertained, the question of the marriage is discussed at length by the matrons of the two clans. The girl herself is consulted; a jacal is erected for her, and after many deliberations, the bridegroom is provisionally received into his wife's clan for a year, under conditions of the most exacting character. He is expected to prove his worthiness of a permanent relation by demonstrating his ability as a provider, and by showing himself an implacable foe to aliens. He is compelled to support all the female relatives of his bride's family by the products of his skill and industry in hunting and fishing for one year. There is also another provision of a very curious nature. The lover is permitted to share the jacal and sleeping robe, provided for the prospective matron by her kinswomen, not as a privileged spouse, but merely as a protective companion; and throughout this probationary term he is compelled to maintain continence—he must display the most indubitable proof of moral force."

This is the more extraordinary if we compare the freedom granted to the bride. "During this period the always dignified position occupied by the daughters of the house culminates." Among other privileges she is allowed to receive "the most intimate attentions from the clan-fellows of the group."[130] "She is the receiver of the supplies furnished by her lover, measuring his competence as would-be husband. Through his energy she is enabled to dispense largess with lavish hand, and thus to dignify her clan and honour her spouse in the most effective way known to primitive life; and at the same time she enjoys the immeasurable moral stimulus of realising she is the arbiter of the fate of a man who becomes a warrior or an outcast at her bidding, and through him of the future of two clans—she is raised to a responsibility in both personal and tribal affairs which, albeit temporary, is hardly lower than that of the warrior chief." At the close of the year, if all goes well, the probation ends in a feast provided by the lover, who now becomes husband, and finally enters his wife's jacal as "consort-guest." His position is wholly subordinate, and without any authority whatever, either over his children or over the property. In his mother's hut he has rights, which seem to continue after his marriage, but in his wife's hut he has none.

The customs of the Pueblo peoples of the south-west of the United States are almost equally interesting. They live in communal dwellings, and are divided into exogamous totem clans. Kinship is reckoned through the women, and the husband on marriage goes to live with the wife's kin and becomes an inmate of her family. If the house is not large enough, additional rooms are built adjoining and connected with those already occupied. Hence a family with many daughters increases, while one consisting of sons dies out. The women are the builders of the houses, the men supplying the material. The marriage customs are instructive. As is the case among the Seri, the lover has to serve his wife's family, but the conditions are much less exacting. Unlike most maternal peoples, these, the ZuÑi Indians, are monogamists. Divorce is, however, frequent, and a husband and wife would "rather separate than live together unharmoniously."[131] Their domestic life "might well serve as an example for the civilised world." They do not have large families. The husband and wife are deeply attached to one another and to their children. "The keynote of this harmony is the supremacy of the wife in the home. The house, with all that is in it, is hers, descending to her through her mother from a long line of ancestresses; and her husband is merely her permanent guest. The children—at least the female children—have their share in the common home; the father has none." Outside the house the husband has some property in the fields, though probably in earlier times he had no possessory rights. "Modern influences have reached the ZuÑi, and mother-right seems to have begun its inevitable decay."

The Hopis, another Pueblo tribe, are more conservative, and with them the women own all the property, except the horses and donkeys, which belong to the men. Like the ZuÑis, the Hopis are monogamists. Sexual licence is, however, often permitted to a woman before marriage. This in no way detracts from her good repute; even if she has given birth to a child "she will be sure to marry later on, unless she happens to be shockingly ugly." Nor does the child suffer, for among these matriarchal people the bastard takes an equal place with the child born in wedlock. The bride lives for the first few weeks with her husband's family, during which time the marriage takes place, the ceremony being performed by the bridegroom's mother, whose family also provides the bride with her wedding outfit. The couple then return to the home of the wife's parents, where they remain, either permanently, or for some years, until they can obtain a separate dwelling. The husband is always a stranger, and is so treated by his wife's kin. The dwelling of his mother remains his true home, in sickness he returns to her to be nursed, and stays with her until he is well again. Often his position in his wife's home is so irksome that he severs his relation with her and her family and returns to his old home. On the other hand, it is not uncommon for the wife, should her husband be absent, to place his goods outside the door: an intimation which he well understands, and does not intrude himself upon her again.[132]

Lastly, among the Pueblo peoples we may consider the Sai. Like the other tribes they are divided into exogamous totem clans; descent is traced only through the women. The tribe through various reasons has been greatly reduced in numbers, and whole clans have died out, and under these circumstances exogamy has ceased to be strictly enforced. This has led to other changes. The Sai are still at least normally monogamous. When a young man wishes to marry a girl he speaks first to her parents; if they are willing, he addresses himself to her. On the day of the marriage he goes alone to her home, carrying his presents wrapped in a blanket, his father and mother having preceded him thither. When the young people are seated together the parents address them in turn enjoining unity and forbearance. This constitutes the ceremony. Tribal custom requires the bridegroom to reside with the wife's family.[133]

Now I submit to the judgment of my readers—what do these examples of mother-right among the aboriginal tribes of America show, if not that, speaking broadly, women were the dominant force in this early stage of civilisation? In some instances, it is true, their power was shared, or even taken from them, by their brothers or other male relatives. This I believe to have been a later development—a first step in the assertion of male-force. In all cases the alien position of the father, without tribal rights in his wife's clan and with no recognised authority over her children, is evident. If this is denied, the only conclusion that suggests itself to me is, that those who seek to diminish the importance of mother-rule have done so in reinforcement of their preconceived idea of male superiority as the natural and unchanging order in the relationship between the sexes. I have no hesitation as the result of very considerable study, in believing that it is the exact opposite of this that is true. The mother, and not the father, was the important partner in the early stages of civilisation; father-right, the form we find in our sexual relationships, is a later reversal of this natural arrangement, based, not upon kinship, but upon property. This we shall see more clearly later.

Thomas[134] suggests another reason for the general tendency among many investigators to lessen the importance of the mother-age civilisations. He thinks it due to dislike in acknowledging the theory of promiscuity (notably Westermark in his History of Human Marriage). This view would seem to be connected with the mistaken opinion that womb-kinship arose through the uncertainty of paternity. But this was not the sole reason, or indeed the chief one, of descent being traced through the mother. We have found mother-rule in very active existence among the Pueblo peoples, who are monogamists, and where the paternity of the child must be known. The modern civilised man cannot easily accustom himself to the idea that in the old matriarchal family the dominion of the mother was accepted as the natural, and, therefore, the right order of society. It is very difficult for us to accept a relationship of the sexes that is so exactly opposite to that to which we are accustomed.

After I had written the foregoing account of mother-rule as it exists in the continent of America, I had the exceeding good fortune to attend a lecture given by a native Iroquois. I wish it were possible for me to write here those things that I heard; but I could not do this, I know, without spoiling it all. This would destroy for me what is a very beautiful and happy memory. For to hear of a people who live gladly and without any of those problems that are rotting away our civilisation brings a new courage to those of us who sometimes grow hopeless at this needless wastage of life.

The lecturer told us much of the high status and power of women among the Iroquoian tribes. What he said, not only corroborated all I have written, but gave a picture of mother-rule and mother-rights far more complete than anything I had found in the records of investigators and travellers. The lecturer was a cultured gentleman, and I learnt how false had been my view that the race to which he belonged was uncivilised. I learnt, too, that the Iroquoian tribes were now increasing in numbers, and must not be looked upon as a diminishing people. They have kept, against terrible difficulties, and are determined to keep, their own civilisation and customs, knowing these to be better for them than those of other races. The lecturer astonished me by his familiarity with, and understanding of, our social problems. He spoke, in particular, of the present revolution among women. This, in his opinion, was due wholly to the unnatural arrangement of our family relationship, with the father at the head instead of the mother. There seem to be no sex-problems, no difficulties in marriage, no celibacy, no prostitution among the Iroquoians. All the power in the domestic relationship is in the hands of women. I questioned the lecturer on this point. I asked him if the women did not at times misuse their rights of authority, and if men did not rebel? He seemed surprised. His answer was: "Of course the men follow the wishes of the women; they are our mothers." To him there seemed no more to be said.

III.—Further Examples of the Matriarchal Family in Australia, India, and other countries

It is only fair to state that the question of the position of women during the mother-age is a disputed one. Bachofen[135] was the first to build up in his classical works of Matriarchy, the gynÆcocratic theory which places the chief social power under the system of mother-descent in the hands of women. This view has been disputed, especially in recent years, and many writers who acknowledge the widespread existence of maternal descent deny that it carries with it, except in exceptional cases, mother-rights of special advantage to women; even when these seem to be present they believe such rights to be more apparent than real.[136]

One suspects prejudice here. To approach this question with any fairness it is absolutely essential to clear the mind from our current theories regarding the family. The order is not sacred in the sense that it has always had the same form. It is this belief in the immutability of our form of the sexual relationship which accounts for the prejudice with which this question is so often approached. I fully admit the dark side of the mother-age among many peoples; its sexual licence, often brutal in practice, its cruelties and sacrifice of life. But these are evils common to barbarism, and are found existing under father-right quite as frequently as under mother-right. I concede, too, that mother-descent was not necessarily or universally a period of mother-rule. It was not. But that it did in many cases—and these no exceptional ones—carry with it power for women, as the transmitters of inheritance and property I am certain that the known facts prove.[137] Nor do I forget that cruel treatment of women was not uncommon in matriarchal societies. I have shown how in many tribes the power rested in the woman's brother or male relations, and in all such cases mother-descent was really combined with a patriarchal system, the earlier authority of the mother persisting only as a habit. But to argue from the cases of male cruelty that mother-descent did not confer special advantages upon women is, I think, as absurd as it would be to state that under the fully developed patriarchal rule (as also in our society to-day) the authority was not in the hands of men, because cases are not infrequent in which women ill-treat their husbands. And, indeed, when we consider the position of the husband and father under this early system, without rights of property and with no authority over his children, and subject to the rule either of his wife or of her relatives, no surprise can be felt if sometimes he resorted to cruelties, asserting his power in whatever direction opportunity permitted. I may admit that for a long time I found it difficult to believe in this mother-power. The finding of such authority held by primitive woman is strange, indeed, to women to-day. Reverse the sexes, and in broad statement the conditions of the mother-age would be true of our present domestic and social relationship. Little wonder, then, that primitive men rebelled, disliking the inconveniences arising from their insecure and dependent position as perpetual guests in their wives' homes. It is strange how history repeats itself.

Women, from their association with the home, were the first organisers of all industrial labour. A glance back at the mother-age civilisation should teach men modesty. They will see that woman was the equal, if not superior, to man in productive activity. It was not until a much later period that men supplanted women and monopolised the work they had started. Through their identification with the early industrial processes women were the first property owners; they were almost the sole creators of ownership in land, and held in respect of this a position of great advantage. In the transactions of North American tribes with the colonial government many deeds of assignment bear female signatures.[138] A form of divorce used by a husband in ancient Arabia was: "Begone, for I will no longer drive thy flocks to pasture."[139] In almost all cases the household goods belonged to the woman. The stores of roots and berries laid up for a time of scarcity were the property of the wife, and the husband would not touch them without her permission. In many cases such property was very extensive. Among the Menomini Indians, for instance, a woman of good circumstances would own as many as from 1200 to 1500 birch-bark vessels.[140] In the New Mexican pueblo what comes from outside the house, as soon as it is inside is put under the immediate control of the women. Bandelier, in his report of his tour in Mexico, tells us that "his host at Cochiti, New Mexico, could not sell an ear of corn or a string of chilli without the consent of his fourteen-year-old daughter Ignacia, who kept house for her widowed father."[141]

The point we have now reached is this: while mother-descent did not constitute or make necessary rule by women, under this system they enjoyed considerable power as the result (1) of their position as property-holders, (2) of their freedom in marriage and the social habits arising from it. This conclusion will be strengthened if we return to our examination of mother-right customs, as we shall find them in all parts of the world. I must select a few examples from as various countries as is possible, and describe them very briefly; not because these cases offer less interest than the matrilineal tribes of America, but because of the length to which this part of my inquiry is rapidly growing.

Let us begin with Australia, where the aboriginal population is in a more primitive condition than any other race whose institutions have been investigated. In certain tribes the family has hardly begun to be distinguished from kin in general. The group is divided into male and female classes, in addition to the division into clans.[142] This is so among the tribes of Mount Gambier, of Darling River, and of Queensland. Marriage within the clan is strictly forbidden, and the male and female classes of each clan are regarded as brothers and sisters. But as every man is brother to all the sisters of his clan, he is husband to all the women of the other clans of his tribe. Marriage is not an individual act, it is a social condition. The custom is not always carried out in practice, but any man of one clan has the right, if he wishes to exercise it, to call any woman belonging to another clan of his tribe his wife, and to treat her as such.[143] The children of each group belong naturally to the clan of the mother, and there is no legal parenthood between them and their father. In the case of war the son must join the maternal tribe. But this is not the universal rule, and in many tribes the children now belong to the paternal clan. The paternal family is beginning to be established in Australia, and varied artifices are used to escape from the tribal marriage and to form unions on an individual basis.

Mother-right is still in force in parts of India, though owing to the influence of Brahmanism on the aboriginal tribes the examples are fewer than might be expected. This change has brought descent through the fathers, and has involved, besides, the more or less complete subjugation of women, with insistence on female chastity, abolition of divorce, infant marriage, and perpetuation of widowhood.[144] Not every tribe is yet thus revolutionised. Among the Kasias of south-east India the husband lives with the wife or visits her occasionally.

"Laws of rank and property follow the strictest maternal rule; when a couple separate the children remain with the mother, the son does not succeed his father, but a raja's neglected offspring may become a common peasant or a labourer; the sister's son succeeds to rank and is heir to the property."[145]

This may be taken as an extreme example of the conditions among the unchanged tribes. The Garos tribe have an interesting marriage custom.[146] The girl chooses her lover and invites him to follow her; any advance made on his side is regarded as an insult to the woman's clan, and has to be expiated by presents. This marriage is very similar to the ceremony of capture, only the actors change parts; it is here the bridegroom who runs away, and is conducted by force to his future wife amidst the lamentations of his relations.

Even tribes that have adopted paternal descent preserve numerous customs of the earlier system. The husband still remains in the wife's home for a probationary period, working for her family.[147] Women retain rights which are inconsistent with father-rule. The choice of her lover often remains with the girl. If a girl fancies a young man, all she has to do is to give him a kick on the leg at the tribal dance of the Karama, and then the parents think it well to hasten on a wedding. Among Ghasiyas in United Provinces a wife is permitted to leave her husband if he intrigues with another woman, or if he become insane, impotent, blind or leprous, while these bodily evils do not allow him to put her away.[148] We find relics of the early freedom enjoyed by women in the licence frequently permitted to girls before marriage. Even after marriage adultery within the tribal rules is not regarded as a serious offence. Divorce is often easy, at the wish of either the woman or the man.[149] This is the case among the SantÁl tribes, which are found in Western Bengal, Northern Orissa, BhÁgulpur and the SantÁl PÁrganas.[150] It seems probable that fraternal polyandry must formerly have been practised.

Polyandry must have been common at one time in southern India. It will be sufficient to give a few examples. The interesting Todas tribe of the Nil'giri Hills practise fraternal polyandry. The husbands of the women are usually real brothers, but sometimes they are clan brothers. The children belong to the eldest brother, who performs the ceremony of giving the mother a miniature bow and arrow; all offspring, even if born after his death, are counted as his until one of the other brothers performs this ceremony. It is also allowed sometimes for the wife to be mistress to another man besides her husbands, and any children born of such unions are counted as the children of the regular marriage. There is little restriction in love of any kind. In the Toda language there is no word for adultery. It would even seem that "immorality attaches rather to him who grudges his wife to another man."[151]

Similarly among a fine tribe of Hindu mountaineers at the source of the Djemmah fraternal polyandry has been proved to have existed. A woman of this tribe, when asked how many husbands she had, answered, "Only four!" "And all living?" "Why not?" This tribe had a high standard of social conduct; they held lying in horror, and to deviate from the truth even quite innocently was almost a sacrilege.[152] To-day the Kammalaus (artisans) of Malabar practise fraternal polyandry. The wives are said to greatly appreciate the custom; the more husbands they have the greater will be their happiness.[153]

At another extremity of India, in Ceylon, the polyandric rule is still common,[154] but it is particularly in lamaic Thibet that fraternal polyandry is in full vigour, for in this country religion sanctions the custom, and it is practised by the ruling classes.[155] Its customs are too well known to need description. "The tyranny of man is hardly known among the happy women of Thibet; the boot is perhaps upon the other leg," writes Hartland.[156]

Polyandry is a survival of the group-marriage of the mother-age.[157] It is not really dependent on, though in many cases it occurs in connection with, the economic causes of poverty and a scarcity of women, due to the practice of female infanticide. This form of sexual association has evident advantages for women when compared with polygamy. That freedom in love carried with it domestic and social rights and privileges to women I have no longer to prove.[158]

The case of the NÂyars of Malabar, where polyandry exists with the early system of maternal filiation, is specially instructive. It is impossible to give the details of their curious customs. The young girls are married when children by a rite known as tying the tali; but this marriage serves only the purpose of initiation, and is often performed by a stranger. On the fourth day the fictitious husband is required to divorce the girl. Afterwards any number of marriages may be entered upon[159] without any other restrictions than the prohibitions relative to cast and tribe. These later unions, unlike the solemn initial rite, have no ceremony connected with them, and are entered into freely at the will of the women and their families. As a husband the man of the NÂyars cannot be said to exist; he does not as a rule live with his wife.[160] It is said that he has not the right to sit down by her side or that of her children, he is merely a passing guest, almost a stranger. He is, in fact, reduced to the primitive rÔle of the male, and is simply progenitor. "No NÂyar knows his father, and every man looks upon his sister's children as his heirs. A man's mother manages his family; and after her death his eldest sister assumes the direction." The property belongs to the family and is enjoyed by all in common (though personal division is coming into practice under modern influences). It is directed and administered by the maternal uncle or the eldest brother.[161]

The Malays of the Pedang Highlands of Sumatra have institutions bearing many points of similarity with the NÂyars. On marriage neither husband nor wife changes abode, the husband merely visits the wife, coming at first by day to help her work in the rice-fields. Later the visits are paid by night to the wife's house. The husband has no rights over his children, who belong wholly to the wife's suku, or clan. Her eldest brother is the head of the family and exercises the rights and duties of a father to her children.[162] The marriage, based on the ambel-anak, in which the husband lives with the wife, paying nothing, and occupying a subordinate position, may be taken as typical of the former conditions.[163]But among other tribes who have come in contact with outside influences this custom of the husband visiting the wife, or residing in her house, is modified.

From a private correspondent, a resident in the Malay States, I have received some interesting notes about the present condition of the native tribes and the position of the women. In most of the Malay States exogamous matriarchy has in comparatively modern times been superseded by feudalism (i.e. father-right). But where the old custom survives the women are still to a large extent in control. The husband goes to live in the wife's village; thus the women in each group are a compact unity, while the men are strangers to each other and enter as unorganised individuals. This is the real basis of the woman's power. In other tribes where the old custom has changed women occupy a distinctly inferior position, and under the influence of Islam the idea of secluding adult women has been for centuries spreading and increasing in force.

Male kinship prevails among the Arabs, but the late Professor Robertson Smith discovered abundant evidence that mother-right was practised in ancient Arabia.[164] We find a decisive example of its favourable influence on the position of women in the custom of beena[165] marriage. Under such a system the wife was not only freed from any subjection involved by the payment of a bride-price (which always places her more or less under the authority of her husband), but she was the owner of the tent and household property, and thus enjoyed the liberty which ownership always entails. This explains how she was able to free herself at pleasure from her husband, who was really nothing but a temporary lover.[166] Ibn Batua in the fourteenth century found that the women of Zebid were perfectly ready to marry strangers. The husband might depart when he pleased, but his wife in that case could never be induced to follow him. She bade him a friendly adieu and took upon herself the whole charge of any child of the marriage. The women in the JÂhilÎya[167] had the right to dismiss their husbands, and the form of dismissal was this: "If they lived in a tent they turned it round, so that if the door faced east it now faced west, and when the man saw this he knew that he was dismissed and did not enter." The tent belonged to the woman; the husband was received there and at her good pleasure.[168]

A further striking example of mother-right is furnished by the Mariana Islands, where the position of women was distinctly superior.

"Even when the man had contributed an equal share of property on marriage, the wife dictated everything and the man could undertake nothing without her approval; but if the woman committed an offence, the man was held responsible and suffered the punishment. The women could speak in the assembly, they held property, and if a woman asked anything of a man, he gave it up without a murmur. If a wife was unfaithful, the husband could send her home, keep her property and kill the adulterer; but if the man was guilty, or even suspected of the same offence, the women of the neighbourhood destroyed his house and all his visible property, and the owner was fortunate if he escaped with a whole skin; and if the wife was not pleased with her husband, she withdrew and a similar attack followed. On this account many men were not married, preferring to live with paid women."[169]

A similar case of the rebellion of men against their position is recorded in Guinea, where religious symbolism was used by the husband as a way of escape. The maternal system held with respect to the chief wife.

"It was customary, however, for a man to buy and take to wife a slave, a friendless person with whom he could deal at pleasure, who had no kindred that could interfere for her, and to consecrate her to his Bossum or god. The Bossum wife, slave as she had been, ranked next to the chief wife, and was exceptionally treated. She alone was very jealously guarded, she alone was sacrificed at her husband's death. She was, in fact, wife in a peculiar sense. And having, by consecration, been made of the kindred and worship of her husband, her children could be born of his kindred and worship."[170]

This practice of having a slave-wife who was the property of the husband became more and more common; and was one of the causes that led to the establishment of father-right. How this came we have now to see.

IV.—The Transition to Father-right

In the preceding sections of this chapter I have collected together, with as much exactitude as I could, many examples of the maternal family. I want now to refer briefly to a few further cases, which will make clearer the causes which led to the adoption of father-right.

Many countries where the patriarchal system is firmly established retain practices which can only be explained as survivals of the earlier custom of mother-descent.[171] It must suffice to mention one or two examples. In Burma, which offers in this respect a curious contrast to India, the women have preserved under father-right most of the privileges of mother-right. This is the more remarkable as the law of marriage and the relationship of the sexes is founded on the code of Manu, which proclaims aloud the inferiority of woman. It is interesting, however, to note that the code recognises only three kinds of men: the good man, the indifferent man, and the bad man. Women, though recognised solely in their relation as wives, are placed in seven classes: the mother-wife, the sister-wife, the daughter-wife, the friend-wife, the master-wife, the servant-wife, and the slave-wife. Manu holds that the last of these, the slave-wife, is the best wife. It is, however, certain that the interpretation of the code in Burma was entirely opposed to any subjection of the wife. That mother-right must have been once practised and was very firmly established is proved by the occurrence of brother-sister marriages. The queens of the last rulers of the country, Minden-Min and Thebaw, were either their own or their half-sisters, and the power of government seems to have been almost wholly in the hands of these queens. The patriarchal custom, so far as the position of women was concerned, is but a thread, binding them in their marriage, but leaving them entirely free in other respects. The Burmese wife is much more the master than the slave of her husband, though she is clever enough as a rule not to let him feel any inconvenience from her power, which, therefore, he accepts. The exceptional position of the women is clearly indicated by the fact that they enter freely into trade, and, indeed, carry out most of the business of the country. Nearly all the shops are kept by women. In the markets, where everything that any one could possibly want is sold, almost all the dealers are women. All classes of the Burmese girls receive their training in these markets; the daughters of the rich sell the costly and beautiful stuffs, the poorer girls sell the cheaper wares. It is this training which accounts for the business capacity shown by the women. The boys are trained by the priests, as every boy is required, "in order to purify his soul, to acquire a knowledge of sacred things." This explains a great deal. It would seem that religion enforces the same penalties on men that in most countries fall upon women. The Burmese women are very attractive, as is testified by all who know them. The streets of the towns are thronged with women at all hours of the day, and they show the greatest delight in everything that is lively and gay.

Given such complete freedom of women, it is self-evident that the sexual relationships will also be free. Very striking are the conditions of divorce. The marriage contract can be dissolved freely at the wish of both, or even of one, of the partners. In the first case the family property is divided equally between the wife and the husband, while if only one partner desires to be freed the property goes to the partner who is left. The children of the marriage remain with the mother while they are young; but the boys belong to the father. I wish it were possible for me to give a fuller account of the Burmese family. The freedom and active work of the women offer many points of special interest. One thing further must be noted. The Burmese women would seem not to be wholly satisfied with their power, disliking the work and responsibility which their freedom entails. For this reason many of them prefer to marry a Chinese husband; he works for them, while with a husband of their own country they have to work for him. This is very instructive. It points to what I believe to be the truth. The loss of her freedom by woman is often the result of her own desire for protection and her dislike of work, and is not caused by man's tyranny. Woman's own action in this matter is not sufficiently recognised. I must not enter upon this here, as I shall return to the subject later in this chapter. We must now consider the traces left by mother-descent in Japan and China.

In Japan, as among the Basques, filiation is subordinated to the transmission of property. It is to the first-born, whether a boy or a girl, that the inheritance is transmitted, and he or she is forbidden to abandon it. At the time of marriage the husband or wife must take the name of the heir or heiress who marries and personifies the property. Filiation is thus sometimes paternal and sometimes maternal. The maternal uncle still bears the name of "second little father."[172] The children of the same father, but not of the same mother, were formerly allowed to marry, a decisive proof of mother-descent. The wife remained with her own relatives, and the husband had the right of visiting her by night. The word commonly used for marriage signified to slip by night into the house. It was not until the fourteenth century that the husband's residence was the home of the wife, and marriage became a continued living together by the married pair. Even now when a man marries an only daughter he frequently lives with her family, and the children take her name. There is also a custom by which a man with daughters, but no son, adopts a stranger, giving him one of his daughters in marriage; the children are counted as the heirs of the maternal grandfather.[173] Similar survivals are frequent in China. The patriarchate is rigidly established, but there is evidence to show that the family in this ancient civilisation has passed through the usual stages of development, having for its starting-point the familial clan, and passing from this through the stage of mother-right.[174] The Chinese language itself attests the ancient existence of the earliest form of marriage, contracted by a group of brothers having their wives in common, but not marrying their sisters. Thus a Chinaman calls the sons of his brothers "his sons," but he considers those of his sisters as his nephews.[175] Certain of the aboriginal tribes still require the husband to live with his wife's family for a period of seven or ten years before he is allowed to take her to his home. The eldest child is given to the husband, the second belongs to the family of the wife.[176] The authority which the Chinese mother exercises over her son's marriage and over his wife can only be explained by mother-right customs. There are many other examples which I must pass over.

In the Island of Madagascar, with whose interesting civilisation, as it existed before the unfortunate conquest of the country by the French, I am personally acquainted, mother-right has left much more than traces.[177] Great freedom in sexual relations was permitted to the men, and in certain cases to women also. There was no word in the native language for virgin; the word mpitÒvo, commonly used, means only an unmarried woman. On certain festive ceremonies the licence was very great. The hindrances to marriage were much more stringent with the mother's relations than with the father's. Divorce was frequent and easy; the power to exercise it rested with the husband; but the wife could, and often did, run away, and thus compel a divorce. A Malagasy proverb compared marriage to a knot so lightly tied that it could be undone by a touch. Such freedom was due to the great desire for children; every child was welcome in the family, whatever its origin.[178] The children belonged to the husband, and so complete was this possession, that in the case of a divorce not only the children previously born, but any the wife might afterwards bear, were counted as his.

Among the ruling classes mother-right remained in its early force. The royal family and nobility traced their descent, contrary to the general practice, through the mother, and not through the father. The rights of an unmarried queen were great. She was permitted to have a family by whomsoever she wished, and her children were recognised as legitimately royal through her. Among the Hovas not only wealth, but political dignities, and even sacerdotal functions, were transmitted to the nephew, in preference to the son.

In the adjacent continent of Africa we find similar privileges enjoyed by royal women. A delightful example is given by Frazer[179] in Central Africa, where a small state, near to the Chambezi river, is governed by a queen, who belongs to the reigning family of Ubemba. She bears the title Mamfumer, "Mother of Kings." The privileges attached to this dignity are numerous; the husbands may be chosen at will and from among the common people.

"The chosen man becomes prince consort, without sharing in the government of affairs. He is bound to leave everything to follow his royal and often little accommodating spouse. To show that in these households the rights are inverted and that a man may be changed into a woman, the queen takes the title of Monsieur and the husband that of Madame." A visitor to this state,[180] who had an interview with the queen, reports that, "she was a woman of gigantic stature, wearing many amulets."

Battle reported that "Loango was ruled by four princes, the sons of a former king's sister, since the sons of a king never succeed.[181] Frazer gives an account of the tyrannical authority of the princesses in this state.[182]

"The princesses are free to choose and divorce their husbands at pleasure, and to cohabit at the same time with other men. The husbands are nearly always plebeians. The lot of a prince consort is not a happy one, for he is rather the slave and prisoner than the mate of his imperious princess. In marrying her he engages never more to look at a woman; when he goes out he is preceded by guards whose duty it is to drive all females from the road where he is to pass. If, in spite of these precautions, he should by ill-luck cast his eyes on a woman, the princess may have his head chopped off, and commonly exercised, or used to exercise, the right. This sort of libertinism, sustained by power, often carries the princesses to the greatest excesses, and nothing is so much dreaded as their anger."

In Africa descent through women is the rule,[183] though there are exceptions, and these are increasing. The amusing account given by Miss Kingsley[184] of Joseph, a member of the Batu tribe in French Congo, strikingly illustrates the prevalence of the custom. When asked by a French official to furnish his own name and the name of his father, Joseph was wholly nonplussed. "My fader?" he said. "Who my fader?" Then he gave the name of his mother.The case is the same among the Negroes. The Fanti of the Gold Coast may be taken as an example. Among them an intensity of affection (accounted for partly by the fact that the mothers have exclusive care of the children) is felt for the mother, while the father is hardly known, or disregarded, notwithstanding that he may be a wealthy and powerful man and the legal husband of the mother.[185] The practice of the Wamoima, where the son of a sister is preferred in legacies, "because a man's own son is only the son of his wife," is typical.[186] The Bush husband does not live with his wife, and often has wives in different places. The maternal uncle supplies his place in the family.

Wherever mother-right has progressed towards father-right, as is the condition, broadly speaking, in the African continent, the supreme authority is vested in the maternal uncle. The tribal duty of blood-revenge falls to him, even against the father. Thus, in some cases, if a woman is murdered, the duty of revenge is undertaken by her kinsman.[187] In the state of Loango among the common people the uncle is addressed as tate (father). He has even the power to sell his sister's children.[188] The child is so entirely the property of the kin that he may be given in pledge for their debts. Among the Bavili the mother has the right to pawn the child, but she must first consult the father, so that he may have a chance of giving her goods to save the pledging.[189] This is very plainly a step towards father-right. There is no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children. Similar conditions prevail among the Alladians of the Ivory Coast, but here the mother cannot pledge her children without the consent of her brother or other male head of the family. The father has the right to ransom the child.[190] An even stronger example of the property value of children is furnished by the custom found among many tribes, by which the father has to make a present to the wife's kin when a child dies: this is called "buying the child."[191]

These cases, with the inferences they suggest, show that though mother-descent may be strongly established in Africa, this does not confer (except to the royal princesses) any special distinction upon women. This is explained if we recognise that a transitional period has been reached, when, under the pressure of social, and particularly of military activities, the government of the tribe has passed to the male kindred of the women. It wants but a step further for the establishment of father-right.

There are many cases pointing to this new father-force asserting itself and pushing aside the earlier order. Again I can give one or two examples only. Among Wayao and Mang'anja of the Shire highlands, south of Lake Nyassa, a man on marrying leaves his own village and goes to live in that of his wife; but, as an alternative, he is allowed to pay a bride-price, in which case he takes his wife away to his home.[192] Whenever we find the payment of a bride-price, there is sure indication of the decay of mother-right: woman has become property. Among the Bassa Komo of Nigeria marriage is usually effected by an exchange of sisters or other female relatives. The women are supposed to be faithful to their husbands. If, however, as frequently happens, there is a preliminary courtship period, during which the marriage is considered as provisional, considerable licence is granted to the woman. Chastity is only regarded as a virtue when the woman has become the property of the husband. The men may marry as many wives as they have sisters or female relatives to give in exchange. In this tribe the women look after the children, but the boys, when four years old, go to work and live with their fathers.[193] The husbands of the Bambala tribe (inhabiting the Congo states between the rivers Inzia and Kwilu) have to abstain from visiting their wives for a year after the birth of each child, but they are allowed to return to her on the payment to her father of two goats.[194] Among the Basanga on the south-west of Lake Moeru the children of the wife belong to the mother's kin, but the children of slaves are the property of the father.[195]It is rendered clear by such cases as these, that the rise of father-right was dependent on property and had nothing to do with blood relationship. The payment of a bride-price, the giving of a sister in exchange, as also marriage with a slave, gained for the husband the control over his wife and ownership of her children. I could bring forward much more evidence in proof of this fact did the limits of my space allow me to do this; such cases are common in all parts of the world where the transitional stage from mother-right to father-right has been reached. But I believe that the causes by which the father gained his position as the dominant partner in marriage must be clear to every one from the examples I have given. I will, therefore, quote only one final and most instructive case. It illustrates in a curious way the conflict between the old rights of the woman and the rising power of the male force in connection with marriage. It occurs among the Hassanyeh Arabs of the White Nile, where the wife passes by contract for only a portion of her time under the authority of her husband.

"When the parents of the man and the woman meet to settle the price of the woman, the price depends on how many days in the week the marriage tie is to be strictly observed. The woman's mother first of all proposes that, taking everything into consideration, with due regard to the feelings of the family, she could not think of binding her daughter to a due observance of that chastity which matrimony is expected to command for more than two days in the week. After a great deal of apparently angry discussion, and the promise on the part of the relations of the man to pay more, it is arranged that the marriage shall hold good as is customary among the first families of the tribe, for four days in the week, viz. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and in compliance with old established custom, the marriage rites during the three remaining days shall not be insisted on, during which days the bride shall be perfectly free to act as she may think proper, either by adhering to her husband and home, or by enjoying her freedom and independence from all observance of matrimonial obligation."[196]

We have at length concluded our investigation of this first period of organised society, and have ascertained many facts that we can use as a touchstone to try the truth of the various theories that are put forward with regard to woman and her position in the family and in the State. The importance of the mother-age to women is evident. Thus I offer no apology for the length at which I have treated the subject. It has seemed to me after careful revision that no one of the examples given can be omitted. Facts are of so much more importance than opinions if we are to come to the truth.

Without attempting to trace exhaustively the history or even to enumerate the peoples living, or who have lived, under mother-right customs, we have examined many and varied cases of the actual working of this system, with special reference to the position held by women. The examples have been chosen from all parts of the world, so as to prove (what is sometimes denied) that mother-right has not been confined to any one race, that it is not a local custom under special conditions, but that it has been a necessary stage of growth of human societies. My aim has been to illustrate the stages through which society passed from mother-right to father-right. It has not been possible to arrange the evidence in any exact progressive sequence, but I hope the cases given will make clear what I believe to have been the general trend of growth: at first the power in the hands of the women, but this giving way to the slow but steady usurping of the mother's authority by the ever-assertive male.

I shall now conclude this study of the mother-age by attempting to formulate the general truths, which, it seems to me, may be drawn from the examples we have examined.

I. The first effort of primitive society was to establish some form of order, and in that order the women of the group were the more stable and predominant partners in the family relationship.

II. Impelled by the conditions of motherhood to a more settled life than the men of the tribe, women were the first agriculturists, weavers, dyers and dressers of skins, potters, the domesticators of animals, the first architects, and sometimes the primitive doctors—in a word, the inventors and organisers of the peaceful art of life.[197] Primitive women were strong in body[198] and capable in work. The power they enjoyed as well as their manifold activities were a result of their position as mothers, this function being to them a source of strength and not a plea of weakness.

III. Moral ideas, as we understand them, hardly existed. The oldest form of marriage was what is known as "group marriage," which was the union of two tribal groups or clans, the men of one totem group marrying the women of another, and vice versa, but no man or woman having one particular wife or husband.

IV. The individual relationship between the sexes began with the reception of temporary lovers by the woman in her own home. But as society progressed, a relationship thus formed would tend under favourable circumstances to be continued, and, in some cases, perpetuated. The lover thus became the husband, but he was still without property right, with no—or very little—control over the woman, and none over her children, occupying, indeed, the position of a more or less permanent guest in her hut or tent.

V. The social organisation which followed this custom was in most cases—and always, I believe, in their primitive form—favourable to women. Kinship was recognised through the mother, and the continuity of the family thus depending solely on the woman, it followed she was the holder of all property. Her position and that of her children was, by this means, assured, and in the case of a separation it was the man who departed, leaving her in possession. The woman was the head of the household, and in some instances held the position of tribal chief.

VI. This early power of women, arising from the recognition alone of womb-kinship, with the resulting freedom in sexual relationships permitted to women, could not continue. It was no more possible for society to be built up on mother-right alone than it is possible for it to remain permanently based on father-right.

VII. It is important to note that the causes which led to the change in the position of the sexes had no direct connection with moral development; it was not due, as many have held, to the recognition of fatherhood. The cause was quite different and was founded on property. It arose, in the first instance, through a property value being connected with women themselves. As soon as the women's kin began to see in their women a means by exchange of obtaining wives for themselves, and also the possibility of gaining worldly goods, both in the property held by women, and by means of the service and presents that could be claimed from their lovers, we find them exercising more or less strict supervision over the alliances of their female relatives.

VIII. At first, and for a long time, the early freedom of women persisted in the widely spread custom of a preliminary period before marriage of unrestricted sexual relationships. But permanent unions became subject to the consent of the woman's kindred.

It was in this way, I am certain, and for no moral considerations that the stringency of the sexual code was first tightened for women.

IX. At a much later date virginity came to have a special market-value, from which time a jealous watch began to be kept upon maidenhood.

It seems to me of very great importance that women should grasp firmly this truth: the virtue of chastity owes its origin to property. Our minds fall so readily under the spell of such ideas as chastity and purity. There is a mass of real superstition on this question—a belief in a kind of magic in purity. But, indeed, chastity had at first no connection with morals. The sense of ownership has been the seed-plot of our moral code. To it we are indebted for the first germs of the sexual inhibitions which, sanctified by religion and supported by custom, have, under the unreasoned idealism of the common mind, filled life with cruelties and jealous exclusions, with suicides and murders and secret shames.

X. This intrusion of economics into the sexual relationships brought about the revolution in the status of women. As soon as women became sexually marketable, their early power was doomed. First came what I hold to have been the transitional stage of the mother-age. This will explain how it is that, even where matrilineal descent is in full force, we may find the patriarchal subjection of women. The mother's authority has been usurped by her male kindred, usually her brother.

XI. We have noted the alien position of the father even among peoples at a stage of development where paternity was fully established. This subjection, which, perhaps, would not be felt in the earlier stage of mother-right, must have been increased by the intrusion of the authority of the wife's male kindred. The impulse to dominate by virtue of strength or of property possessions has manifested itself in every age. As society advanced property would increase in value, and the social and political significance of its possession would also increase. It is clear that such a position of insecurity for the husband and father would tend to become impossible.

XII. One way of escape—which doubtless took place at a very early stage—was by the capture of women. Side by side with the customary marriages in which the husband resided in the home of the wife, without rights and subject to her clan-kindred, we find the practice of a man keeping one or more captive wives in his own home for his use and service. It will be readily seen that the special rights in the home over these owned wives (rights, moreover, that were recognised by the tribe) would come to be desired by other men. But the capture of wives was always difficult as it frequently led to a quarrel and even warfare with the woman's tribe, and for this reason was never widely practised. It would, therefore, be necessary for another way of escape to be found. This was done by changing the conditions of the customary marriage. Nor do I think it unlikely that such change may have been received favourably by women. The captive wives may even have been envied by the regular wife. An arrangement that would give a more individual relationship to marriage and the protection of a husband for herself and the children of their union may well have been preferred by woman to her position of subjection that had now arisen to the authority of her brother or other male relative. The alteration from the old custom may thus be said to have been due, in part, to the interests of the husband, but also, in part, to the inclination of the wife.

XIII. The change was gained by elopement, by simulated capture, by the gift or exchange of women, and by the payment of a bride-price. The bride-price came to be the most usual custom, gradually displacing the others. As we have seen, it was often regarded as a condition, not of the marriage itself, but of the transfer of the wife to the home of the husband and of the children to his kin.

XIV. It was in this way, for economic reasons, and the personal needs of both the woman and the man, and not, I believe, specially through the fighting propensities of the males, and certainly not by any unfair domination or tyranny on the part of the husband that the position of the sexes was reversed.

XV. But be this as it may, to woman the result was no less far-reaching and disastrous. She had become the property of one master, residing in her husband's tribe, which had no rights or duties in regard to her, where she was a stranger, perhaps speaking a different language. And her children kept her bound to this alien home in a much closer way than the husband could ever have been bound to her home under the earlier custom. Woman's early power rested in her organised position among her own kin: this was now lost.XVI. The change was not brought about quickly. For long the mother's influence persisted as a matter of habit. We have its rather empty shadow with us to-day.

XVII. But, under the pressure of the new conditions, the old custom of tracing descent and the inheritance of property in the female line (so favourable to women) died. Mother-right passed away, remaining only as a tradition, or practised in isolated cases among primitive peoples. The patriarchal age, which still endures, succeeded. Women became slaves, who of old had been dominant.

One final word more.

The opinion that the subjection of women arose from male mastery, or was due to any special cruelty, must be set aside. To me the history of the mother-age does not teach this. I believe this charge could not have arisen, at all events it would not have persisted, if women, with the power they then enjoyed, had not desired the gaining of a closer relationship with the father of their children. With all the evils that father-right has brought to woman, we have got to remember that woman owes the individual relation of the man to herself and her children to the patriarchal system. The father's right in his children (which, unlike the right of the mother, was not founded on kinship, but rested on the quite different and insecure basis of property) had to be established. Without this being done, the family in its full and perfect development was impossible. We women need to remember this, lest bitterness stains our sense of justice. It may be that progress social and moral could not have been accomplished otherwise; that the cost of love's development has been the enslavement of woman. If so, then women will not, in the long account of Nature, have lost in the payment of the price. They may be (when they come at last to understand the truth) better fitted for their refound freedom.

Neither mother-right alone, nor father-right alone, can satisfy the new ideals of the true relationship of the sexes. The spiritual force, slowly unfolding, that has uplifted, and is still uplifting, womanhood, is the foundation of woman's claim that the further progress of humanity is bound up with her restoration to a position of freedom and human equality. But this position she must not take from man—that, indeed, would be a step backwards. No, she is to share it with him, and this for her own sake and for his, and, more than all, for the sake of their children and all the children of the race.

This replacement of the mother side by side with the father in the home and in the larger home of the State is the true work of the Woman's Movement.


FOOTNOTES:

[97] It is abundantly evident to any one who looks carefully into the past that sex occupied a large share of the consciousness of primitive races. The elaborate courtship rites and sex festivals alone give proof of this. It is, unfortunately, impossible for me to follow this question and give examples. I must refer the reader to H. Ellis's Psychology of Sex, Vol. III. pp. 34-44, where a number of typical cases are given of the courtship customs of the primitive peoples. See also Thomas, Sex and Society, chapter on "The Psychology of Exogamy," pp. 175-179.

[98] This is the mistake that Westermark—in his valuable History of Human Marriage—as well as many writers have fallen into; assuming that because monogamy is found among man's nearest ancestors, the anthropoid apes, primitive human groups must have had a tendency towards monogamy. Whereas the exact opposite of this is true. There is, it would seem, a deeply rooted dislike in studying sex matters to face truth. This habit of fear explains the many elaborate efforts undertaken to establish the theory that primitive races practised a stricter sexual code than the facts prove. Letourneau, in The Evolution of Marriage, appears to adopt this view, and forces evidence in trying to prove the non-existence of a widespread early period of promiscuity (pp. 37-44). Mention may be made, on the other side, of Iwan Bloch, who, writing from a different standpoint and much deeper psychology, has no doubt at all of the early existence of, and even the continued tendency towards, promiscuity.—The Sexual Life of Our Times, pp. 188-195.

[99] Our knowledge of the habits of primitive races has increased greatly of late years. The classical works of Bachofen, Waitz, Kulischer, Giraud-Teulon, von Hellwald, Krauss, Ploss-Bartels and other ethnologists, and the investigation of Morgan, McLennan, MÜller, and many others, have opened up wide sources of information.

[100] Thomas, Sex and Society, p. 68, and Letourneau, Evolution of Marriage, pp. 269-270, 320.

[101] Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, p. 9.

[102] This opinion is founded on the anthropological investigations during the past half century. See Hartland, Primitive Paternity, Vol. I. pp. 256-257; H. Ellis, Psychology of Sex, Vol. VI. pp. 390-382, and "The Changing Status of Women," Westminster Review, October 1886; Thomas, Sex and Society, p. 58, and Bloch, Sexual History of our Times, pp. 190-196.

[103] For a full and illuminative treatment of this subject I would refer my readers to the essays of Professor Karl Pearson, The Chances of Death, Vol. II.—"Woman as Witch: Evidences of Mother-Right in the Customs of MediÆval Witchcraft"; "Ashiepattle, or Hans Seeks his Luck"; "Kindred Group Marriage," Part I.; "The Mother-Age Civilisation," Part II.; "General Words for Sex and Kinship," Part III.; "Special Words for Sex and Relationship." In these suggestive essays Professor Pearson has brought together a great number of facts which give a new and charming significance to the early position of women. Perhaps the most interesting essay is that of "Woman as Witch," in which he shows that the beliefs and practices connected with mediÆval witchcraft were really perverted rites, survivals of mother-age customs.

[104] Bede, II. 1-7.

[105] F. Frazer, Golden Bough, Pt. I. The Magic Art, Vol. II. pp. 282-283. Canute's marriage was clearly one of policy: Emma was much older than he was, she was then living in Normandy, and it is doubtful if the Danish king had ever seen her. Such marriages with the widow of a king were common. The familiar example of Hamlet's uncle is one, who, after murdering his brother, married his wife, and became king. His acceptance by the people, in spite of his crime, is explained if it was the old Danish custom for marriage with the king's widow to carry the kingdom with it. In Hamlet's position as avenger, and his curious hesitancy, we have really an indication of the conflict between the old and new ways of reckoning descent.

[106] Strabo, IV. 5, 4. Hartland, Primitive Paternity, Vol. II. p. 132. It must not be thought that mother-descent was always accompanied by promiscuity, or even with what we should call laxity of morals. We shall find that it was not. But the early custom of group marriages was frequent, in which women often changed their mates at will, and perhaps retained none of them long. We shall see that this freedom, whatever were its evils, carried with it many privileges for women.

[107] H. Ellis, citing Rhys and Brynmor-Jones, The Welsh People, p. 214.

[108] Gen. xxiv. 5-53.

[109] Gen. xxxi. 41, 43.

[110] Judges xv. 1.

[111] Num. xxxii. 8-11.

[112] Letourneau, Evolution of Marriage, p. 326.

[113] Num. xxxvi. 4-8.

[114] Gen. xii.

[115] 2 Sam. xiii. 16.

[116] Exod. vi. 20.

[117] Gen. xi. 26-29.

[118] See Thomas, Sex and Society, pp. 63-64.

[119] Morgan, House and House-life of the American Aborigines, p. 64. This example of mother-descent may be taken as typical of Indian life in all parts of America at the epoch of European discovery.

[120] Morgan, Anc. Soc., 62, 71, 76; Hartland, Primitive Paternity, Vol. I. p. 298, Vol. II. p. 65.

[121] McLennan, Studies, I. p. 271. Thus among the Choctas, if a boy is to be placed at school, his uncle, instead of his father, takes him to the mission and makes arrangements.

[122] Report of an Official for Indian Affairs on two of the Iroquoian tribes, cited by Hartland, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 298. McLennan attributes the arrangement of the marriages to the mothers (Studies, ii. p. 339). This would be the earlier custom and is still practised among several tribes.

[123] Charlevoix, V. p. 418, quoted by Hartland, op. cit., Vol. II. p. 66.

[124] The customs of the Senecas have been noted by the Rev. A. Wright, who was a missionary for many years amongst them, and was familiar with their language and habits. His account is quoted by Morgan, House and House-life of the American Aborigines.

[125] We seem here to have a suggestion of the modern plan of co-operative dwelling-houses. It is extraordinary how many of our new (!) ideas seem to have been common in the mother-age. Was it because women, who are certainly more practical and careful of detail than men are, had part in the social arrangements? This would explain the revival of the same ideas to-day, when women are again taking up their part in the ordering of domestic and social life.

[126] Powell, Rep. Bur. Ethn., I, p. 63.

[127] Owen, Musquakies, p. 72, quoted by Hartland, op. cit., Vol. II. pp. 68-69.

[128] I have summarised the account of the Wyandot government as given by Hartland, who quotes from Powell's "Wyandot Government," First Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1879-1880, pp. 61 ff.

[129] "The Beginning of Marriage," American Anthropologist, Vol. IX. p. 376. Rep. Bur. Ethn., XVII. p. 275.

[130] This is supposed by McGee to suggest a survival of a vestigial polyandry.

[131] Mrs. Stevenson, Rep. Bur. Ethn., XXIII. pp. 290, 293. Cushing, ZuÑi Folk Tales, p. 368, cited by Hartland, op. cit., Vol. II. pp. 73, 74.

[132] Rep. Bur. Ethn., XIII. p. 340. Solberg, Zeits. f. Ethnol., XXXVII. p. 269. Voth, Traditions of the Hopi, pp. 67, 96, 133. Hartland, op. cit., Vol. II. pp. 74-76.

[133] Rep. Bur. Ethn., IX. p. 19. Hartland, Ibid., pp. 76-77. It would seem in some cases, the husband, after a period of residence with his wife's family, provides a separate house.

[134] Sex and Society, pp. 65-66.

[135] Bachofen's work was foreshadowed by an earlier writer, Father Lafiteau, who published his Moeurs des sauvages amÉricains in 1721. Das Mutterrecht was published in 1861. McLennan, ignorant of Bachofen's work, followed immediately after with his account of the Indian Hill Tribes. He was followed by Morgan, with his knowledge of Iroquois, and many other investigators.

[136] Lord Avebury, for example, says: "I believe that communities in which women have exercised supreme power were quite exceptional," Marriage, Totemism and Religion, p. 51. See also Letourneau, Evolution of Marriage, pp. 281-282.

[137] In this opinion I am glad to have the support of so high an authority as Mr. Havelock Ellis. See his admirable summary of this question, Psychology of Sex, Vol. VI. pp. 390-393; also the essay already referred to, "Changing Status of Women," Westminster Review, Oct. 1886.

[138] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II. p. 130; see Thomas, op. cit., chapter on "Sex and Primitive Industry."

[139] Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 65.

[140] Hoffman, "The Menomini Indians," Fourteenth Rep. of the Bur. of Am. Ethno., p. 288.

[141] Papers of the Arch. Inst. of Am., Vol. II. p. 138.

[142] Fison and Howitt, Native Tribes of Australia; also Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 33, 65, 66. See also Hartland, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 294.

[143] Letourneau, op. cit., pp. 44, 271-274. Thomas, op. cit., p. 61.

[144] Hartland, Primitive Paternity, Vol. II. pp. 155-156, 39-41.

[145] Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 54; also Tylor, "The Matriarchal System," Nineteenth Century, July 1896, p. 89.

[146] Dalton, op. cit., p. 63, cited by Hartland. I would suggest that Mr. Bernard Shaw may have had this marriage custom in his mind when he created Ann. See p. 66.

[147] This custom prevails, for instance, among the KharwÂrs and Parahiya tribes, and is common among the Ghasiyas, and is also practised among the Tipperah of Bengal. Among the SantÂls this service-marriage is used when a girl is ugly or deformed and cannot be married otherwise, while the Badagas of the Nil'giri Hills offer their daughters when in want of labourers.

[148] Crooke, Tribes and Castes, iii. p. 242.

[149] Hartland, op. cit., Vol. II. pp. 156, 157.

[150] Risley, The Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Vol. I. pp. 228, 231.

[151] Rivers, The Todas; Schrott, Tras. Ethno. Soc. (New Series), Vol. VIII. p. 261.

[152] Letourneau, quoting Skinner, Evolution of Marriage, p. 78.

[153] Thurston, Ethnographic Notes in Southern India, p. 114. Polyandry has flourished not only among the primitive races of India. The Hindoo populations also adopted it, and traces of the custom may be found in their sacred literature. Thus in the MahÄbhÄrata the five PÁndava brothers marry all together the beautiful DrÛaupadi, with eyes of lotus blue (MahÄbhÄrata, trad. Fauche, t. II. p. 148). For an account of polyandry in ancient India the reader should consult Jolly, Gundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde.

[154] Davy, Ceylon, p. 286; Sachot, L'Île de Ceylon, p. 25.

[155] Turner, Thibet, p. 348, and Hist. Univ. des, Voy., Vol. XXXI. p. 434; Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 36.

[156] Hartland, op. cit., Vol. II. p. 164.

[157] This is the opinion of BernhÖft, quoted by Iwan Bloch. Marshall points out that among the Todas group-marriages occur side by side with polyandry. Bloch also notes that in the common cases where the husband has a claim on his wife's sister, and even her cousins and aunts, we find polygamy developed out of group-marriage. The practice of wife lending and wife exchange is also connected with the early communal marriage (Sexual History of Our Times, pp. 193-194). It is possible that prostitution may be a relic of this early sexual freedom. What is moral in one stage of civilisation often becomes immoral in another, when the reasons for its existing have changed.

[158] Havelock Ellis writing on this subject ("Changing Status of Women," Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1886) says: "It seems that in the dawn of the race an elaborate social organisation permitted a more or less restricted communal marriage, every man in the tribe being at the outset the husband of every woman, first practically, then theoretically, and that the social organisation which had this point of departure was particularly favourable to women."

[159] It is a matter of dispute whether a woman may have more than one husband at a time. The older accounts state this, while later it has been denied. The probability is that this was the custom, but that it is dying out under modern influences. Hartland, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 267.

[160] In north Malabar a custom has arisen by which after a special ceremony the bridegroom is allowed to take the bride to live in his house, but in the case of his death she must at once return to her own family.

[161] J.A.I., XII. p. 292; Hartland, op. cit., p. 288. Letourneau, apparently quoting Bachofen, says that the women control property. This was probably an earlier custom, when the power was more truly in the hands of women, and had not passed to their male relatives.

[162] Wilken, Verwantschap, p. 678; Bijdragen, XXXI. p. 40.

[163] Havelock Ellis, Psychology of Sex, Vol. VI. p. 291. A second form of marriage, known as Jujur, was also practised. It was much more elaborate, and shows very instructively the rise of father-right. By it the authority of the husband over his wife is asserted by a very complicated system of payments; his right to take her to his home, and his absolute property in her depending wholly on these payments. If the final sum is paid (but this is not commonly claimed except in the case of a quarrel between the families) the woman becomes to all intents the slave of the man; but if on the other hand, as is not at all uncommon, the husband fails or has difficulty in making the main payment, he becomes the debtor of his wife's family and is practically a slave, all his labour being due to his creditor without any reduction in the debt, which must be paid in full, before he regains liberty. (See Marsden, History of Sumatra, pp. 225, 235, 257, 262, for an account of both marriages.)

[164] Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia.

[165] Havelock Ellis, op. cit., pp. 391-392, quoting Robertson Smith.

[166] Barlow, Semitic Origins, p. 45.

[167] Robertson Smith, op. cit., p. 65.

[168] This kind of union for a term is said to have been recognised by Mahommed, though it is irregular by Moslem law. The cases of beena marriage are very frequent among widely different peoples. (See Hartland, Primitive Paternity, Vol. II. pp. 11, 13, 14, 19, 20, 24, 27, 30-36, 38, 41-43, 51, 53, 55, 60-63, 67-72, 76, 77.) Frazer (Academy, March 27, 1886) cites an interesting example among the tribes on the north frontier of Abyssinia, partially Semitic peoples, not yet under the influence of Islam, who preserve a system of marriage closely resembling the beena marriage, but have as well a purchase marriage, by which a wife is acquired by payment of a bride-price and becomes the property of her husband. (Quoted by Ellis, op. cit., p. 392 note.)

[169] Thomas, Sex and Society, pp. 73-74. Quoting Waitz-Gerland, Anthropologie der NaturvÖlker, Vol. V. p. 107.

[170] McLennan, The Patriarchal Theory, p. 235.

[171] Thomas, op. cit., p. 75, points out that this survival of woman's power after the rise of father-right is similar to the assertion of male-power under mother-right in the person of the woman's brother or male relative.

[172] Letourneau, op. cit., p. 323, who quotes Lubbock, Orig. Civil., p. 177.

[173] Hartland, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 14, citing Morgan, Systems of Consanguinity.

[174] Letourneau, op. cit., p. 323.

[175] Morgan, Systems of Consanguinity ("Smithsonian Contributions"), Vol. XVII. pp. 416-417.

[176] Hartland, Vol. II. p. 45, quoting Gray, China, Vol. II. p. 304.

[177] This is the opinion of Hartland. He quotes Ellis, History of Madagascar, and Sibree, The Great African Island. I am able to speak as to the truths of the facts given in their books from my knowledge of the Malagasy before the French occupation of the island. Madagascar is my birth-place, and my father was a missionary in the country at the same time as Mr. Ellis and Mr. Sibree.

[178] As an instance of the importance attached to children, I may mention the fact that, after my birth my father was not announced to preach under his own name, but as "the father of KÉteka," the Malagasy equivalent of my name.

[179] Frazer, Golden Bough, Pt. I. The Magical Art, Vol. II. p. 277.

[180] Father GuillemÉ, Missiones Catholiques, XXXIV. (1902), p. 16.

[181] Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, p. 151.

[182] Frazer, Ibid., p. 276.

[183] "Birth," we are told by a keen observer, who has lived for many years in intimate converse with the natives, "sanctifies the child; birth alone gives him status as a member of his mother's family" (Dennett, Jour. Afr. Soc., I. p. 265).

[184] Travels, p. 109.

[185] Hartland, quoting Mr. Sarbah, a native barrister, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 286.

[186] Lippert, Kulturgeschichte, Vol. II. p. 57.

[187] This is done among the Beni Amer on the shores of the Red Sea and in the Barka valley, which is the more remarkable as mother-descent has fallen into desuetude under the influence of Islamism. (Hartland, Vol. I. p. 274, quoting Munzinger, Ostafrikanische studien.)

[188] Bastian, Loango-KÜste, I. p. 166.

[189] Dennett, Jour. Afr. Soc., I. p. 266.

[190] Jour. Afr. Soc., I. p. 412. See Hartland, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 275-288.

[191] A similar custom prevails among Maori people of New Zealand. When a child dies, or even meets with an accident, the mother's relations, headed by her brother, turn out in force against the father. He must defend himself until wounded. Blood once drawn the combat ceases; but the attacking party plunders his house and appropriates the husband's property, and finally sits down to a feast provided by him (Old New Zealand, p. 110). This case is the more extraordinary as the Maori reckon descent through the father; it is doubtless a custom persisting from an earlier time.

[192] Macdonald, Africana, Vol. I. p. 136.

[193] Jour. Afr. Soc., VIII. pp. 15-17. This tribe now traces descent through the father.

[194] Torday and Joyce, J.A.I., XXXV. p. 410.

[195] Arnot, Garenganze, p. 242.

[196] Spencer, Descriptive Sociology, Vol. V. p. 8, citing Petherick, Egypt, the Soudan, and Central Africa, pp. 140-144. This case is quoted by Thomas, op, cit., pp. 85, 86.

[197] For fuller information on this important subject the reader is referred to Professor Otis Mason, who gives a picturesque summary of the work done by women among the primitive tribes of America (American Antiquarian, January 1889, "The Ulu, or Woman's Knife of the Eskimo," Report of the United States National Museum, 1890). H. Ellis, Man and Woman, pp. 1-17, and Thomas, Sex and Society, pp. 123-146, give interesting accounts of the division of labour among primitive people, showing the important part women took in the start of industrialism. For direct examples from primitive peoples, the works of Fison and Howit, James Macdonald, Professor Haddow, Hearn, Morgan, Bancroft, Lubbock, Ratzel, Schoolcroft and other anthropologists should be consulted.

[198] It is an entirely mistaken view, founded on insufficient knowledge, that in early civilisations women were a source of weakness to the men of the tribe or group, and, thus, liable to oppression. The very reverse is the truth. Fison and Howit, who discuss the question, say of the Australian women, "In time of peace they are the hardest workers and the most useful members of the community." In time of war, "they are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves at all times, and so far from being an encumbrance on the warriors, they will fight, if need be, as bravely as the men, and with even greater ferocity" (Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 133-147, 358). This is no exceptional case, and is confirmed by the reports of investigators of widely different peoples. I may mention the ancient Iberian women of Northern Spain, whose bravery in battle is testified to by Strabo: the descendants of these women still carry on the greater part of the active labour connected with agriculture (Spain Revisited, pp. 191-292). In our own day we have the witness to the same truth in the heroic part taken by women in the Balkan army.


CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VII

WOMAN'S POSITION IN THE GREAT CIVILISATIONS OF ANTIQUITY

I.—In Egypt

The importance of estimating woman's position in the great civilisations of the ancient world—The Egyptian civilisation—Women more free and more honoured than in any country to-day—The account given by Herodotus—The Egyptian woman never confined to the home—No restraint upon her actions—She entered into commerce in her own right and made contracts for her own benefit—Abundant material in proof of the high status of Egyptian women—Marriage contracts—Their importance and interest—Numerous examples—The proprietary rights of the wife—An early period of mother-rule—Property originally in the hands of women—The marriage contracts a development of the early system—The Egyptians solved the difficult problem of the fusion of mother-right with father-right—The statement of Dioderus that among the Egyptians the woman rules over the man—The conditions of marriage dependent on the birth of children—M. Paturet's view the Egyptian woman the equal of man—The high status of woman proved by the fact that her child was never illegitimate—The position of the mother secure in every relationship between the sexes—This made possible by the free conditions of the marriage contracts—Polygamy allowed—This practice in Egypt very different from polygamy in a patriarchal society—The husband a privileged guest in the home of the wife—The high ideal of the domestic relationship—Illustrations from the inscriptions of the monuments—Reasons which explain this civilised and human organisation—The Egyptians an agricultural and a conservative people—They were also a pacific race—The significance of the Maxims of the Moralists—Honour to the wife and the mother strongly insisted on—The health and character of the Egyptian mother—Some reflections in the Egyptian Galleries of the British Museum.

II.—In Babylon

Traces of mother-right in primitive Babylon—The honour paid to women—The position of women in later Babylonian history, though still at an early period—Their rights more circumscribed—The marriage code of Hammurabi—Polygamy permitted, though restricted, by the code—The exacting conditions of divorce—The position of the wife as subject to her husband—The later Neo-Babylonian periods—The position of women continuously improving—They obtain a position equal in law with their husbands—Their freedom in all social relations—They conduct business transactions in their own right—Illustrations from the contract tablets—Remarks and conclusion.

III.—In Greece

Traces of mother-right traditions in Greek literature and history—The women of the Homeric period—Dangers arising from the patriarchal subjection of women—Illustrations and various reflections—Historic Greece—The social organisation of Sparta—Their marriage system—The laws of Lycurgus—The freedom of the Spartan girls—The wise care for the health of the race—Plato's criticism of the Spartan system—He accuses the women of ruling their husbands—The Athenian women—Their subjection under the strict patriarchal rule—The insistence on chastity—Reasons for this—The degraded position of the wife—The hetairÆ—They the only educated women in Athens—Aspasia—She leads the movement to raise the position of the Athenian women—Plato's estimate of women—Remarks on the sexual penalties for women that are always found under a strict patriarchal regime—The ideal relationship between the wife and the husband—Euripides voices the sorrows of women—He foreshadows their coming triumph.

IV.—In Rome

Little known of the position of women in Rome in prehistoric times—Indications of an early period of mother-rule—The patriarchal system formerly established when Roman history opens—The Roman marriage law—The woman regarded as the property first of her father and afterwards of her husband—The patrician marriage of confarreatio—The form known as coemptio—Marriage by usus—The inequality of divorce—The subjection of the woman—The terrible right of the husband's manus—The way of escape—The development of the early marriage by usus—The new free marriage by consent—Free divorce—A revolution in the position of women—The patriarchal rule of women dwindled to a mere thread—They gained increasingly greater liberty until at last they gained complete freedom—The public entry of women into the affairs of State—Illustrations to show the fine use made by the Roman matrons of their freedom—An examination into the supposed licentiousness of Roman women—This opinion cannot be accepted—The effect of Christianity—The view of Sir Henry Maine—Some concluding remarks on the position of women in the four great civilisations examined in this chapter.


CHAPTER VIIToC

WOMAN'S POSITION IN THE GREAT CIVILISATIONS OF ANTIQUITY

I.—In Egypt

"If we consider the status of woman in the great empires of antiquity, we find on the whole that in their early stage, the stage of growth, as well as in their final stage, the stage of fruition, women tend to occupy a favourable position, while in their middle stage, usually the stage of predominating military organisation on a patriarchal basis, women usually occupy a less favourable position. This cyclic movement seems to be almost a natural law of development of great social groups."—Havelock Ellis.

The civilisations through which I am now going to follow the history of woman, in so far as they offer any special features of interest to our inquiry into woman's character and her true place in the social order, belong to the great civilisations of the ancient world, civilisations, moreover, that have deeply influenced human culture. It forms the second part of our historical investigation. There can be no doubt of its interest to us, for if we can prove that women have exercised unquestioned and direct authority in the family and in the State, not only among primitive peoples, but in stable civilisations of vital culture, we shall be in a position to answer those who wish to set limits to women's present activities.

It is necessary to enter into this inquiry with caution: the difficulties before me are very great. Again, it is not in any scarcity of evidence, but in its superabundance that the trouble rests. It is hard to condense the social habits of peoples into a few dozen pages. Nothing would be easier than from the mass of material available to pile up facts in furnishing a picture of the high status of woman that would unnerve any upholders of female subordination. It is just possible, on the other hand, to interpret these facts from a fixed point of thought, and then to argue that, in spite of her power, woman was still regarded as the inferior of man.[199] I wish to do neither. It is my purpose to outline the domestic relationships and the family law and customs as they existed in Egypt and in Babylon, in Greece and in Rome; to touch the features of social life only in so far as they illustrate this, and so to discover to what extent the mother was still regarded as the natural transmitter of property and head of the household. The subject is an immensely complicated and seductive one, so that I must keep strictly to the path set by this inquiry.

Let us turn first to Egypt.

We have so rich a collection of the remains of the ancient Egyptian civilisation, and so careful and industrious a scholarship has been given to interpret them, that we can with confidence reconstruct in outline the legal status and proprietary rights enjoyed by women, which gave them a position more free and more honoured than they have in any country of the world to-day. This is not an overestimate of the facts. The security of her proprietary rights made the Egyptian woman the legal head of the household, she inherited equally with her brothers, and had full control of her own property. She was juridically the equal of man, having the same rights, with the same freedom of action, and being honoured in the same way.

The position of woman in Egypt is, indeed, full of surprises to the modern believer in woman's subjection. Herodotus, who was a keen observer, was the first to record his astonishment. He writes—

"They have established laws and customs opposite for the most part to those of the rest of mankind. With them the women go to market and traffic; the men stay at home and weave.... The men carry burdens on their heads, the women on their shoulders.... The boys are never forced to maintain their parents unless they wish to do so, the girls are obliged to, even if they do not wish it."[200]

There is probably some exaggeration in this account, but it is certain that the wide activities of the free Egyptian women were never confined to the home. An important part was taken by her in industrial and commercial life. In these relations and in social intercourse it is allowed on all hands woman's position was remarkably free.[201] The records of the monuments show her to have been as actively concerned in all the affairs of her day, war alone excepted, as her father, her husband, or her sons.[202] No restraint was placed upon her actions, she appears eating and also drinking freely, and taking her part in equal enjoyment with men in social scenes and religious ceremonies. She was able to enter into commerce in her own right and to make contracts for her own benefit. She could bring actions, and even plead in the courts. She practised the art of medicine. As priestess she had authority in the temples. Frequently as queen she was the highest in the land. One of the greatest monarchs of Egypt was Hatschepsut,[203] B.C. 1550. "The mighty one!" "Conqueror of all Lands!" Queen in her own right by the will of her father, Thothmes I.

The material in proof of this high status of Egyptian women is abundant. It consists partly of the descriptions of Greek travellers, partly of the numerous and interesting marriage contracts, and partly of inscriptions and passages in the writings of the moralists, all of which testify to the beautiful and happy family relationships and usual honour in which women were held, which is further illustrated by incidents in the ancient stories. Of these the marriage contracts are the most important for our purpose.

The fullest information relates to the latest period of independent Egyptian history, when the position of women stood highest, but some of the contracts reach back to the time of King Bocchoris, and there are a few of an even earlier date. I wish that I had space to quote some of these marriage contracts in full: they are very instructive, and open out many paths of new suggestion.[204] I would commend their study to all those who are questioning the institution of marriage as it stands to-day on the rights of the patriarchal family system, by which the woman is considered the inferior, and submits herself and is subordinate to the man as the ruler of the family. The issue really rests at its root upon this—is the mother or the father to be regarded as the natural transmitter of property and head of the family. Our decision here will affect our outlook on the entire relation of the sexes. The Egyptians decided on the right of the mother. Their marriage contracts seem to have been entirely in favour of women. There was no sale of the bride by her parents, but the bride-price went to her; her own property also remained in her own charge and was at her own disposal. The husband stipulates in the contracts how much he will give as a yearly allowance for her support, and the entire property of the husband is pledged as security for these payments, whilst the wife is further protected by a dowry[205] or charge on the husband, to be paid to her in the event of his sending her away.

It will readily be seen how advantageous these proprietary rights must have been to the wife. She was able to claim either the fidelity of her husband or freedom for herself to leave him—and in some cases for both together, her property being secured to her and her children. In one contract by which the husband gives his wife one-third of all his property, present and to come, he values the movables she brought with her, and promises her the equivalent in silver. "If thou stayest, thou stayest with them, if thou goest away, thou goest away with them."[206] The importance of this right of free separation to women can hardly be over-estimated. Nietzold says the wife has absolutely nothing to lose, even when she is the guilty party.[207] Some of the marriage contracts are even more favourable to women; in these the husband literally endows his wife with all his worldly goods, "stipulating only that she is to maintain him while living, and provide for his burial when dead."[208] M. Paturet distinguishes two forms of marriage settlements, one which secures to the wife an annual pension of specified amount—usually one-third of the property of the husband—and the other, probably the older custom, which established a complete community of goods. The earlier contracts are much less detailed, due probably to the fact that the position of the established wife was then fixed by custom; but there seems no doubt that the equal lawful wife, she whose proper title is "lady of the house," was also joint ruler and mistress of the family heritage.[209] There is a very curious early contract of the time of Darius I, in which the usual stipulation of latter contracts are reversed, the wife speaking of the man being established as her husband, acknowledging the receipt of a sum of money as dowry, and undertaking that if she deserts or disposes of him, a third part of all her goods, present and to come, shall be forfeited to him.[210]

The high honour, freedom and proprietary rights enjoyed by the Egyptian wife can only be explained as being traceable to an early period of mother-right. Here the ancient privileges of women have persisted, not as an empty form, but would seem to have been adopted because of their advantage in the family relationship, and been incorporated with father-right. This would account for the last-named contract. Its very ancient date seems clearly to point to this. It is unlikely that, if it were an exceptional form, it should have chanced to be one of the very few early contracts that have been preserved.[211] It would rather seem that property was originally entirely in the hands of women, as is usual under the matriarchal system. The Egyptian marriage law was simply a development of this, enforcing by agreement what would occur naturally under the earlier custom. The interests of the children's inheritance was the chief object of the settlement of property on the wife. In the earlier stage, the daughter inheriting property from her parents, would marry—the husband would then become its joint administrator, but not its owner; it would pass by custom to the children with the eldest as administrator, but if the wife dismissed the husband, as under this system she could and often did, she would of right retain the family property in control for the children.[212] As society advanced this older custom would tend to break up in favour of individual ownership, property would come to belong to the husband and father, and it would then be necessary to ensure the position of the wife and children by contract. The Egyptian marriage may thus be regarded as a development of the individual relationship arising from father-right modified to conform with the mother-right custom of transmitting property through the woman. Under the earlier system the inheritance of the husband would pass to the children of his sister, and not to his own children. The contract was, therefore, made to prevent this. The husband's property was passed over to the wife (at first entirely and later in part) to secure its inheritance by the children of the marriage. Hence the formula common to these contracts by which the husband declares to the wife, "My eldest son, thy eldest son, shall be the heir to all my property present and to come." The only difference to the earlier custom was the prominence given to the eldest child (a son) in the contract.

This gift by the husband of his property to the wife, which made her a joint partner with him in all the family transactions, while at the same time she retained complete control over her own property, clearly placed the woman and her children in the same position of security as she had held during the mother-age; and added to this she gained the individual protection and support of the father in the family relationship. Doubtless it was this freedom and right over property, which explains the frequent cases in which the Egyptian women conducted business transactions, and also their active participation in the administration of the social organisation. Equal partners with their husbands in the administration of the home, they became partners with men in the wider administration of the State. It was in such wise way that the Egyptians arranged the difficult problem of the fusion of mother-right with father-right.

One result of these marriage contracts, giving apparently great power to the wife, arose out of the mortgage on the husband's property as security for the wife's settlement; her consent became necessary to all his acts. Thus it is usual for the husband's deeds to be endorsed by the wife, while he did not endorse hers. In some cases the wife's consent seems to have been necessary even in the case of the initial mortgage, when the only possible explanation is that the wife was regarded as co-proprietor with the husband, and therefore had to be party to any act disposing of the joint estate.[213]

Such a custom was apparently so wholly in favour of the wife, reversing the customary position of the man and the woman in the marriage partnership, that in the light of these contracts we understand the statement of Diodorus, when he says that "among the Egyptians the woman rules over the man"; though plainly he has not understood their true significance, when he goes on to say that "it is stipulated between married couples, by the terms of the dowry-contract that the man shall obey the woman."[214]

If the view is accepted, as I think it must be, that these contracts were made to add the advantages of father-right to the natural privileges of mother-right, and thus to secure the enjoyment of the family property to all its members, it will become evident that, however surprising such an agreement might seem from the one-sided patriarchal view (which always accepts the subjection of the woman), it was entirely a wise and just arrangement. It was certainly one that was entered into voluntarily by both partners of the marriage; there was no compulsion of law. All the evidence that has come down to us is witness to the success in practice of these marriage contracts. No other nation has yet developed a family relationship so perfect in its working as the Egyptians. The reason is not far to seek. It was based on the equal freedom and responsibility of the mother with the father. There was no question, it seems to me, of one sex ruling or obeying the other, rather it was the co-operation of the two for the welfare of both and of the children.So far we have dealt only with the position of the established wife. All the written marriage contracts refer to the "taking" and "establishing" a wife as two distinct steps, and in some cases the second stage, which seems to have conveyed the proprietary rights, was not taken until after the birth of children. There would thus be wives not necessarily holding the position of "lady of the house," but capable of being raised to such rank by later contract.[215] It is probable, as M. Revillout suggests,[216] that "the taking to wife" was a comparatively informal matter, but needing ratification by contract for any lasting establishment, which commonly would be done after the birth of a child to ensure the rights of the father's inheritance, passing through the mother to the children. All the evidence is in favour of this wise arrangement. There are many examples of contracts being entered into by the husband for the benefit of a woman, who had been "with him as a wife to him." Relations between the sexes of an even less binding character than this were not ignored.[217] It seems clear that little regard was paid to pre-nuptial chastity for women, and in no marriage contract is any stress laid on virginity, which, as Havelock Ellis[218] says, clearly indicates the absence of any idea of women as property. "It is the glory of Egyptian morality to have been the first to express the dignity of woman."[219]

M. Paturet takes the view that it was not so much as the mother, but as woman, and being the equal of man, that the Egyptians honoured their women. Perhaps the truth rather is that there was no separation between the woman and the mother. This is the view that I would take; to me it is the right and natural one. But be this as it may, Egyptian morality placed first the rights of the mother. No religious or moral superiority seems to have attached to the established wife. Even when there had been no betrothal, and no intention of marriage, law or custom recognises the claim of any mother of children to some kind of provision at their father's expense. "Nothing proves the high status of woman so clearly as this: her child was never illegitimate; illegitimacy was not recognised even in the case of a slave woman's child."[220]

There is a curious deed of the Ptolemaic period by which a man cedes to a woman a number of slaves; and—in the same breath—recognises her as his lawful wife, and declares her free not to consider him as her husband.[221] A byssus worker at the factory of Amon promises to the wife he is about to establish, one-third of all his acquisitions thenceforward: "my eldest son, thy eldest son, among the children born to thee previously and those thou shalt bear to me in future shall be master of all I possess now or shall hereafter acquire." Even when such arrangements were not entered into voluntarily, public opinion seems always to have been in favour of the woman. A case is recorded where four villagers of the town of ArsinÖe pledged themselves to the priest, scribe, and mayor that a fellow villager of theirs will become the friend of the woman who has been as his wife, and will love her as a woman ought to be loved.[222]

Most significant of all is the well-known precept of Petah Hotep, which refers to the expected conduct of a man to a prostitute or outcast—

"If thou makest a woman ashamed, wanton of heart, whom her fellow townspeople know to be under two laws" (i.e. in an ambiguous position), "be kind to her for a season, send her not away, let her have food to eat. The wantonness of her heart appreciateth guidance."

I know of nothing finer than this wide understanding of the ties of sex. It is an essential part of morality, as I understand it, that it accepts responsibility, not alone in the regular and permanent relationships between one man and one woman, but also in those that are temporary and are even considered base. Only in this way can the human passions be unified with love.

The freedom of the Egyptian marriage made this possible. Law, at least as we understand it, did not interfere with the domestic relationships; there was no one fixed rule that must be followed. Marriage was a matter of mutual agreement by contract. All that was required (and this was enforced by custom and by public opinion) was that the position of the woman and the children was made secure. Each party entered on the marriage without any constraint, and each party could cancel the contract and thereby the marriage. No legal judgment was required for divorce. It is a significant fact that in all the documents cancelling the marriage contracts that have come down to us, no mention is made of the reason which led to the annulling of the contract, only in one case it is suggested that "some evil daimon" may be at the bottom of it.[223]

Polygamy was allowed in Egypt, though, as in all polygamous countries, its practice was confined to the rich. This has been thought by some to exclude the idea of the woman's power in the family.[224] But such an opinion seems to me to arise from a want of understanding of the Egyptian conception of the sexual tie. Under polygamy each wife had a house, her proprietary rights and those of her children were established, the husband visiting her there as a privileged guest on equal footing.[225] This is very different from polygamy in a patriarchal society, and would carry with it no social dishonour to the woman. It would seem, too, in later Egyptian history that polygamy, though legal in theory, in practice died out, the fidelity of the husband, as we have seen, being claimed by the wife in the conditions of the marriage contract.[226]

That the Egyptians had a high ideal of the domestic relations—and had this, let it be remembered, more than four thousand years ago—is abundantly illustrated by their inscriptions. In one epitaph of the Hykos period, the speaker, who boasts a family of sixty children, says of himself, "I loved my father, I honoured my mother, my brothers and my sisters loved me."[227] The commonest formula, which continued in use as long as Egyptian civilisation survived, was one describing the deceased as "loving his father, reverencing his mother, and being beloved by his brothers," and there can be no doubt that this sentiment represented the maturest convictions of the Egyptians as to the sentiments necessary for the felicitous working of the family relationships.[228] It is, indeed, significant to find this reversal of the usual sentiments towards the father and the mother—the former to be loved and the latter to be reverenced. It would seem as if "they assumed that fathers would be sufficiently reverenced if they were loved, and mothers loved if they were honoured." How true here is the understanding of affection and of the sexes!

If we pause for a moment to seek the reason why the Egyptians had, as Herodotus so strikingly states, established in their domestic relationships laws and customs different from the rest of mankind—the answer is easy to find. The Egyptians were an agricultural and a conservative people. They were also a pacific race. They would seem not to have believed in that illusion of younger races—the glory of warfare. I have seen it stated that in battle they were known for the habit of running away. This may, of course, be thought to count against them as a people. It depends entirely on the point of view that is taken. But if, as I believe, the fighting activities belong to an early and truly primitive stage of social development, then the view would be very different. Races begin with the building up of society, then there follows the period of warfare—the patriarchal period which leads on to a later stage, much nearer in its working to the first—a final period, as Havelock Ellis says, "the stage of fruition." Woman's place and opportunity for the true expression of the powers that are hers belong to the first and last of these stages; in the middle stage she must tend to fall into a position of more or less complete dependence on the fighting male. Here is, I think, the explanation of the power and privilege of the Egyptian women. The Egyptians, due to their pacific and conservative temperament, seem to have escaped the patriarchal stage, and passed on from the first to final stage. Through the long centuries of their civilisation they devoted their energies to the building up and preserving of their social organisation. Thus, it may be, came about that solving of the problem of the sexes, which they among all races seem to have accomplished. The relationships of their family life and domestic administration were entirely civilised and humane.

Nowhere, except in Egypt, is so much stress laid upon the truth, that authority is sustained by affection. Their monuments and the inscriptions that have come down to us abundantly testify the value set upon affection: it is always the love of the husband for the wife, the wife for the husband, or the parent for the child, that is recorded. The frequency and detail with which such affections are described, prove the high estimation in which the purely domestic virtues were held, as forming the best and chief title of the dead to remembrance and honour. It is clear, moreover, that these affectionate relations between the members of a family are counted among the pleasures and joy of life. The inscriptions urge and warn the survivors to miss none of the joys of life, since the disembodied dead sleep in darkness, and this is the worst of their grief, "they know neither father nor mother, they do not awake to behold their brethren, their heart yearns no longer after wife and child."[229] There is a delightful inscription on the sepulchral tablet of the wife of a high priest of Memphis,[230] in which she urges the duty of happiness for her husband. It says—

"Hail, my brother, husband, friend, ... let not thy heart cease to drink water, to eat bread, to drink wine, to love women, to make a happy day, and to suit thy heart's desire by day and by night. And set no care whatsoever in thy heart: are the years which (we pass) upon the earth so many (that we need do this)?"

Such a conception, with its clear idea of the right of happiness, stands as witness to the high ideal of love which regulated the Egyptian family relationships.

It is necessary to remember, in this connection, that the domestic ties of the Egyptians were firmly based on proprietary considerations. No surprise need be felt that this was so, when we recall the wise arrangements of the marriage contracts, whereby both parties of the union secured equal freedom and an equal share in the family property. The antagonism between ownership and affection which so frequently destroys domestic happiness must thus have been unknown. "There was no marriage without money or money's worth, but to marry for money, in the modern sense, was impossible where individual ownership was abolished by the act of marriage itself."[231]

This in itself explains the fact, proved by these inscriptions, that the Egyptian woman remained to the end of life, "the beloved of her husband and the mistress of the house." "Make glad her heart during the time that thou hast," was the traditional advice given to the husband. To this effect runs the precept of Petah Hotep[232]

"If thou wouldst be a wise man, rule thy house and love thy wife wholly and constantly. Feed her and clothe her, love her tenderly and fulfil her desires as long as thou livest, for she is an estate which conferreth great reward upon her lord.[233] Be not hard to her, for she will be more easily moved by persuasion than by force. Observe what she wisheth, and that on which her mind runneth, thereby shalt thou make her to stay in thy house. If thou resisteth her will it is ruin."

The maxims of Ani,[234] written six dynasties later, give the same advice with fuller detail—

"Do not treat rudely a woman in her house when you know her perfectly; do not say to her, 'Where is that? bring it to me!' when she has set it in its place where your eye sees it, and when you are silent you know her qualities. It is a joy that your hand should be with her. The man who is fond of heart is quickly master in his house."

Honour to the mother was strongly insisted on. The sage Kneusu-Hetep[235] thus counsels his son—

"Thou shalt never forget thy mother and what she has done for thee. From the beginning she has borne a heavy burden with thee in which I have been unable to help her. Wert thou to forget her, then she might blame thee, lifting up her arms unto God, and he would hearken to her. For she carried thee long beneath her heart as a heavy burden, and after thy months were accomplished she bore thee. Three long years she carried thee upon her shoulder and gave thee her breast to thy mouth, and as thy size increased her heart never once allowed her to say, 'Why should I do this?' And when thou didst go to school and wast instructed in the writings, daily she stood by thy master with bread and beer from the house."

I would note in passing that in this passage we have a conclusive testimony to health and character of the Egyptian mother. The importance of this is undoubted, when we remember the active part taken by women in business and in social life. It is, I am sure, an entirely mistaken view to hold that motherhood is a cause of weakness to women. In a wisely ordered society this is not so. It is the withdrawal of one class of women from labour—the parasitic wives and daughters of the rich (which of these women could feed and carry her child for three years?), as the forcing of other women into work under intolerable conditions that injures motherhood. But on these questions I shall speak in the final part of my inquiry.

When I had written thus far in this chapter, I went from the reading-room of the British Museum, where all day I had been working, to spend a last quiet hour in the Egyptian Galleries. I knew one at least of these galleries well, but as a rule I had hurried through it, as so many of the reading-room students do, to reach the refreshment-room which is placed there. I found I had never really seen anything. This time it was different, for my thoughts were aflame with the life of this people, whose wonderful civilisation speaks in all these sculptured remains through the silence of the centuries. Some fresh thought came to me as I waited to look at first one statue and then another. I sought for those which represented women. There is a small statue in green basalt of Isis holding a figure of Osiris Un-nefer, her son.[236] The goddess is represented as much larger than the young god, who stands at her feet. The marriage of Isis with her brother Osiris did not blot out her independent position, her importance as a deity remained to the end greater than his. Think for a moment what this placing of the goddess, rather than the god, in the forefront of Egyptian worship signifies; very clearly it reflects the honour in which the sex to whom the supreme deity belongs was held. In the third Egyptian room is a seated statuette of Queen Teta-Khart, a wife of AÄhmes I (1600 B.C.), whose title was "Royal Mother," and another figure of Queen AmenÁrtas of the XXVth Dynasty 700 B.C.; near by is a beautiful head of the stone figure of a priestess.[237] There is something enigmatic and strangely seductive in the Egyptian faces; a joy and calmness which are implicit in freedom. And the impression is helped by the fixed attitudes, usually seated and always facing the spectator, and also by the great size of many of the figures; one seems to realise something of the simplicity and strength of the tireless enduring power of these women and men.

But I think what interested me most of all was the little difference manifested in the representations of the two sexes. The dress which each wears is very much the same; the attitudes are alike, and so often are the faces, even in the figures there seems no accentuation of the sexual characters. Often I did not know whether it was at a man or a woman, a god or a goddess, I was looking, until the title of the statue told me. How strange this seemed to me, and yet how significant of the beautiful equality of partnership between the woman and the man. It is in the statues which represent a husband and wife together, seated side by side, that this likeness is most evident. There are several of these domestic groups. One very interesting one is of early date, and belongs to the IVth Dynasty 3750 B.C.[238] It is in painted limestone, and shows the portrait figures of Ka-tep, "a royal kinsman" and priestly official, and his wife Hetep-Heres, "a royal kinswoman." The figures are small and of the same size; the faces are clearly portraits. The one, which I take to be the woman, though I am uncertain whether I am right, has her arm around the man, embracing him. There is another group[239] in white limestone of very fine work, portraits of a high official and his wife. The figures resemble each other closely, but that of the man is a little larger, showing his rank. The man holds the hand of the woman. This statue belongs to the XIXth Dynasty. On the right-hand side of the North Gallery is a second group of an earlier period.[240] The husband and wife are seated, and the figures are of the same size, showing that their rank was equal; their arms are intertwined, and between them, standing at their feet, is a small figure of their son. It was before this family group I waited longest: it pleased me by its completeness and its sincerity. Once more I should have had difficulty in identifying which figure was the father and which the mother, but the man wears a small beard. In all these statue groups there is this great resemblance between the sexes.

Were the sexes, then, really alike in Egypt? I do not know. Such a conception opens up biological considerations of the deepest significance. It is so difficult to be certain here. Is the great boundary line which divides the two halves of life, with the intimate woman's problems that depend upon it, to remain for ever fixed? In sex are we always to be faced with an irresolvable tangle of disharmonies? Again, I do not know. Yet, looking at these seated figures of the Egyptian husband and wife, I felt that the answer might be with them. Do they not seem to have solved that secret which we are so painful in our search of? The statues thus took on a kind of symbolic character, which eloquently spoke of a union of the woman and the man that in freedom had broken down the boundaries of sex, and, therefore, of life that was in harmony with love and joy. And the beautiful words of the Egyptian Song of the Harper came to my memory, and now I understood them—

"Make (thy) day glad! Let there be perfumes and sweet odours for thy nostrils, and let there be flowers and lilies for thy beloved sister (i.e. wife) who shall be seated by thy side. Let there be songs and music of the harp before thee, and setting behind thy back unpleasant things of every kind, remember only gladness, until the day cometh wherein thou must travel to the land which loveth silence."

II.—In Babylon

"The modern view of marriage recognises a relation that love has known from the outset. But this is a relation only possible between free self-governing persons."—Hobhouse.

If we turn now to the very ancient civilisation of Babylon we shall find women in a position of honour similar in many ways to what we have seen already in Egypt: there are ever indications that the earliest customs may have gone beyond those of the Egyptians in exalting women. The most archaic texts in the primitive language are remarkable for the precedence given to the female sex in all formulas of address: "Goddess" and gods, women and men, are mentioned always in that order, which is in itself a decisive indication of the high status of women in this early period.[241]

There are other traces all pointing to the conclusion that in the civilisation of primitive Babylon mother-right was still very much alive. It is significant that the first rulers of Sumer and Akkad—the oldest Babylonian cities—frequently made boast of their unknown parentage, which can only be explained by the assumption that descent through the father was not recognised. Thus Sargon,[242] one of the earlier rulers, says: "My mother was a princess, my father I know not ... my mother, the princess, conceived me, in a secret place she brought me forth." A little monument in the Hague museum has an inscription which has been translated thus: "Gudea patesi of Sirgulla dedicates thus to Gin-dung-nadda-addu, his wife." The wife's name is interpreted "maid of the god Nebo." It is thought that Gudea reigned in her right. The inscription goes on to say: "Mother I had not, my mother was the water deep. A father I had not, my father was the water deep." The passage is obscure, but it is explained if we regard this as one of the legends of miraculous birth so frequent in primitive societies under mother-descent.[243] Another relic of some interest is an ancient statue of a Babylonian woman, not a goddess or a queen, who is presented alone and not with her husband, as was common in Egypt; such a monument may suggest, as is pointed out by Simcox, that women at this period possessed wealth in their own right.

As in Egypt, the mother, the father, and the eldest son seem to have been the essential members of the family. We find that the compound substantive translated "family" means literally "children household." This is very interesting and may betoken a conception of marriage and the family like that of the Egyptians, in which the union of the wife and the husband is only fully established by the birth of children.[244] In the house the wife is "set in honour," "glad and gladdening like the mid-day sun." The sun-god Merodach is thus addressed: "Like a wife thou behavest thyself, cheerful and rejoicing." The sun-god himself is made to say, "May the wife whom thou lovest come before thee with joy." These examples, and also many others, such, for instance, as the phrase, "As a woman fashioned for a mother made beautiful," show that the Babylonians shared the Egyptian idealism in their conception of the wife and mother and her relation to the family. Many of the Summerian expressions throw beautiful light on the happiness of the domestic relationships. The union of the wife and husband is spoken of as "the undivided half," the idiogram for the mother signifies the elements "god" and "the house," she is "the enlarger of the family," the father is "one who is looked up to."

The information that has come down to us is not so full as our knowledge of the Egyptian family, or, at least, the facts which relate to women have not yet been so firmly established. We may, however, accept the statement of Havelock Ellis when he says that "in the earliest times a Babylonian woman enjoyed complete independence and equal rights with her brothers and husband."[245]

Later in Babylonian history—though still at an early period—women's rights were more circumscribed, and we find them in a position of some subordination. How the change arose is not clear, but it is probable that in Babylon civilisation followed the usual order of social development, and that with the rise of military activities, bringing the male force into prominence, women fell to a position of inferior power in the family and in the State.

That this was the condition of society in Babylon in the time of Hammurabi (i.e. probably between 2250 B.C. and 1950 B.C.) is proved by the marriage code of this ruler, which in certain of its regulations affords a marked contrast with the Egyptian marriage contracts, always so favourable to the wife. Marriage, instead of an agreement made between the wife and the husband, was now arranged between the parents of the woman and the bridegroom and without reference to her wishes. The terms of the marriage were a modified form of purchase, very similar to the exchange of gifts common among primitive peoples. It appears from the code that a sum of money or present was given by the bridegroom to the woman's father as well as to the bride herself, but this payment was not universal; and, on the other side of the account, the father made over to his daughter on her marriage a dowry, which remained her own property in so far that it was returned to her in the case of divorce or on the death of her husband, and that it passed to her children and, failing them, to her father.[246]

Polygamy, though permitted, was definitely restricted by the code. Thus a man might marry a second wife if "a sickness has seized" his first wife, but the first wife was not to be put away. This is the only case in which two equal wives are recognised by the code. But it was also possible—as the contracts prove—for a man to take one or more secondary wives or concubines, who were subordinate to the chief wife. In some cases this appears to have been done to enable the first wife to adopt the children of the concubine "as her children."[247]

It is worth while to note the exact conditions of divorce in the reference to women as given in the clauses of Hammurabi's code—

"137. If a man has set his face to put away his concubine, who has granted him children, to that woman he shall return his marriage portion, and shall give her the usufruct of field, garden, and goods, and shall bring up her children. From the time that her children are grown up, from whatever is given to her children, they shall give her a share like that of one son, and she shall marry the husband of her choice."

"138. If a man shall put away his bride, who has not borne him children, he shall give her money as much as her bride-price."

"139. If there was no bride-price he shall give her one mina of silver."

"140. If he is a poor man he shall give one third of a mina of silver."

So far the position of the wife is secured in the case of the infidelity of the husband. But if we turn to the other side, when it is the woman who is the unfaithful partner it is evident how strongly the patriarchal idea of woman as property has crept into the family relations. We find that a woman "who has set her face to go out and has acted the fool, has wasted her house or has belittled her husband," may either be divorced without compensation or retained in the house as the slave of a new wife.

I would ask you to contrast this treatment with the free right of separation granted to the Egyptian wife, whose position, as also that of her children, in all circumstances was secure, and to remember that this difference in the moral code for the two sexes is always present, in greater or lesser force, against woman wherever the property considerations of father-right have usurped the natural law of mother-right. Conventional morality has doubtless from the first been on the side of the supremacy of the male. To me it seems that this alone must discredit any society formed on the patriarchal basis.

The Babylonian wife was permitted to claim a divorce under certain conditions, namely, "if she had been economical and had no vice," and if she could prove that "her husband had gone out and greatly belittled her." But the proof of this carried with it grave danger to herself, for if on investigation it turned out that "she has been uneconomical or a gad-about, that woman one shall throw into the water." Probably such penalty was not really carried out, but even if the expression be taken figuratively its significance in the degradation of woman is hardly less great. The position of the wife as subject to her husband is clearly marked by the manner in which infidelity is treated. The law provides that both partners may be put to death for an act of unfaithfulness, but while the king may pardon "his servant" (the man), the wife has to receive pardon from "her owner" (i.e. the husband). The lordship of the husband is seen also in his power to dispose of his wife as well as his children for debt.[248] The period for debt slavery was, however, confined to the years of Hammurabi.[249]

From this time onwards we find the position of the wife continuously improving, and in the later Neo-Babylonian periods she again acquired equal rights with her husband. The marriage law was improved in the woman's favour. Contracts of marriage by purchase became very rare. It appears from the later contracts that a wife could protect herself from divorce or the taking of another wife by special penalties imposed on the husband by the conditions of the deed, thus giving her a position of security similar to that of the Egyptian wife.

In all social relations the Babylonian women had remarkable freedom. They could conduct business in their own right. Their power to dispose of property is proved by numerous contract tablets, and, at any rate in later periods, they were held to possess a full legal personality equal in all points with their husbands. In many contracts husband and wife are conjoined as debtors, creditors, and as together taking pledges. The wife, as in Egypt, is made a party to any action of the husband in which her dowry is involved. The wife could also act independently; women appear by themselves as creditors, and in some contracts we find a wife standing in that relation to her husband. In one case a woman acts as security for a man's debts to another woman. In a suit about a slave a woman, who was proved by witnesses to have made a wrongful claim, was compelled to pay a sum of money equivalent to the value of the slave. We find, too, a married woman joining with a man to sell a house. In another case, in which a mother and son had a sum of money owing to them, the debt was cancelled by giving a bill on the mother. The rich woman, by name Gugua, disposes her property among her children, but she reserves the right of taking it back into her own hands if she should so wish, and stipulates that it may not be mortgaged to any one without her consent.[250] There is another interesting deed[251] by which a father who, it is suggested, was a spendthrift, assigns the remnant of his property to his daughter under the stipulation "thou shalt measure to me, and as long as thou livest give me maintenance, food, ointment and clothing."

It would be easy to multiply such cases.[252] All these contract tablets have interest for us. The active participation of the Babylonian women in property transactions is the more instructive when we consider that in the development of commercial enterprise the Babylonians were in advance of all the rest of the world. One is tempted to suggest that the assistance of women may have brought an element into commerce beneficial to its growth. There is ample evidence to show the administrative and financial ability of women. This quality is noted by Lecky in the chapter on "Woman Questions" in his Democracy and Liberty. He says:

"How many fortunes wasted by negligence or extravagance have been restored by a long minority under female management?"

He notes, too, the financial ability of the French women.

"Where can we find in a large class a higher level of business habits and capacity than that which all competent observers have recognised in French women of the middle classes?"

The estimate of J.S. Mill on this question is too well known to call for quotation. We may recall also the superior ability in trade of the women of Burma. It is not necessary, however, to seek for proof of women's ability in finance. Against one woman who mismanages her income at least six men may be placed who mismanage theirs, not from any special extravagance, but from sheer male inability to adapt expenditure to income. A woman who has had any business training will discriminate better than a man between the essential and the non-essential in expenditure.

The civilisation of a people is necessarily determined to a large extent by the ideas of the relations of the sexes, and by the institutions and conventions that arise through such ideas. One of the most important and debatable of these questions is whether women are to be considered as citizens and independently responsible, or as beings differing in all their capacities from men, and, therefore, to be set in positions of at least material dependence to an individual man. It is the answer to this question we are seeking. The Babylonians decided for the civic equality of their women, and this decision must have affected all their actions from the larger matters of the State down to the smallest points of family conduct. The wisdom which, by giving a woman full control over her own property, recognised her right and responsibility to act for herself, was not, as we have seen, at once established. This recognition of the equality and fellowship between women and men as the finest working idea for the family relationship was only developed slowly through the long centuries of their civilisation.

III.—In Greece

"Of all things upon earth that breathe and grow
A herb most bruised is woman. We must pay
Our store of gold, hoarded for that one day
To buy us some man's love, and lo, they bring
A master of our flesh. There comes the sting
Of the whole shame, and then the jeopardy
For good or ill, what shall that master be?
Reject she cannot, and if she but stays
His suit, 'tis shame on all that woman's days.
So thrown amid new laws, new places, why,
'Tis magic she must have to prophesy.
Home never taught her that—how best to guide
Towards peace this thing that sleepeth at her side,
And she, who, labouring long, shall find some way
Whereby her lord may bear with her, nor fray
His yoke too fiercely, blessed is the breath
That woman draws! Else let her pray for death.
Her lord, if he be wearied of her face
Within doors, gets him forth; some merrier place
Will ease his heart; but she waits on, her whole
Vision enchained on a single soul.
And then, forsooth, 'tis they that face the call
Of war, while we sit sheltered, hid from all
Peril. False mocking. Sooner would I stand
Three times to face their battles, shield in hand,
Than bear our child."
—Euripides.

If we turn now from eastern civilisation to ancient Greece, the picture there presented to us is in many ways in sharp contrast to anything we have yet examined. The Greeks founded western civilisation, but their rapid advance in general culture was by no means accompanied by a corresponding improvement in the position of women. The fineness of their civilisation and their exquisite achievement in so many directions makes it the more necessary to remember this.

At one time there would seem to have been in prehistoric Greece a period of fully developed mother-rights, as is proved by numerous survivals of the older system so frequently met with in Greek literature and history. This was at an earlier stage of civilisation, before the establishment of the patriarchal system. There is little doubt, however, that the influence of mother-right remained as a tradition for long after the actual rights had been lost by women.[253] It will be remembered how great was the astonishment of the Greek travellers at the free position of the Egyptian women, in particular the apparent subjection of the husband to his wife. Now, such surprise is in itself sufficient to prove a different conception of the relation of the sexes. The patriarchal view whereby the woman is placed under the protection and authority of the man was already clearly established in the Hellenic belief. Yet, in spite of this fact, the position of the woman was striking and peculiar, and in some directions remarkably free, and thus offering many points of interest not less important in their significance to us than what we have seen already in Egypt and in Babylon.

In speaking of the Hellenic woman I can select only a few facts; to deal at all adequately with so large a subject in briefest outline is, indeed, impossible. I shall not even try to picture the marriage and family relationships, which offer in many and varied ways a wide and fascinating study; all that I can do is to point to some of the conditions and suggest the conclusions which seem to arise from them. Glancing first at the women of the Homeric[254] period we find them represented as holding a position of entire dependence, without rights or any direct control over property; under the rule of the father, and afterwards of the husband, and even in some cases humbly submissive to their sons. Telemachus thus rebukes his mother: "Go to thy chamber; attend to thy work; turn the spinning wheel; weave the linen; see that thy servants do their tasks. Speech belongs to men, and especially to me, who am the master here." And Penelope allows herself to be silenced and obeys, "bearing in mind the sage discourse of her son."[255] This is the fully developed patriarchal idea of the duties of the woman and her patient submission to the man.

Now, if we look only at the outside of such a case as this it would appear that the position of the Homeric woman was one of almost complete subjection. Whereas, as every one knows, the facts are far different. The protection of the woman was a condition made necessary in an unstable society of predominating military activity. Apart from this wardship, women very clearly were not in a subordinate position and, moreover, never regarded as property. The very reverse is the case. Nowhere in the whole range of literature are women held in deeper affection or receive greater honour. To take one instance, Andromache relates how her father's house has been destroyed with all who were in it, and then she says: "But now, Hector, thou art my father and gracious mother, thou art my brother, nay, thou art my valiant husband."[256] It is easy to see in this speech how the early ideas of relationships under mother-right had been transferred to the husband, as the protector of the woman, conditioned by father-right.

Again and again we meet with traces of the older customs of the mother-age. The influence of woman persists as a matter of habit; even the formal elevation of woman to positions of authority is not uncommon, with an accompanying freedom in action, which is wholly at variance with the patriarchal ideal. Thus it is common for the husband to consult his wife in all important concerns, though it was her special work to look after the affairs of the house. "There is nothing," says Homer, "better and nobler than when husband and wife, being of one mind, rule a household."[257] Penelope and Clytemnestra are left in charge of the realms of their husbands during their absence in Troy; the beautiful Chloris ruled as queen in Pylos.[258] Arete, the beloved wife of Alcinous, played an important part as peacemaker in the kingdom of her husband. It is to her NausicÄa brings Ulysses on his return, bidding him kneel to her mother if he would gain a welcome and succour from her father.[259]

We find the Homeric women moving freely among men. They might go where they liked, and do what they liked.[260] As girls they were educated with their brothers and friends, attending together the classes of the bards and dancing with them in the public dancing-places which every town possessed. Homer pictures the youths and the maidens pressing the vines together. They mingled together at marriage feasts and at religious festivals. Women took part with men in offering the sacrifices to the gods; they also went alone to the temples to present their offerings.[261] Nor did marriage restrict their freedom. Helen appears on the battlements of Troy, watching the conflict, accompanied only by her maidens.

This freedom insured to the Homeric women that vigour of body and beauty of person for which they are renowned. Health was the first condition of beauty. The Greeks wanted strong men, therefore the mothers must be strong, and this, as among all peoples who have understood the valuation of life more clearly than others, made necessary a high physical development of woman. Yet, I think, that an even more prominent reason was the need by the woman herself for the protection of the male, which made it her first duty to charm the man whom destiny brought to be her companion. This is a point that must not be overlooked. To me it is very significant that in all the records of the Egyptians, showing so clearly the love and honour in which woman was held, we find no insistence on, and, indeed, hardly a reference to, the physical beauty of woman. It is love itself that is exalted; a husband wishing to honour his lost wife says: "she was sweet as a palm tree in her love," he does not tell us if she were beautiful.[262] I cannot follow this question further. Yet it is clear that danger lurks for woman and her freedom, when to safeguard her independence, she has no other resources than the seduction of her beauty to gain and to hold the love she is able to inspire. Sex becomes a defensive weapon, and one she must use for self-protection, if she is to live. It seems clear to me that this economic use of sex is the real cancer at the very root of the sexual relationship. It is but a step further and a perfectly logical one, that leads to prostitution. At a later period of Hellenic civilisation we find Aristotle warning the young men of Athens against "the excess of conjugal tenderness and feminine tyranny which enchains a man to his wife."[263] Can any surprise be felt; does one not wonder rather at the blindness of man's understanding? That such warning against women should have been spoken in Egypt is incredible. Woman's position and liberty of action was in no way dependent on her power of sex-fascination, not even directly on her position as mother, and this really explains the happy working of their domestic relationships. Nature's supreme gifts of the sexual differences among them were freed from economic necessities, and woman as well as man was permitted to turn them to their true biological ends—the mutual joy of each other and the service of the race. For this is what I want to make clear; it is men who suffer in quite as great a degree as women, wherever the female has to use her sexual gifts to gain support and protection from the male. It is so plain—one thing makes the relations of the sexes free, that both partners shall themselves be free, knowing no bondage that is outside the love-passion itself. Then, and then only, can the woman and the man—the mother and father, really love in freedom and together carry out love's joys and its high and holy duties.

The conditions that meet us when we come to examine the position of women in historic Greece are explained in the light of this valuation of the sexual relationship. We are faced at once by a curious contrast; on one hand, we find in Sparta, under a male social organisation, the women of Æolian and Dorian race carrying on and developing the Homeric traditions of freedom, while the Athenian women, on the contrary, are condemned to an almost Oriental seclusion. How these conditions arose becomes clear, when we remember that the prominent idea regulating all the legislation of the Greeks was to maintain the permanence and purity of the State. In Sparta the first of these motives ruled. The conditions in which the State was placed made it necessary for the Spartans to be a race of soldiers, and to ensure this a race of vigorous mothers was essential. They had the wisdom to understand that their women could only effectively discharge the functions assigned to them by Nature by the free development of their bodies, and full cultivation of their mental faculties. Sappho, whose "lofty and subtle genius" places her as the one woman for whose achievement in poetry no apology on the grounds of her sex ever needs to be made, was of Æolian race. The Spartan woman was a huntress and an athlete and also a scholar, for her training was as much a care of the State as that of her brothers. Her education was deliberately planned to fit her to be a mother of men.

It was the sentiment of strict and zealous patriotism which inspired the marriage regulations that are attributed to Lycurgus. The obligation of marriage was legal, like military service.[264] All celibates were placed under the ban of society.[265] The young men were attracted to love by the privilege of watching (and it is also said assisting in) the gymnastic exercise of naked young girls, who from their earliest youth entered into contests with each other in wrestling and racing and in throwing the quoit and javelin.[266] The age of marriage was also fixed, special care being taken that the Spartan girls should not marry too soon; no sickly girl was permitted to marry.[267] In the supreme interest of the race love was regulated. The young couple were not allowed to meet except in secret until after a child was born.[268] Brothers might share a wife in common, and wife lending was practised. It was a praiseworthy act for an old man to give his wife to a strong man by whom she might have a child.[269] The State claimed a right over all children born; each child had to be examined soon after birth by a committee appointed, and only if healthy was it allowed to live.[270]

Such a system is no doubt open to objections, yet no other could have served as well the purpose of raising and maintaining a race of efficient warriors. The Spartans held their supremacy in Greece through sheer force and bravery and obedience to law; and the women had equal share with the men in this high position. Necessarily they were remarkable for vigour of character and the beauty of their bodies, for beauty rests ultimately on a biological basis.

Women took an active interest in all that concerned the State, and were allowed a freedom of action even in sexual conduct equal and, in some directions, greater than that of men. The law restricted women only in their function as mothers. Plato has criticised this as a marked defect of the Spartan system. Men were under strict regulation to the end of their days; they dined together on the fare determined by the State; no licence was permitted to them; almost their whole time was occupied in military service. No such regulations were made for women, they might live as they liked. One result was that many wives were better educated than their husbands. We find, too, that a great portion of land passed into the hands of women. Aristotle states that they possessed two-fifths of it. He deplores the Spartan system, and affirms that in his day the women were "incorrigible and luxurious"; he accuses them of ruling their husbands. "What difference," he says, "does it make whether the women rule or the rulers are ruled by women, for the result is the same?"[271] This gynÆcocracy was noticed by others. "You of LacedÆmon," said a strange lady to Gorgo, wife of Leonidas, "are the only women in the world that rule the men." "We," she answered, "are the only women who bring forth men."[272] Such were the Spartan women.

In Athens the position of women stands out in sharp contrast. Athens was the largest of the city-states of Greece, and, for its stability, it was ruled that no stranger might enter into the rights of its citizens. Restrictions of the most stringent nature and punishments the most terrible were employed to keep the citizenship pure. As is usual, the restrictions fell most heavily upon women. It would seem that the sexual virtue of the Athenian women was not trusted—it was natural to women to love. Doubtless there were many traces of the earlier sexual freedom under mother-right. Women must be kept in guard to ensure that no spurious offspring should be brought into the State. This explains the Athenian marriage code with its unusually strict subordination of the woman to her father first, and then to her husband. It explains also the unequal law of divorce. In early times the father might sell his daughters and barter his sisters. This was abolished by Solon, except in the case of unchastity. There could, however, be no legitimate marriage without the assignment of the bride by her guardian.[273] The father was even able to bequeath his unmarried daughters by will.[274] The part assigned by the Athenian law to the wife in relation to her husband was very similar to that of the married women under ancient Jewish law.

Women were secluded from all civic life and from all intellectual culture. There were no regular schools for girls in Athens, and no care was taken by the State, as in Sparta, for the young girls' physical well-being. The one quality required from them was chastity, and to ensure this women were kept even from the light of the sun, confined in special apartments in the upper part of the house. One husband, indeed, Ischomachus, recommends his wife to take active bodily exercise as an aid to her beauty; but she is to do this "not in the fresh air, for that would not be suitable for an Athenian matron, but in baking bread and looking after her linen."[275] So strictly was the seclusion of the wife adhered to that she was never permitted to show herself when her husband received guests. It was even regarded as evidence of the non-existence of a regular marriage if the wife had been in the habit of attending the feasts[276] given by the man whom she claimed as husband.

The deterioration of the Athenian citizen-women followed as the inevitable result. It is also impossible to avoid connecting the swift decline of the fine civilisation of Athens with this cause. Had the political power of her citizens been based on healthier social and domestic relationships, it might not have fallen down so rapidly into ruin. No civilisation can maintain itself that neglects the development of the mothers that give it birth.

As we should expect we find little evidence of affection between the Athenian husband and wife. The entire separation between their work and interests would necessarily preclude ideal love. Probably Sophocles presents the ordinary Greek view accurately, when he causes one of his characters to regret the loss of a brother or sister much more than that of a wife. "If a wife dies you can get another, but if a brother or sister dies, and the mother is dead, you can never get another. The one loss is easily reparable, the other is irreparable."[277] We could have no truer indication than this as to the degradation into which woman had fallen in the sexual relationship.

That once, indeed, it had been far otherwise with the Athenian women the ancient legends witness. Athens was the city of Pallas Athene, the goddess of strength and power, which in itself testifies to a time when women were held in honour. The Temple of the Goddess, high on the Acropolis, stood as a relic of matriarchal worship. Year by year the secluded women of Athens wove a robe for Athene. Yet, so complete had become their subjection and their withdrawal from the duties of citizens, that when in the Theatre of Dyonysus men actors personated the great traditional women of the Greek Heroic Age, no woman was permitted to be present.[278] What wonder, then, that the Athenian women rebelled against the wastage of their womanhood. That they did rebel we may be certain on the strength of the satirical statements of Aristophanes, and even more from the pathos of the words put here and there into the mouths of women by Euripides—

The debased position of the Athenian citizen woman becomes abundantly clear when we find that ideal love and free relationship between the sexes were possible only with the hetairÆ. Limitation of space forbids my giving any adequate details of these stranger-women, who were the beloved companions of the Athenian men. Prohibited from legal marriage by law, these women were in all other respects free; their relations with men, either temporary or permanent, were openly entered into and treated with respect. For the Greeks the hetaira was in no sense a prostitute. The name meant friend and companion. The women to whom the name was applied held an honourable and independent position, one, indeed, of much truer honour than that of the wife.

These facts may well give us pause. It was not the women who were the legal wives, safeguarded to ensure their chastity, restricted to their physical function of procreation, but the hetairÆ, says Donaldson, "who exhibited what was best and noblest in woman's nature." Xenophon's ideal wife was a good housekeeper—like her of the Proverbs. Thucydides in the famous funeral oration which he puts in the mouth of Pericles, exhorts the wives of the slain warriors, whose memory is being commemorated, "to shape their lives in accordance with their natures," and then adds with unconscious irony, "Great is the glory of that woman who is least talked of by men, either in the way of praise or blame." Such were the barren honours granted to the legal wife. The hetairÆ were the only educated women in Athens. It was only the free-companion who was a fit helpmate for Pericles, or capable of sustaining a conversation with Socrates. We know that Socrates visited Theodota[280] and the brilliant Diotima of Mantinea, of whom he speaks "as his teacher in love."[281] Thargalia, a Milesian stranger, gained a position of high political importance.[282] When Alcibiades had to flee for his life, it was a "companion" who went with him, and being present at his end performed the funeral rites over him.[283] Praxiteles carved a statue of Phryne in gold, and the work stood in a place of honour in the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Apelles painted a portrait of Lais, and, for his skill as an artist, Alexander rewarded him with the gift of his favourite concubine; Pindar wrote odes to the hetairÆ; Leontium, one of the order, sat at the feet of Epicurus to imbibe his philosophy.[284]

Among all these free women Aspasia of Miletus[285] stands forward as the most brilliant—the most remarkable. There is no doubt as to the intellectual distinction of the beloved companion of Pericles.[286] Her house became the resort of all the great men of Athens. Socrates, Phidias and Anaxagoras were all frequent visitors, and probably also Sophocles and Euripides. Plato, Xenophon and Æschines have all testified to the cultivated mind and influence of Aspasia. Æschines, in his dialogue entitled "Aspasia," puts into the mouth of that distinguished woman an incisive criticism of the mode of life traditional for her sex.[287]

The high status of the hetairÆ is proved conclusively from the fact that the men who visited Aspasia brought their wives with them to her assemblies, that they might learn from her.[288] This breaking through the accepted conventions is the more significant if we consider the circumstances. Here, indeed, is your contrast—the free companion expounding the dignity of womanhood to the imprisoned mothers! Aspasia points out to the citizen women that it is not sufficient for a wife to be merely a mother and a good housekeeper; she urges them to cultivate their minds so that they may be equal in mental dignity with the men who love them. Aspasia may thus be regarded, as Havelock Ellis suggests, as "a pioneer in the assertion of woman's rights." "She showed that spirit of revolt and aspiration" which tends to mark "the intellectual and artistic activity of those who are unclassed or dubiously classed in the social hierarchy."

It is even probable that the movement to raise the status of the Athenian women, which seems to have taken place in the fourth century B.C., was led by Aspasia, and perhaps other members of the hetairÆ. Ivo Bruns, whom Havelock Ellis quotes, believes that "the most certain information we possess concerning Aspasia bears a strong resemblance to the picture which Euripides and Aristophanes present to us of the leaders of the woman's movement."[289]It was this movement of awakening which throws light on the justice which Plato accords to women. He may well have had Aspasia in his thoughts. Contact with her cultivated mind may have brought him to see that "the gifts of nature are equally diffused in both sexes," and therefore "all the pursuits of man are the pursuits of woman also, and in all of these woman is only a weaker man." Plato did not believe that women were equally gifted with men, only that all their powers were in their nature the same, and demanded a similar expression. He insists much more on woman's duties and responsibilities than on her rights; more on what the State loses by her restriction within the home than on any loss entailed thereby to herself. Such a fine understanding of the need of the State for women as the real ground for woman's emancipation, is the fruitful seed in this often quoted passage. May it not have arisen in Plato's mind from the contrast he saw between Aspasia and the free companions of men and the restricted and ignorant wives? A vivid picture would surely come to him of the force lost by this wastage of the mothers of Athens; a force which should have been utilised for the well-being of the State.

Sexual penalties for women are always found under a strict patriarchal rÉgime. The white flower of chastity, when enforced upon one sex by the other sex, has its roots in the degradation of marriage. Men find a way of escape; women, bound in the coils, stay and waste. There is no escaping from the truth—wherever women are in subjection it is there that the idols of purity and chastity are set up for worship.The fact that Greek poets and philosophers speak so often of an ideal relationship between the wife and the husband proves how greatly the failure of the accepted marriage was understood and depreciated by the noblest of the Athenians. The bonds of the patriarchal system must always tend to break down as civilisation advances, and men come to think and to understand the real needs and dependence of the sexes upon each other. Aristotle says that marriage besides the propagation of the human race, has another aim, namely, "community of the entire life." He describes marriage as "a species of friendship," one, moreover, which "is most in accordance with Nature, as husband and wife mutually supply what is lacking in the other." Here is the ideal marriage, the relationship between one woman and the one man that to-day we are striving to attain. To gain it the wife must become the free companion of her husband.

It is Euripides who voices the sorrows of women. He also foreshadows their coming triumph.

"Back streams the waves of the ever running river,
Life, life is changed and the laws of it o'ertrod.
* * * * * * *
And woman, yea, woman shall be terrible in story;
The tales too meseemeth shall be other than of yore;
For a fear there is that cometh out of woman and a glory,
And the hard hating voices shall encompass her no more."[290]

IV.—In Rome

"The character of a people is only an eternal becoming.... They are born and are modified under the influence of innumerable causes."—Jean Finot.

Of the position of women in Rome in the pre-historic period we know almost nothing. We can accept that there was once a period of mother-rule.[291] Very little evidence, however, is forthcoming; still, what does exist points clearly to the view that woman's actions in the earliest times were entirely unfettered. Probably we may accept as near to reality the picture Virgil gives to us of Camilla fighting and dying on the field of battle.

In the ancient necropolis of Belmonte, dating from the iron age, Professor d'Allosso has recently discovered two very rich tombs of women warriors with war chariots over their remains. "The importance of this discovery is exceptional, as it shows that the existence of the Amazon heroines, leaders of armies, sung by the ancient poets, is not a poetic fiction, but an historic reality." Professor d'Allosso states that several details given by Virgil coincide with the details of these tombs.[292]

From the earliest notices we have of the Roman women we find them possessed of a definite character of remarkable strength. We often say this or that is a sign of some particular period or people; when nine times out of ten the thing we believe to be strange is in reality common to the progress of life. In Rome the position of woman would seem to have followed in orderly development that cyclic movement so beautifully defined by Havelock Ellis in the quotation I have placed at the beginning of the first section of this chapter.

The patriarchal rule was already strongly established when Roman history opens; it involved the same strict subordination of woman to the one function of child-bearing that we have found in the Athenian custom. The Roman marriage law developed from exactly the same beginning as did the Greek; the woman was the property of her father first and then of her husband. The marriage ceremony might be accomplished by one or two forms, but might also be made valid without any form at all. For in regard to a woman, as in regard to other property, possession or use continued for one year gave the right of ownership to the husband. This marriage without contract or ceremony was called usus.[293] The form confarreatio, or patrician marriage, was a solemn union performed by the high Pontiff of Jupiter in the presence of ten witnesses, in which the essential act was the eating together by both the bride and bridegroom of a cake made of flour, water and salt.[294] The religious ceremony was in no way essential to the marriage. The second and most common form, was called coemptio, or purchase, and was really a formal sale between the father or guardian of the bride and the future husband.[295] Both these forms transferred the woman from the potestas (power) of her father into the manus (hand) of her husband to whom she became as a daughter, having no rights except through him, and no duties except to him. The husband even held the right of life and death over the woman and her children. It depended on his will whether a baby girl were reared or cast out to die—and the latter alternative was no doubt often chosen. As is usual under such conditions, the right of divorce was allowed to the husband and forbidden to the wife. "If you catch your wife," was the law laid down by Cato the Censor, "in an act of infidelity, you would kill her with impunity without a trial; but if she were to catch you she would not venture to touch you with a finger, and, indeed, she has no right." It is true that divorce was not frequent.[296] Monogamy was strictly enforced. At no period of Roman history are there any traces of polygamy or concubinage.[297] But such strictness of the moral code seems to have been barren in its benefit to women. The terrible right of manus was vested in the husband and gave him complete power of correction over the wife. In grave cases the family tribunal had to be consulted. "Slaves and women," says Mommsen, "were not reckoned as being properly members of the community," and for this reason any criminal act committed by them was judged not openly by the State, but by the male members of the woman's family. The legal right of the husband to beat his wife was openly recognised. Thus Egnatius was praised when, surprising his wife in the act of tasting wine,[298] he beat her to death. And St. Monica consoles certain wives, whose faces bore the mark of marital brutality, by saying to them: "Take care to control your tongues.... It is the duty of servants to obey their masters ... you have made a contract of servitude."[299] Such was the marriage law in the early days of Rome's history.

Now it followed almost necessarily that under such arbitrary regulations of the sexual relationship some way of escape should be sought. We have seen how the Athenian husbands found relief from the restrictions of legal marriage with the free hetairÆ. But in Rome the development of the freedom of love, with the corresponding advancement of the position of woman, followed a different course. The stranger-woman never attained a prominent place in Roman society. It is the citizen-women alone who are conspicuous in history. Here, relief was gained for the Roman wives as well as for the husbands, by what we may call a clever escape from marriage under the right of the husband's manus. This is so important that I must ask the reader deeply to consider it. The ideal of equality and fellowship between women and men in marriage can be realised only among a people who are sufficiently civilised to understand the necessity for the development and modification of legal restrictions that have become outworn and useless. Wherever the laws relating to marriage and divorce are arbitrary and unchanging there woman, as the weaker partner, will be found to remain in servitude. It can never be through the strengthening of moral prohibitions, but only by their modification to suit the growing needs of society that freedom will come to women.

The history of the development of marriage in Rome illustrates this very forcibly. Even in the days of the Twelve Tables a wholly different and free union had begun to take the place of the legally recognised marriage forms. It was developed from the early marriage by usus. We have seen that this marriage depended on the cohabitation of the man and the woman continued for one year, which gave the right of ownership to the husband in exactly the same way as possession for a year gave the right over others' property. But in Rome, if the enjoyment of property was broken for any period during the year, no title to it arose out of the usufruct. This idea was cleverly applied to marriage by usus. The wife by passing three nights in the year out of the conjugal domicile broke the manus of the husband and did not become his property.

When, or how, it became a custom to convert this breach of cohabitation into a system and establish a form of marriage, which entirely freed the wife from the manus of the husband, we do not know. What is certain is that this new form of free marriage by consent rapidly replaced the older forms of the coemptio, and even the solemn confarreatio of the patricians.

It will be readily seen that this expansion of marriage produced a revolution in the position of woman. The bride now remained a member of her own family, and though nominally under the control of her father or guardian, she was for all purposes practically free, having complete control over her own property, and was, in fact, her own mistress.

The law of divorce evolved rapidly, and the changes were wholly in favour of women. Marriage was now a private contract, of which the basis was consent; and, being a contract, it could be dissolved for any reason, with no shame attached to the dissolution, provided it was carried out with the due legal form, in the presence of competent witnesses. Both parties had equal liberty of divorce, only with certain pecuniary disadvantages, connected with the forfeiting of the wife's dowry, for the husband whose fault led to the divorce.[300] It was expressly stated that the husband had no right to demand fidelity from his wife unless he practised the same himself. "Such a system," says Havelock Ellis, "is obviously more in harmony with modern civilised feeling than any system that has ever been set up in Christendom."[301]

Monogamy remained imperative. The husband was bound to support the wife adequately, to consult her interests and to avenge any insult inflicted upon her, and it is expressly stated by the jurist Gaius that the wife might bring an action for damages against her husband for ill-treatment.[302] The woman retained complete control of her dowry and personal property. A Roman jurist lays it down that it is a good thing that women should be dowered, as it is desirable they should replenish the State with children. Another instance of the constant solicitude of the Roman law to protect the wife is seen in the fact that even if a wife stole from her husband, no criminal action could be brought against her. All crimes against women were punished with a heavy hand much more severely than in modern times.

Women gained increasingly greater liberty until at last they obtained complete freedom. This fact is stated by Havelock Ellis, whose remarks on this point I will quote.

"Nothing is more certain than that the status of women in Rome rose with the rise of civilisation exactly in the same way as in Babylon and in Egypt. In the case of Rome, however, the growing refinement of civilisation and the expansion of the Empire were associated with the magnificent development of the system of Roman law, which in its final forms consecrated the position of women. In the last days of the Republic women already began to attain the same legal level as men, and later the great Antonine jurisconsults, guided by their theory of natural law, reached the conception of the equality of the sexes as the principle of the code of equity. The patriarchal subordination of women fell into complete discredit, and this continued until, in the days of Justinian, under the influence of Christianity the position of women began to suffer."[303]

Hobhouse gives the same estimate as to the high status of women.

"The Roman matron of the Empire," he says, "was more fully her own mistress than the married woman of any earlier civilisation, with the possible exception of a certain period of Egyptian history, and, it must be added, the wife of any later civilisation down to our own generation."[304]

It is necessary to note that this freedom of the Roman woman was prior to the introduction of Christianity, and that under its influence their position began to suffer.[305] I cannot follow this question, and can only say how entirely mistaken is the belief that the Jewish religion, with its barbaric view of the relationship between the sexes, was beneficial to the liberty of women.

The Roman matrons had now gained complete freedom in the domestic relationship, and were permitted a wide field for the exercise of their activities. They were the rulers of the household; they dined with their husbands, attended the public feasts, and were admitted to the aristocratic clubs, such as the Gerousia is supposed to have been. We find from inscriptions that women had the privilege of forming associations and of electing women presidents. One of these bore the title of Sodalitas PudicitiÆ ServandrÆ, or "Society for Promoting Purity of Life." At Lanuvium there was a society known as the "Senate of Women." There was an interesting and singular woman's society existing in Rome, with a meeting-place on the Quirinal, called Conventus Matronarum, or "Convention of Mothers of Families." This seems to have been a self-elected parliament of women for the purpose of settling questions of etiquette. It cannot be said that the accounts that we have of this assembly are at all edifying, but its existence shows the freedom permitted to women, and points to the important fact that they were accustomed to combine with one another to settle their own affairs. The Emperor Heliogabalus took this self-constituted Parliament in hand and gave it legal powers.[306]

The Roman women managed their own property; many women possessed great wealth: at times they lent money to their husbands, at more than shrewd interest. It appears to have been recognised that all women were competent in business affairs, and, therefore, the wife was in all cases permitted to assume complete charge of the children's property during their minority, and to enjoy the usufruct. We have instances in which this capacity for affairs is dwelt on, as when Agricola, the general in command in Britain, shows such confidence in his wife as a business woman that he makes her co-heir with his daughter and the Emperor Domitian. Women were allowed to plead for themselves in the courts of law. The satirists, like Juvenal, declare that there were hardly any cases in which a woman would not bring a suit.

There are many other examples which might be brought forward to show the public entry of women into the affairs of the State. There would seem to have been no limits set to their actions; and, moreover, they acted in their own right independently of men. On one occasion, when the women of the city rose in a body against an unfair taxation, they found a successful leader in Hortensia, the daughter of the famous orator Hortensus, who is said to have argued their case before the Triumvirs with all her father's eloquence. We find the wives of generals in camp with their husbands. The graffitti found at Pompeii give several instances of election addresses signed by women, recommending candidates to the notice of the electors. We find, too, in the municipal inscriptions that the women in different municipalities formed themselves into small societies with semi-political objects, such as the support of some candidate, the rewards that should be made to a local magistrate, or how best funds might be collected to raise monuments or statues.

It is specially interesting to find how fine a use many of the Roman women made of their wealth and opportunities. They frequently bestowed public buildings and porticoes on the communities among which they lived; they erected public baths and gymnasia, adorned temples, and put up statues. Their generosity took other forms. In Asia Minor we find several instances of women distributing large sums of money among each citizen within her own district. Women presided over the public games and over the great religious festivals. When formally appointed to this position, they paid the expenses incurred in these displays. In the provinces they sometimes held high municipal offices. Ira Flavia, an important Roman settlement in Northern Spain, for instance, was ruled by a Roman matron, Lupa by name.[307] The power of women was especially great in Asia Minor, where they received a most marked distinction, and were elected to the most important magistracies. Several women obtained the highest Priesthood of Asia, the greatest honour that could be paid to any one.[308]

There is one final point that has to be mentioned. We have seen how the liberty and power of the Roman women arose from, and may be said to have been dependent on, the substituting of a laxer form of marriage with complete equality and freedom of divorce. In other words it was the breaking down of the patriarchal system which placed women in a position of freedom equal in all respects with men. Now, it has been held by many that, owing to this freedom, the Roman women of the later period were given up to licence. There are always many people who are afraid of freedom, especially for women. But if our survey of these ancient and great civilisations of the past has taught us anything at all, it is this: the patriarchal subjection of women can never lead to progress. We must give up a timid adherence to past traditions. It is possible that the freeing of women's bonds may lead in some cases to the foolishness of licence. I do not know; but even this is better than the wastage of the mother-force in life. The child when first it tries to walk has many tumbles, yet we do not for this reason keep him in leading strings. We know he must learn to walk; how to do this he will find out by his many mistakes.

The opinion as to the licentiousness of the Roman woman rests mainly on the statements of two satirical writers, Juvenal and Tacitus. Great pains have been taken to refute the charges they make, and the old view is not now accepted. Dill,[309] who is quoted by Havelock Ellis, seems convinced that the movement of freedom for the Roman woman caused no deterioration of her character; "without being less virtuous or respected, she became far more accomplished and attractive; with fewer restraints, she had greater charm and influence, even in social affairs, and was more and more the equal of her husband."[310] Hobhouse and Donaldson[311] both support this opinion; the latter writer considers that "there was no degradation of morals in the Roman Empire." The licentiousness of pagan Rome was certainly not greater than the licentiousness of Christian Rome. Sir Henry Maine, in his valuable Ancient Law (whose chapter on this subject should be read by every woman), says, "The latest Roman law, so far as it is touched by the constitution of the Christian Emperors, bears some marks of reaction against the liberal doctrines of the great Antonine jurisconsults." This he attributes to the prevalent state of religious feeling that went to "fatal excesses" under the influence of its "passion for asceticism."

At the dissolution of the Roman Empire the enlightened Roman law remained as a precious legacy to Western civilisations. But, as Maine points out, its humane and civilising influence was injured by its fusion with the customs of the barbarians, and, in particular, by the Jewish marriage system. The legislature of Europe "absorbed much more of those laws concerning the position of women which belong peculiarly to an imperfect civilisation. The law relating to married women was for the most part read by the light, not of Roman, but of Christian Canon Law, which in no one particular departs so widely from the enlightened spirit of the Roman jurisprudence than in the view it takes of the relations of the sexes in marriage." This was in part inevitable, Sir Henry Maine continues, "since no society which preserves any tincture of Christian institutions is likely to restore to married women the personal liberty conferred on them by the middle Roman law."

It is not possible for me to follow this question further. One thing is incontrovertibly certain, that woman's position and her freedom can best be judged by the equity of the moral code in its bearing on the two sexes. Wherever a different standard of moral conduct is set up for women from men there is something fundamentally wrong in the family relationship needing revolutionising. The sexual passions of men and women must be regulated, first in the interests of the social body, and next in the interests of the individual. It is the institution of marriage that secures the first end, and the remedy of divorce that secures the second. It is the great question for each civilisation to decide the position of the sexes in relation to these two necessary institutions. In Rome an unusually enlightened public feeling decided for the equality of woman with man in the whole conduct of sexual morality. The legist Ulpian expresses this view when he writes—"It seems to be very unjust that a man demands chastity from his wife while he himself shows no example of it."[312] Such deep understanding of the unity of the sexes is assuredly the finest testimony to the high status of Roman women.

I have now reached the end of the inquiry set before us at the opening of this chapter. I am fully aware of the many omissions, probable misjudgments, and the inadequacy of this brief summary. We have covered a wide field. This was inevitable. I know that to understand really the position of woman in any country it is necessary to inquire into all the customs that have built up its civilisation, and to gain knowledge upon many points outside the special question of the sexual relationships. This I have not been able even to attempt to do. I have thrown out a few hints in passing—that is all. But the practical value of what we have found seems to me not inconsiderable. I have tried to avoid any forcing of the facts to fit in with a narrow and artificial view of my own opinions. To me the truth is plain. As we have examined the often-confused mass of evidence, as it throws light on the position of woman in these four great civilisations of antiquity, we find that, in spite of the apparent differences which separate their customs and habits in the sexual relationships, the evidence, when disentangled, all points in one and the same direction. In the face of the facts before us one truth cries out its message: "Woman must be free face to face with man." Has it not, indeed, become clear that a great part of the wisdom of the Egyptians and the wisdom of the Babylonians, as also of the Romans, and, in a different degree, of the Greeks, rested in this, they thought much of the mothers of the race. Do not the records of these old-world civilisations show us the dominant position of the mother in relation to the life of the race? In all great ages of humanity this has been accepted as a central and sacred fact. We learn thus, as we look backwards to those countries and those times when woman was free, by what laws, habits and customs the sons of mothers may live long and gladly in all regions of the earth. The use of history is not alone to sum up the varied experiences of the past, but to enlarge our vision of the present, and by reflections on that past to point a way to the future.


FOOTNOTES:

[199] This is the position taken up, for instance, by Letourneau, Evolution of Marriage, p. 176.

[200] Herodotus, Bk. II. p. 35.

[201] Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. I. p. 189.

[202] Maspero, Preface to Queens of Egypt, by J.R. Buttles, q. v.

[203] For an account of the reign of Hatschepsut, as well as of the other queens who ruled in Egypt, I must refer the reader to the excellent and careful work of Miss Buttles. It is worth noting that the temple built by Queen Hatschepsut is one of the most famous and beautiful monuments of ancient Egypt. On the walls are recorded the history of her prosperous reign, also the private events of her life: "Ra hath selected her for protecting Egypt and for rousing bravery among men."

[204] We owe our knowledge of the Egyptian marriage contracts chiefly to M. Revillout, whose works should be consulted. See also Paturet (the pupil of Revillout), La Condition juridique de la femme dans l'ancienne Égypte; Nietzold, Die Ehe in Aegypten; Greenfel, Greek Papyri; AmÉlineau, La Morale Égyptienne; MÜller, Liebespoesie der alten Aegypten, and the numerous works of M. Maspero and Flinders Petrie. Simcox, writing on "Ownership in Egypt," gives a good summary of the subject, Primitive Civilisations, Vol. I. pp. 204-211; also Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. I. p. 182, et seq.

[205] Hobhouse regards this dowry as being the original property of the wife in the forms of the bride-price. Revillout and MÜller accept the much more probable view, that the dowry was fictitious, and was really a charge on the property of the husband to be paid to the wife if he sent her away.

[206] Paturet, La Condition juridique de la femme dans l'ancienne Égypte; p. 69.

[207] Nietzold, Die Ehe in Aegypten, p. 79.

[208] Études Égyptologiques, livre XIII. pp. 230, 294; quoted by Simcox, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 210.

[209] Simcox, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 204.

[210] Simcox, op. cit.; Vol. I. pp. 210-211, citing Revillout; Cours de droit, p. 285.

[211] This is the view of Simcox, op. cit., pp. 210-211.

[212] Hobhouse, Vol. I. p. 185 (Note).

[213] Les obligations en droit Égyptien, p. 82; quoted by Simcox, op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 209-210.

[214] Diodorus, bk. i. p. 27. The whole passage is: "Contrary to the received usage of other nations the laws permit the Egyptians to marry their sisters, after the example of Osiris and Isis. The latter, in fact, having cohabited with her brother Osiris, swore, after his death, never to suffer the approach of any man, pursued the murderer, governed according to the laws, and loaded men with benefits. All this explains why the queen receives more power and respect than the king, and why, among private individuals, the woman rules over the man, and that it is stipulated between married couples by the terms of the dowry-contract that the man shall obey the woman." The brother-sister marriages, referred to by Diodorus, which were common, especially in early Egyptian history, are further witness to the persistence among them of the customs of the mother-age.

[215] Simcox, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 205.

[216] Revue Égyptologique, I. p. 110.

[217] Revillout, Cours de droit, Vol. I. p. 222.

[218] Psychology of Sex, Vol. VI. p. 393.

[219] AmÉlineau, La morale Égyptienne, p. 194.

[220] Ellis, citing Donaldson, Woman, p. 196. This is also the opinion of MÜller.

[221] Revillout, Revue Égyptologique, Vol. I. p. 113.

[222] Simcox, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 207.

[223] Donaldson, Woman, pp. 244-245, citing Nietzold, p. 79.

[224] Letourneau (Evolution of Marriage, p. 176) takes this view.

[225] This is, of course, a survival of the old matriarchal custom.

[226] Hobhouse, op. cit., Vol. L. pp. 5-186. Herodotus (Bk. II. p. 42) states that many Egyptians, like the Greeks, had adopted monogamy.

[227] Burgsch, Hist., Vol. I. p. 262, quoted by Simcox.

[228] Simcox, Vol. I. p. 198-199. I take this opportunity of acknowledging the help I have received from this writer's careful and interesting chapter on "Domestic Relationships and Family Law" among the Egyptians.

[229] Maspero, Hist. (German tr.), p. 41; see Simcox, op. cit., p. 199.

[230] This tablet is in the British Museum, London. S. Egyptian Gallery, Bay 29, No. 1027.

[231] Simcox, Vol. I. pp. 218, 219.

[232] Petah Hotep was a high official in the reign of Assa, a king of the IVth Dynasty, about 3360 B.C. His precepts consist of aphorisms of high moral worth; there is a late copy in the British Museum. I have followed the translation given in the Guide to the Egyptian Collection p. 77.

[233] This passage in other translations reads: "she is a field profitable to its owner."

[234] The Maxims of Ani are preserved in the Egyptian Museum at Cairo. The work inculcates the highest standard of practical morality and gives a lofty ideal of the duty of the Egyptians in all the relations of life.

[235] From the Boulak Papyrus (1500 B.C.). I have followed in part the translation given by Griffiths, The World's Literature, p. 5340, and in part that of Maspero given in Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria (trans. by Alice Morton, p. 16).

[236] Southern Egyptian Gallery, Bay 28, No. 964. This statue belongs to later Egyptian history. It was dedicated by Shashanq, a high official of the Ptolemaic period.

[237] Wall case 102, Nos. 187, 38, and 430.

[238] Vestibule of North Egyptian Gallery, East doorway, No. 14.

[239] South Gallery, No. 565.

[240] No. 375. This group belongs to the XVIIIth Dynasty: the husband was a warden of the palace and overseer of the Treasury; the wife a priestess of the god Amen.

[241] Simcox, Primitive Civilisation, Vol. I. pp. 9, 271.

[242] Hommel, Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens, p. 271.

[243] Simcox, who quotes Hommel, op. cit., p. 320.

[244] Simcox, Vol. I. p 361.

[245] Psychology of Sex, Vol. VI. p. 393. Ellis quotes Revillout, "La femme dans l'antiquitÉ," Journal Asiatique, 1906, Vol. VII. p. 57.

[246] I quote these facts from Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. I. p. 179.

[247] Hobhouse, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 181.

[248] Hobhouse, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 180.

[249] There is one case as late as the thirteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar in which a wife is bought for a slave for one and a half gold minas.

[250] Simcox, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 374, citing Les Obligations, p. 346; also Revue d'Assyriologie.

[251] This deed was translated by Dr. Peiser, Keilinschriftliche AktenstÜcke aus babylonischen StÄdte, p. 19.

[252] See Simcox, Chapters, "Commercial Law and Contract Tablets" and "Domestic Relations and Family Law," op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 320-379.

[253] To give a few examples, Plutarch mentions that the relations between husband and wife in Sparta were at first secret (Plutarch, Lycurgas). The story told by Pausanias about Ulysses' marriage points to the custom of the husband going to live with his wife's family (Pausanias, III. 20 (10), Frazer's translation). The legend of the establishment of monogamy by Cecrops, because, before his time, "men had their wives in common and did not know their fathers," points clearly to a confused tradition of a period of mother-descent. (AthenÆus, XIII. 2). Herodotus reports that mother-descent was practised by the Lycians, and states that "if a free woman marry a man who is a slave their children are free citizens; but if a free man marry a foreign woman or cohabit with a concubine, even though he be the first person in the state, the children forfeit all rights of citizenship" (Herodotus, Bk. I. 173). The wife of Intaphernes, when granted by Darius permission to claim the life of a single man of her kindred, chose her brother, saying that both husband and brother and children could be replaced (Herodotus, Bk. III. 119). Similarly the declaration of Antigone in Sophocles (line 905 ff) that neither for husband nor children would she have performed the toil she undertook for Polynices clearly shows that the tie of the common womb was held as closer than the tie of marriage.

[254] For a full account of the Homeric woman the reader is referred to Lenz, Geschichte des Weiber im Heroischen Zeitalter, an admirable work. The fullest English account will be found in Mr. Gladstone's Homeric Studies, Vol. II. See also Donaldson, Woman, pp. 11-23, where an excellent summary of the subject is given.

[255] Odyssey, I. 2.

[256] Iliad, VI. 429-430.

[257] Odyssey, VI. 182.

[258] Gladstone, Homeric Studies, Vol. II. p. 507.

[259] Odyssey, VII. 142 ff.

[260] Donaldson, Woman, p. 18-19.

[261] Odyssey, III. 450; Iliad, VI. 301.

[262] Simcox, Primitive Civilisation, Vol. I. p. 199. Reference may also be made to the love-charm translated by M. Revillout in his version of the Tales of Selna, p. 37.

[263] 2 Nic. Ethics, VIII. 14; Econom. I. p. 94.

[264] Letourneau, Evolution of Marriage, p. 195.

[265] Lycurgus, XXXVII.

[266] Ibid., XXVI.

[267] Donaldson, Woman, pp. 28-29.

[268] Plutarch, Apophthegms of the Lacedemonians.—Demandes Romaines, LXV.

[269] Lycurgus, Polybius, XII. 6. Xenophon, Rep. Laced. I. Aristotle, Pol. II. 9. Aristotle notes especially the sexual liberty allowed to women.

[270] Donaldson, op. cit., p. 28.

[271] Polit. II. 9.

[272] Plutarch, Life of Agis; Donaldson, Woman, pp. 34, 35.

[273] Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. I. p. 208.

[274] Thus Demosthenes bequeathed his two daughters, aged seven and five years, and also their mother, to his nephews, classing them with his property in the significant phrase "all these things" (Letourneau, op. cit., p. 196).

[275] Xenophon, Economicus, VII.-IX.

[276] IsÆus de Pyrrhi Her., § 14.

[277] Antig. 905-13. These verses are probably interpolated, but the interpolation was as early as Aristotle. The same views are placed by Herodotus in the mouth of the wife of Intarphernes (3. 119). See Donaldson, Woman, pp. 53, 54 and note.

[278] "The Position of Women in History"; Essay in the volume The Position of Woman, Actual and Ideal, p. 37.

[279] Medea.

[280] Theodota, Xen. 'Mem.', III. II. Socrates conversed with Theodota on art and discussed with her how she could best find true friends.

[281] Symposium.

[282] Pericles, 24. Thargalia used her influence over the Greeks to win them over to the cause of the King of Persia.

[283] Timandra, Plut., Alcib., c. 39.

[284] Geoffrey Mortimer (W.M. Gallichan), Chapters on Human Love, p. 152.

[285] We do not know the circumstances which induced Aspasia to come to Athens. Plutarch suggests that she was led to do so by the example of Thargalia. For full accounts of the career of Aspasia see Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, Vol. III.; Ivo Bruns, Frauenemancipation in Athen; the fine monograph, Aspasie de Milet, by Becq FouquiÈres; Donaldson's Woman, pp. 60-67; also Ellis, Psychology of Sex, Vol. VI. p. 308.

[286] Pericles at the time of his meeting Aspasia was married, but there was incompatibility of temper between him and his wife. He therefore made an agreement with his wife to have a divorce and get her remarried. Aspasia then became his companion and they remained together until the death of Pericles. Their affection for one another was considered remarkable. Plutarch tells us, as an extraordinary trait in the habits of a statesman who was remarkable for his imperturbability and control, that Pericles regularly kissed Aspasia when he went out and came in. When Pericles died Aspasia is said to have formed a friendship with Lysicles, and through her influence raised him to the position of foremost politician in Athens (Donaldson, op. cit., pp. 60, 61 and 63).

[287] Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, Vol. III. p. 124.

[288] Psychology of Sex, Vol. VI. p. 308; Donaldson, op. cit., p. 62.

[289] Frauenemancipation in Athen, p. 19.

[290] Medea, Mr. Gilbert Murray's translation.

[291] Frazer thinks that the Roman kingship was transmitted in the female line; the king being a man of another town or race, who had married the daughter of his predecessor and received the crown through her. This hypothesis explains the obscure features of the traditional history of the Latin kings; their miraculous birth, and the fact that many of the kings from their names appear to have been of plebeian and not patrician families. The legends of the birth of Servius Tullius which tradition imputes to a look, or that Coeculus the founder of Proneste was conceived by a spark that leaped into his mother's bosom, as well as the rape of the Sabines, may be mentioned as traces pointing to mother-descent (Golden Bough, Pt. I. The Magic Art, Vol. II. pp. 270, 289, 312).

[292] Quoted from Position of Woman, Actual and Ideal; Essay on "The Position of Woman in History," p. 38.

[293] Letourneau, Evolution of Marriage, pp. 120, 201. The usus was similar to the Polynesian marriage, and was the consecration of the free union after a year of cohabitation. By it the wife passed as completely under the manum mariti as if she had eaten of the sacred cake.

[294] Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. I. p. 210. The eating of the cake would seem to the ancient mind to have been connected with magic, and was regarded as actually effacious in establishing a unity of the man and the woman.

[295] Coemption became in time purely symbolic. The bride was delivered to the husband, who as a formality gave a few pieces of silver as payment; but the ceremony proves how completely the woman was regarded as the property of the father.

[296] Romulus, says Plutarch, gave the husband power to divorce his wife in case of her poisoning his children, or counterfeiting his keys, or committing adultery (Romulus, XXXVI.). Valerius Maximus affirms that divorce was unknown for 520 years after the foundation of Rome.

[297] Hobhouse, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 211 (note). He states, "The concubinate we hear of in Roman Law is a form of union bereft of some of the civil rights of marriage, not the relation of a married man to a secondary wife or slave-girl."

[298] Donaldson, op. cit., p. 88. He remarks in a note, "The story may not be historical, but the Romans regarded it as such." Wives were prohibited from tasting wine at the risk of the severest penalties.

[299] St. Augustine, Confessions, Bk. IX. Ch. IX.

[300] Letourneau, Evolution of Marriage, pp. 244, 245. In the ancient law, when the crime of the woman led to divorce she lost all her dowry. Later, only a sixth was kept back for adultery, and an eighth for other crimes. In the last stages of the law the guilty husband lost the whole dowry, while if the wife divorced without a cause, the husband retained a sixth of the dowry for each child, but only up to three-sixths.

[301] Psychology of Sex, Vol. VI. p. 396.

[302] Hecker, History of Women's Rights, p. 12.

[303] Ellis, op. cit., p. 395.

[304] Hobhouse, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 213.

[305] Maine, Ancient Law, Ch. V.

[306] McCabe, The Religion of Women, p. 26 et seq.

[307] Santiago (MediÆval Towns Series), p. 21.

[308] Donaldson, Woman, pp. 124-125.

[309] Roman Society, p. 163.

[310] Morals in Evolution, Vol. I. p. 216.

[311] Woman, p. 113.

[312] Digest, XLVIII. 13, 5.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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