FOOTNOTES:

“The first state in all cases was that ofhetaïrism. The rule is based upon the right of procreation: since there is no individual fatherhood,all have only one father—the tyrant whose sons and daughters they all are, and to whom all the property belongs. From this condition in which the man rules by means of his rude sexual needs, we rise to that of gynæcocracy, in which there is the dawn of marriage, of which the strict observance is at first observed by the woman, not by the man. Weary of always ministering to the lusts of man,the woman raises herself by the recognition of her motherhood. Just as a child is first disciplined by its mother, so are people by their women. It is only the wife who can control the man’s essentially unbridled desires, and lead him into the paths of well-doing....While man went abroad on distant forays, the womanstayed at home, and was undisputed mistress of the household.She took arms against her foe, and was gradually transformed into an Amazon.”[18]

The italics in the passage are mine, for they bear directly on what I shall afterwards have to prove: (1) that mother-right was not the first stage in the history of the human family; (2) that its existence is not inconsistent with the patriarchal theory. Bachofen here suggests a pre-matriarchal period in which the elementary family-group was founded on and held together by a common subjection to the oldest and strongest male. This is the primordial patriarchal family.

Then come the questions: Can we accept mother-right? Are there any reasonable causes to explain the rise of female dominance? Westermarck, in criticising the matriarchal theory, has said: “The inference that ‘kinship through females only’ has everywhere preceded the rise of ‘kinship through males,’ would be warranted only on condition that the cause, or the causes, to which the maternal system is owing, could be proved to have operated universally in the past life of mankind.”[19]Now, this is what I believe I am able to do. Hence it has been necessary first to clear the way of the old errors. Bachofen’s interpretation is too fanciful to find acceptance. Will any one hold it as true that the change came becausewomen willed it? Surely it is a pure dream of the imagination tocredit women, at this supposed early stage of society, with rising up to establish marriage, in a revolt of purity against sexual licence, and moreover effecting the change by force of arms! Bachofen would seem to have been touched with the Puritan spirit. I am convinced also that he understood very little of the nature of woman. Conventional morality has always acted on the side of the man, not the woman. The clue is, indeed, given in the woman’s closer connection with the home, and in the idea that “she raises herself by the recognition of her motherhood.” But the facts are capable of an entirely different interpretation. It will be my aim to give a quite simple, and even commonplace, explanation of the rise of mother-descent and mother-right in place of the spiritual hypothesis of Bachofen.

It will be well, however, to examine further Bachofen’s own theory. It is his opinion that the first Amazonian revolt and period of women’s rule was followed by a second movement—

“Woman took arms against her foe [i. e.man], and was gradually transformed into an Amazon.As a rival to the man the Amazon became hostile to him, and began to withdraw from marriage and from motherhood. This set limits to the rule of women, and provoked the punishment of heaven and men.”[20]

There is a splendid imaginative appeal in this remarkable passage. Again the italics are mine.It is, of course, impossible to accept this statement, as Bachofen does, as an historical account of what happened through the agency of women at the time of which he is treating. Yet, we can find a suggestion of truth that is eternal. Is there not here a kind of prophetic foretelling of every struggle towards readjustment in the relationships of the two sexes, through all the periods of civilisation, from the beginning until now? You will see what I mean. The essential fact for woman—and also for man—is the sense of community with the race. Neither sex can keep a position apart from parenthood. Just in so far as the mother and the father attain to consciousness and responsibility in their relations to the race do they reach development and power. Bachofen, as a poet, understood this; to me, at least, it is the something real that underlies all the delusion of his work. But I diverge a little in making these comments.

Again the origin of the change from the first period of matriarchy is sought by Bachofen in religion.

“Each stage of development was marked by its peculiar religious ideas, produced by the dissatisfaction with which the dominating idea of the previous stage was regarded; a dissatisfaction which led to a disappearance of this condition.” “What was gained by religion, fostering the cause of women, by assigning a mystical and almost divine character to motherhood was now lost through the same cause. The loss came in the Greek era. Dionysus started the idea of the divinity of fatherhood; holding the father to bethe child’s true parent, and the mother merely the nurse.” In this way, we are asked to believe, the rights of men arose, the father came to be the chief parent, the head of the mother and the owner of the children, and, therefore, the parent through whom kinship was traced. We learn that, at first, “women opposed this new gospel of fatherhood, and fresh Amazonian risings were the common feature of their opposition.” But the resistance was fruitless. “Jason put an end to the rule of the Amazons in Lemnos. Dionysus and Bellerophon strove together passionately, yet without gaining a decisive victory, until Apollo, with calm superiority, finally became the conqueror, and the father gained the power that before had belonged to the mother.”[21]

But before this took place, Bachofen relates yet another movement, which for a time restored the early matriarchate. The women, at first opposing, presently became converts to the Dionysusian gospel, and were afterwards its warmest supporters. Motherhood became degraded. Bacchanalian excesses followed, which led to a return to the ancienthetaïrism. Bachofen believes that this formed a fresh basis for a second gynæcocracy. He compares the Amazonian period of these later days with that in which marriage was first introduced, and finds that “the deep religious impulse being absent, it was destined to fail, and give place to the spiritual Apollonic conception of fatherhood.”[22]

In Bachofen’s opinion this triumph of fatherhood was the final salvation. This is what he says—

“It was the assertion of fatherhood which delivered the mind from natural appearances, and when this was successfully achieved, human existence was raised above the laws of natural life. The principal of motherhood is common to all the spheres of animal life, but man goes beyond this tie in gaining pre-eminence in the process of procreation, and thus becomes conscious of his higher vocation. In the paternal and spiritual principle he breaks through the bonds of tellurism, and looks upwards to the higher regions of the cosmos. Victorious fatherhood thus becomes as distinctly connected with the heavenly light as prolific motherhood is with the teeming earth.”[23]

Here, Bachofen, as is his custom, turns to point an analogy with the process of nature.

“All the stages of sexual life from Aphrodistichetaïrismto the Apollonistic purity of fatherhood, have their corresponding type in the stages of natural life, from the wild vegetation of the morass, the prototype of conjugal motherhood, to the harmonic law of the Uranian world, to the heavenly light which, as theflamma non urens, corresponds to the eternal youth of fatherhood. The connection is so completely in accordance with law, that the form taken by the sexual relation in any period may be inferred from the predominance of one or other of these universal ideas in the worship of a people.”[24]

Such, in outline, is Bachofen’s famous matriarchal theory. The passages I have quoted, withthe comments I have ventured to give, make plain the poetic exaggeration of his view, and sufficiently prove why his theory no longer gains any considerable support. To build up a dream-picture of mother-rule on such foundations was, of necessity, to let it perish in the dust of scepticism. But is the downthrow complete? I believe not. A new structure has to be built up on a new and surer foundation, and it may yet appear that the prophetic vision of the dreamer enabled Bachofen to see much that has escaped the sight of those who have criticised and rejected his assumption that power was once in the hands of women.

One great source of confusion has arisen through the acceptance by the supporters of the matriarchate of the view that men and women lived originally in a state of promiscuity. This is the opinion of Bachofen, of McLennan, of Morgan, and also of many other authorities, who have believed maternal descent to be dependent on the uncertainty of fatherhood. It will be remembered that Mr. McLennan brought forward his theory almost simultaneously with that of Bachofen. The basis of his view is a belief in an ancient communism in women. He holds that the earliest form of human societies was the group or horde, and not the family. He affirms that these groups can have had no idea of kinship, and that the men would hold their women, like their other goods, in common, which is, of course, equal to a general promiscuity. There he agrees with Bachofen’s belief in unbridledhetaïrism, but a very different explanation is given of the change which led to regulation, and the establishment of the maternal family.

According to Mr. McLennan, the primitive group or horde, though originally without explicit consciousness of relationships, were yet held together by afeelingof kin. Such feeling would become conscious first between the mother and her children, and, in this way, mother-kin must have been realised at a very early period. Mr. McLennan then shows the stages by which the savage would gradually, by reflection, reach a knowledge of the other relationships through the mother, sister and brother relationships, mother’s brother and mother’s sister, and all the degrees of mother-kin, at a time before the father’s relation to his children had been established. The children, though belonging at first to the group, would remain attached to the mothers, and the blood-tie established between them would, as promiscuity gave place to more regulated sexual relationships, become developed into a system. All inheritance would pass through women only, and, in this way, mother-right would tend to be more or less strongly developed. The mother would live alone with her children, the only permanent male members of the family being the sons, who would be subordinate to her. The husband would visit the wife, as is the custom under polyandry, which form of the sexual relationship Mr. McLennan believes was developed from promiscuity—a first step towards individual marriage.Even after the next step was taken, and the husband came to live with his wife, his position was that of a visitor in her home, where she would have the protection of her own kindred. She would still be the owner of her children, who would bear her name, and not the father’s; and the inheritance of all property would still be in the female line.[25]

We have here what appears to be a much more reasonable explanation of mother-kin and mother-right than that of Bachofen. Yet many have argued powerfully against it. Westermarck especially, has shown that belief in an early stage of promiscuous relationship is altogether untenable.[26]It is needless here to enter into proof of this.[27]What matters now is that with the giving up of promiscuity the whole structure of McLennan’s theory falls to pieces. He takes it for granted that at one period paternity was unrecognised; but this is very far from being true. The idea of the father’s relationship to the child is certainly known among the peoples who trace descent through the mother; the system is found frequently where strict monogamy is practised. Again, Mr. McLennan connects polyandry with mother-descent, regarding the custom of plurality of husbands as a development from promiscuity. Here, too, he has been proved to be in error. Whatever the causes of the origin ofpolyandry, it has no direct connection with mother-kin, although it is sometimes practised by peoples who observe that system.

For myself, I incline to the opinion that the system by which inheritance passes through the mother needs no explanation. It was necessarily (and, as I believe, is still) thenaturalmethod of tracing descent. Moreover, it was adopted as a matter of course by primitive peoples among whom property considerations had not arisen. Afterwards what had started as a habit was retained as a system. The reasons for naming children after the mother did not rest on relationship, the earliest question was not one of kinship, but of association. Those were counted as related to one another who dwelt together.[28]The children lived with the mother, and therefore, as a matter of course, were called after her, and not the father, who did not live in the same home.

All these questions will be understood better as we proceed with our inquiry. The important thing to fix in our minds is that mother-kin and mother-right (contrary to the opinion of McLennan and others) may very well have arisen quite independently of dubious fatherhood. It thus becomes evident that the maternal system offers no evidence for the hypothesis of promiscuity; we shall find, in point of fact, that it arose out of the regulation of the sexual relations, and had no connectionwith licence. It is necessary to understand this clearly.

Bachofen is much nearer to what is likely to have happened in the first stage of the family than Mr. McLennan, though he also mistakenly connects the maternal system with unregulatedhetaïrism. Still he suggests (though it would seem quite unconsciously) the patriarchal hypothesis, which founds the family first on the brute-force of the male. Mother-right has been discredited chiefly, as far as I have been able to find, because it is impossible to accept, at this early period, sexual conditions of the friendly ownership of women, entirely opposed to what was the probable nature of brute man. At this stage the eldest male in the family would be the ruler, and he would claim sexual rights over all the women in the group. Bachofen postulates a revolt of women to establish marriage. We have seen that such a supposition, in the form in which he puts it, is without any credible foundation. Yet, it is part of my theory that there was a revolt of women, or rather a combination of the mothers of the group, which led to a change in the direction of sexual regulation and order. But the causes of such revolt, and the way in which it was accomplished, were, in my opinion, entirely different from those which Bachofen supposes. The arguments in support of my view will be given in the next two chapters.

FOOTNOTES:[6]Das Mutterrechtwas published in Stuttgart in 1861.[7]Primitive Marriage, published 1865.Studies in Ancient History, which includes a reprint ofPrimitive Marriage; 1st ed. 1876, 2nd ed. 1886.The Patriarchal Theory, a criticism of this theory is based on the papers of Mr. McLennan and edited by his brother.[8]Prof. Giraud-Teulon’sLa Mère chez certains Peuples de l’Antiquitéis founded on the introduction toDas Mutterrecht. This little book of fascinating reading is the best and easiest way of studying Bachofen’s theory.[9]Das Mutterrecht, Intro., p. xiii.[10]Das Mutterrecht, Intro., p. vii.[11]Ibid., Intro., p. xv.[12]Das Mutterrecht, Intro., p. xxiv. and p. 10.[13]Ibid., Intro., p. xiv.[14]Ibid., Intro., p. xv.[15]Das Mutterrecht, p. 18.[16]I have taken much of this passage from Mr. McLennan’s criticism of Bachofen’s theory,Studies in Ancient History, pp. 319-325.[17]Das Mutterrecht, Intro., pp. vii.-viii.[18]Das Mutterrecht, pp. 18-19.[19]The History of Human Marriage, p. 105.[20]Das Mutterrecht, p. 85.[21]Das Mutterrecht, pp. 73, 85. Compare also McLennan,Studies, p. 322, and Starcke,The Primitive Family in its Origin and Development.[22]Ibid., p. 85.[23]Das Mutterrecht, Intro., p. xxvii.[24]Ibid., Intro., p. xxix.[25]Studies in Ancient History, pp. 83,et seq.[26]History of Human Marriage, pp. 51-133. It is on this question that my own opinion has been changed, compareThe Truth about Woman, p. 120.[27]See next chapter on thePatriarchal Theory.[28]Starcke,The Primitive Family in its Origin and Development, pp. 36, 37.

[6]Das Mutterrechtwas published in Stuttgart in 1861.

[7]Primitive Marriage, published 1865.Studies in Ancient History, which includes a reprint ofPrimitive Marriage; 1st ed. 1876, 2nd ed. 1886.The Patriarchal Theory, a criticism of this theory is based on the papers of Mr. McLennan and edited by his brother.

[8]Prof. Giraud-Teulon’sLa Mère chez certains Peuples de l’Antiquitéis founded on the introduction toDas Mutterrecht. This little book of fascinating reading is the best and easiest way of studying Bachofen’s theory.

[9]Das Mutterrecht, Intro., p. xiii.

[10]Das Mutterrecht, Intro., p. vii.

[11]Ibid., Intro., p. xv.

[12]Das Mutterrecht, Intro., p. xxiv. and p. 10.

[13]Ibid., Intro., p. xiv.

[14]Ibid., Intro., p. xv.

[15]Das Mutterrecht, p. 18.

[16]I have taken much of this passage from Mr. McLennan’s criticism of Bachofen’s theory,Studies in Ancient History, pp. 319-325.

[17]Das Mutterrecht, Intro., pp. vii.-viii.

[18]Das Mutterrecht, pp. 18-19.

[19]The History of Human Marriage, p. 105.

[20]Das Mutterrecht, p. 85.

[21]Das Mutterrecht, pp. 73, 85. Compare also McLennan,Studies, p. 322, and Starcke,The Primitive Family in its Origin and Development.

[22]Ibid., p. 85.

[23]Das Mutterrecht, Intro., p. xxvii.

[24]Ibid., Intro., p. xxix.

[25]Studies in Ancient History, pp. 83,et seq.

[26]History of Human Marriage, pp. 51-133. It is on this question that my own opinion has been changed, compareThe Truth about Woman, p. 120.

[27]See next chapter on thePatriarchal Theory.

[28]Starcke,The Primitive Family in its Origin and Development, pp. 36, 37.

Thefoundation of the Patriarchal theory is the jealous sexual nature of the male. This is important; indeed profoundly significant. The strongest argument against promiscuity is to be gained from what we know of this factor of jealousy in the sexual relationships.

“The season of love is the season of battle,” says Darwin. Such was the law passed on to man from millions of his ancestral lovers. The action of this law[29]may be observed at its fiercest intensity among man’s pre-human ancestors. Courtship without combat is rare among all male quadrupeds, and special offensive and defensive weapons for use in these love-fights are found; for this is the sex-tragedy of the natural world, the love-tale red-written in blood.

This factor of sexual jealousy—the conflict of the male for possession of the female—has not beenheld in sufficient account by those who regard promiscuity as being the earliest stage in the sexual relationships. That jealousy is still a powerful agent even in the most civilised races is a fact on which it is unnecessary to dwell. This being so, and since the action of jealousy is so strong in the animal kingdom, it cannot be supposed to have been dormant among primitive men. Rather, in the infancy of his history this passion must have acted with very great intensity. Thus it becomes impossible to accept any theory of the community of women in the earliest stage of the family. For inevitably such peaceful association would be broken up by jealous battles among the males, in which the strongest member would kill or drive away his rivals.

Great stress is laid, by the supporters of promiscuity, on the danger that such conflicts must have been to the growing community. It is, therefore, held that in order to prevent this check on their development, it was necessary for the male members not to give way to jealousy, but to be content with promiscuous ownership of women. But this is surely to credit savage man with a control of the driving jealous instinct that he could not then have had? What we do not find in the sexual conduct of men, as they now are, cannot be credited as existing in the infancy of social life. We fall into many mistakes in judging these questions of sex; we under-estimate the strength of love-passion—the uncounted ancestral forces dating back to the remotebeginnings of life. Doubtless conflicts over the possession of women were frequent from the beginning of man’s history. But these disputes would not lead to promiscuous intercourse, only to a change in the tyrant male, who ruled over the women in the group.

Another fact against a belief in promiscuity is that the lowest savages known to us are not promiscuous, in so far as there is no proved case of the sexual relations being absolutely unregulated. They all recognise sets of women with whom certain sets of men can have no marital relations. Again these savages are very far removed from the state of man’s first emergence from the brute, as is proved by their combination into large and friendly tribes. Such peaceful aggregation could only have arisen at a much later period, and after the males had learnt by some means to control their brute appetites and jealousy of rivals in that movement towards companionship, which, first resting in the sexual needs, broadens out into the social instincts.

For these reasons, then, we conclude that the theory of a friendly union having existed among males in the primitive group is the very reverse of the truth. This question has now been sufficiently proved. I am thus brought into agreement with Dr. Westermarck, Mr. Crawley, and Mr. Lang, in his examination of Mr. Atkinson’sPrimal Law, as well as with other writers, all of whom have shown that promiscuity cannot be accepted as a stage in the early life of the human family.

I have now to show how far this rejection of promiscuity affects our position with regard to mother-descent and mother-right. It is clearly of vital importance to any theory that its foundations are secure. One foundation—that of promiscuity, on which Bachofen and McLennan, the two upholders of matriarchy, base their hypothesis—has been overthrown. It thus becomes necessary to approach the question from an altogether different position. Mother-right must be explained without any reference to unregulated sexual conduct. I am thus turned back to examine the opposing theory to matriarchy, which founds the family on the patriarchal authority of the father. Nor is this all. What we must expect a true theory to do is to show conditions that are applicable not only to special cases, but in their main features to mankind in general. I have to prove that such conditions arose in the primitive patriarchal family as it advanced towards social aggregation, that would not only make possible, but, as I believe, would necessitate the power of the mothers asserting its force in the group-family. Only when this is done can I hope that a new belief in mother-right may find acceptance.

The patriarchal theory stated in its simplest form is this: Primeval man lived in small family groups, composed of an adult male, and of his wife, or, if he were powerful, several wives, whom he jealously guarded from the sexual advances of all other males. In such a group the father is the chief or patriarch as long as he lives, and the familyis held together by their common subjection to him. As for the children, the daughters as soon as they grow up are added to his wives, while the sons are driven out from the home at the time they reach an age to be dangerous as sexual rivals to their father. The important thing to note is thatin each group there would be only one adult polygamous male, with many women of different ages and young children. I shall return to this later. Such is the marked difference in the position of the two sexes—the solitary jealously unsocial father and the united mothers. I can but wonder how its significance has escaped the attention of the many inquirers, who have sought the truth in this matter. Probably the explanation is to be found in this: they have been interested mainly in one side of the family—the male side; I am interested in the other side—in the women members of the group. The position of women has seemed of primary importance to very few. Bachofen is almost alone in placing this question first, and his mystical far-fetched hypothesis has failed to find acceptance.

Let me now, in order to make the position clearer, continue a rough grouping of the supposed conditions in this primordial family, with all its members in subjection to the common father. It may be argued that we can know nothing at all about the family and the position of the two sexes at this brute period. This is true. The conditions are, of course, conjectural, and any suggested conclusions to be drawn from them must be still more so. Yet some hypothesismust be risked as a starting-point for any theory that attempts to go so far back in the stream of time.

We may suppose, then, that mankind aboriginally lived in small families in much the same way as the great monkeys: we see the same conditions, for instance, among the families of gorillas, where the group never becomes large. The male leader will not endure the rivalry of the young males, and as soon as they grow up a contest takes place, and the strongest and eldest male, by killing or driving out the others, maintains his position as the tyrant head of the family.[30]

This may be taken as a picture of the human brute-family. It is clear that the relation of the father to the other group members was not one of kinship, but of power. “Every female in my crowd is my property,” says—or feels—Mr. Atkinson’s patriarchal anthropoid, “and the patriarch gives expression to his sentiment with teeth and claws, if he has not yet learned to double up his fist with a stone in it. These were early days.”[31]

We may conclude that there would be many of these groups, each with a male head, his wives and adult daughters, and children of both sexes. It is probable that they lived a nomadic life, finding a temporary home in a cave, rock, or tree-shelter, in some place where the supply of food was plentiful.The area of their wanderings would be fixed by the existence of other groups; for such groups would almost certainly be mutually hostile to each other, watchfully resenting any intrusion on their own feeding ground. A further, and more powerful, cause of hostility would arise from the sexual antagonism of the males. Around each group would be the band of exiled sons, haunting their former hearth-homes, and forming a constant element of danger to the solitary paternal tyrant. This I take to be important as we shall presently see. For, the most urgent necessity of these young men, after the need for food, must have been to obtain wives. This could be done only by capturing women from one or other of the groups. The difficulties attending such captures must have been great. It is, therefore, probable the young men at first kept together, sharing their wives in polyandrous union. But this condition would not continue, the group thus formed would inevitably break up at the adult stage under the influence of jealousy; the captured wives would be fought for and carried off by the strongest males to form fresh groups.

In this matter I have given the opinion of Mr. Atkinson and Mr. Lang. They hold that no permanent peaceful union could have been maintained among the groups of young men and their captive wives. Mr. Atkinson gives the reason—

“Their unity could only endure as long as the youthfulness of the members necessitated union for protection, and their immaturity prevented thefull play of sexual passion.” And again: “The necessary Primal Law which alone could determine peace within a family circle by recognising adistinction between female and male(the indispensable antecedent to a definition of marital rights) could never have arisen in such a body. It follows if such a law was ever evoked, it must have been fromwithin the only other assembly in existence, viz. that headed by the solitary polygamous patriarch.”[32]

Whether Mr. Atkinson is right I shall not attempt to say; the point is one on which I hesitate a decided opinion; but as this view affords support to my own theory I shall accept it.

Now, to consider the bearing of this on our present inquiry. So far I have followed very closely the family group gathered around the patriarchal tyrant, under the conditions given by Mr. Atkinson and Mr. Lang, inSocial Origins and Primal Law. It will not, I think, have escaped the notice of the reader that very little has been said about the women and their children. There is no hint at all that thewomen must have lived a life of their own, different in its conditions from that of the men. The female members, it would seem, have been taken for granted and not considered, except in so far as their presence is necessary to excite the jealous sexual combats of the males. This seems to be very instructive. The idea of the subjection of all females to the solitary male has been accepted without question. But the group consisted ofmany women and only one adult man. Yet in spite of this, the man is held to be the essential member; all the family obey him. His wife (or wives) and his daughters, though necessary to his pleasure as also to continue the group, are regarded as otherwise unimportant, in fact, mere property possessions to him. Now, I am very sure the rights these group-women must have held have been greatly underrated, and the neglect to recognise this has led, I think, to many mistakes. I am willing to accept the authority of the polygamous patriarch—within limits. But it seems probable, as I shall shortly indicate, that a predominant influence in the domestic life is to be ascribed to the women, and, therefore, “the movement towards peace within the group circle” must be looked for as a result from the feminine side of the family, rather than from the male side. There is still another point: I maintain that precisely through the concentration of the male ruler on the sexual subjection of his females, conditions must have arisen, affecting the conduct and character of the women: conditions, moreover, that would bringthem inevitably more and more into a position of power.

It remains for me to suggest what I believe these conditions to have been. Meanwhile let us keep one fact steadily before our minds. The fierce sexual jealousy of the males had by some means to be controlled. It is evident that the way towards social progress could be found only by the peaceful aggregation of these solitary hostile groups; and this could not be done without breaking down the rule that strength and seniority in the male conferred upon him marital right over all the females. In other words, the tyrant patriarch had in some way to learn to tolerate the presence of other adult males on friendly terms within his own group. We have to find how this first, but momentous, step in social progress was taken.

Let us concentrate now our attention on the domestic life of the women. And first we must examine more carefully the exact conditions that we may suppose to have existed in these hostile groups. The father is the tyrant of the band—an egoist. Any protection he affords the family is in his own interests, he is chief much more than father. His sons he drives away as soon as they are old enough to give him any trouble; his daughters he adds to his harem. We may conceive that the domination of his sexual jealousy must have chiefly occupied his time and his attention. It is probable that he was fed by his women; at least it seems certain that he cannot have provided food for them and forall the children of the group. Sex must have been uninterruptedly interesting to him. In the first place he had to capture his wife, or wives, then he had to fight for the right of sole possession. Afterwards he had to guard his women, especially his daughters, from being carried off, in their turn, by younger males, his deadly rivals, who, exiled by sexual jealousy from his own and the other similar hearth-homes, would come, with each returning year, more and more to be feared. An ever-recurring and growing terror would dog each step of the solitary paternal despot, and necessitate an unceasing watchfulness against danger, and even an anticipation of death. For when old age, or sickness decreased his power of holding his own, then the tables would be turned, and the younger men, so hardly oppressed, would raise their hands against him in parricidal strife.

You will see what all this strife suggests—the unstable and adventitious relation of the man to the social hearth-group. Such conditions of antagonism of each male against every other male must favour the assumption that no advance in peace—on which alone all future progress depended—could have come from the patriarchs. Jealousy forced them into unsocial conduct.

But advance by peace to progress was by some means to be made. I believe that the way was opened up by women.

I hasten to add, however, in case I am mistaken here, that I am very far from wishing to set up anyclaim of superiority for savage woman over savage man. The momentous change was not, indeed, the result of any higher spiritual quality in the female, nor was it a religious movement, as is the beautiful dream of Bachofen. I do not think we can credit “a movement” as having taken place at all, rather the change arose gradually, inevitably, and quite simply. To postulate a conscious movement towards progress organised by women is surely absurd. Human nature does not start on any new line of conduct voluntarily, rather it is forced into it in connection with the conditions of life. Just as savage man was driven into unsocial conduct, so, as I shall try to show, savage woman was led by the same conditions acting in an opposite direction, into social conduct.

My own thought was drawn first to this conclusion by noting the behaviour of a band of female turkeys with their young. It was a year ago. I was staying in a Sussex village, and near by my home was the meadow of a farm in which families of young turkeys were being reared. Here I often sat; and one day it chanced that I was readingSocial Origins and Primal Law. I had reached the chapter on “Man in the Brutal Stage,” in which Mr. Atkinson gives the supposed facts of brute man, and the action of his jealousy in the family group. I was very much impressed; my reason told me that what the author stated so well was probably right. Such sexually jealous conduct on the part of savage man was likely to be true; it was much easier to accept this than thestate of promiscuous intercourse, with its friendly communism in women, in which I had hitherto believed. I really was very much disturbed. For I was still unshaken in my belief in mother-right. How were the two theories to be reconciled?

Often it is a small thing that points to the way for which one is seeking. All at once my little boy, who had been playing in the field, called out, “Oh, look at the Gobble-gobble,”—the name by which he called the male-turkey. The cock, his great tail spread, his throat swelling, was swaggering across the field, making an immense amount of noisy disturbance. A group of females and young birds, many of them almost full grown, were near to where we were sitting; they had been rooting about in the ground getting their food. Their fear at the approach of the strutting male was manifest. All the band gathered together, with the young in the centre, led and flanked by the mothers. As the male continued to advance upon them they retreated further and further, and finally took harbour in a barn. Here the swaggerer tried to follow them, but the rear females turned and faced him and drove him off.

I had found the clue that I was seeking. All I had been reading now had a clear meaning for me. In my delight, I laughed aloud. I saw the egoism of the solitary male; I knew the meaning of the females’ retreat; they were guarding the young from the feared attacks of the father. I realised how the male’s unsocial conduct towardshis offspring had forced the females to unite with one another. The cock’s strength, the gorgeous display of sex-charms, were powerless before this peaceful combination. He was alone, a tyrant—the destroyer of the family. But I saw, too, that his polygamous jealousy served as a means to the end of advance in progress. It was the male’s non-social conduct that had forced social conduct upon the females. And I understood that the patriarchal tyrant was just the one thing I had been looking for. My belief in mother-power had gained a new and, as I felt then in the first delight of that discovery, and as I still feel, a much surer, because a simpler and more natural foundation.

Having now defined my position, and having related how such conviction came to me, let me proceed to examine the causes that would lead to the assertion of women’s power, in the aboriginal family group. From what has been said, the following conditions acting on the women, may, it is submitted, be fairly deduced.

1. In the group, which comprised the mothers, the adult daughters, and the young of both sexes, the women would live on terms of association as friendly hearth-mates.2. The strongest factor in this association would arise from the dependence of the children upon their mothers; a dependence that was of much longer duration than among the animals, on account of the pre-eminent helplessnessof the human child, which entailed a more prolonged infancy.3. The women and their children would form the group, to which the father was attached by his sexual needs, but remained always a member apart—a kind of jealous fighting specialisation.4. The temporary hearth-home would be the shelter of the women; and it was under this shelter that children were born and the group accumulated its members. Whether cave, or hollow tree, or some frail shelter, the home must have belonged to the women.5. And this state would necessarily attach the mothers to the home, much more closely than the father, whose desire lay in the opposite direction of disrupting the home. Moreover this attachment always would be present and acting on the female children, who, unless captured, would remain with the mothers, while it could never arise in the case of the sons, whose fate was to be driven from the home. Such conditions must, as time went on, have profoundly modified the women’s outlook, bending their desires to a steady, settled life, conditions under which alone the germ of social organisation could develop.6. Again, the daily search for the daily food must have been undertaken chiefly by the women. For it is impossible that one man, howeverskilful a hunter, could have fed all the female members and children of the group. We may conceive that his attention and his time must have been occupied largely in fighting his rivals; while much of his strength, as sole progenitor, must have been expended in sex. It is therefore probable that frequently the patriarch was dependent on the food activities of his women.7. The mothers, their inventive faculties quickened by the stress of child-bearing and child-rearing, would learn to convert to their own uses the most available portion of their environment. It would be under the attention of the women that plants were first utilised for food. Seeds would be beaten out, roots and tubers dug for, and nuts and fruits gathered in their season and stored for use. Birds would have to be snared, shell-fish and fish would be caught; while, at a later period, animals would be tamed for service. Primitive domestic vessels to hold and to carry water, baskets to store the food supplies would have to be made. Clothes for protection against the cold would come to be fashioned. All the faculties of the women, in exercises that would lead to the development of every part of their bodies, would be called into play by the work of satisfying the physical needs of the group.8. This interest and providence for the familywould certainly have its effect on the development of the women. The formation of character is largely a matter of attention, and the attention of the mothers being fixed on the supply of the necessary food, doubtless often difficult to obtain, their energies would be driven into productive activities, much more than in the case of the father, whose attention was fixed upon himself.9. In all these numerous activities the women of each group would work together. And through this co-operation must have resulted the assertion of the women’s power, as the directors and organisers of industrial occupations. As the group slowly advanced in progress, such power increasing would raise the women’s position; the mothers would establish themselves permanently as of essential value in the family, not only as the givers of life, but as the chief providers of the food essential to the preservation of the life of its members.10. And a further result would follow in the treatment by the male of this new order. The women by obtaining and preparing food would gain an economic value. Wives would become to the patriarch a source of riches, indispensable to him, not only on account of his sex needs, but on account of the more persistent need of food. Thus the more women he possessed the greater would behis own comfort, and the physical prosperity of the group. The women would become of ever greater importance, and the economic power that they thus acquired would more and more favourably influence their position.11. There is one other matter in this connection. The greater number of women in the group the stronger would become their power of combination. I attach great importance to this. Working together for the welfare of all, the social motive would grow stronger in women, so that necessarily they would come to consider the collective interests of the group. Can it be credited that such conditions could have acted upon the patriarch, whose conduct would still be inspired by individual appetite and selfish inclinations? I maintain such a view to be impossible.12. Another advantage, I think, would arise for women out of the male’s jealous tyranny in the sexual relationship. Such an idea may appear strange, if we think only of the subjection of the females to the brute-appetite of the patriarch. Yet there is another side. The women must have gained freedom by being less occupied with sex passions, and also from being less jealously interested in the man than he was in them. It may be urged that the women would be jealous of each other. I do not think this could have been. Jealousy has its roots in the consciousnessof possession, and is only aroused through fear of loss. This could not have acted with any great power among the women in the patriarchal group. Their interest of possession in sex must have been less acute in consciousness than the interest of the male. Doubtless the woman would be attracted by the male’s courageous action in fighting his rivals for possession of her, but when the rival was the woman’s son such attraction would come into strong conflict with the deeper maternal instinct.13. From the standpoint of physical strength, the patriarch was the master, the tyrant ruler of the group, who, doubtless, often was brutal enough. But the women, leading an independent life to some extent, and with their mental ingenuity developed by the conditions of their life, would learn, I believe, to outwit their master by passive united resistance. They would come to utilise their sex charms as an accessory of success. Thus the unceasing sexual preoccupation of the male, with the emotional dependence it entailed on the females, must, I would suggest, have given women an immense advantage. If I am right here, the patriarch would be in the power of his women, much more surely than they would be in his power.14. Again, an antagonism must have arisen between the despot father and his women, in particularwith his daughters, forced to submit to his brute-passions. I confess I find grave difficulty in reconciling the view that the group-daughters would willingly become the wives of their father. I cannot conceive them without some power to exercise that choice in love, which is the right of the female throughout nature. There is great insistence by Mr. Atkinson, and all who have written on the subject, on the sexual passions of the males, while the desires of the women are not considered at all. Apparently they are held to have had none! This affords yet another instance of the strange concentration on the male side of the family. It is taken for granted, for instance, that in every case the young men, when driven from their home, had to capture their wives from other groups. I would suggest that often the capture was aided by the woman herself; she may even have escaped from the hearth-home in her desire to find a partner, preferring the rule of a young tyrant to an old one, who moreover was her father. I believe, too, that the wives and mothers must frequently have asserted their will in rebellion. I picture, indeed, these savage women ever striving for more privileges, and step by step advancing through peaceful combination to power.15. I desire also to maintain that all I have here suggested finds support from what is knownof the position of women among primitive peoples; and I may add also, from the character of women to-day.

1. In the group, which comprised the mothers, the adult daughters, and the young of both sexes, the women would live on terms of association as friendly hearth-mates.

2. The strongest factor in this association would arise from the dependence of the children upon their mothers; a dependence that was of much longer duration than among the animals, on account of the pre-eminent helplessnessof the human child, which entailed a more prolonged infancy.

3. The women and their children would form the group, to which the father was attached by his sexual needs, but remained always a member apart—a kind of jealous fighting specialisation.

4. The temporary hearth-home would be the shelter of the women; and it was under this shelter that children were born and the group accumulated its members. Whether cave, or hollow tree, or some frail shelter, the home must have belonged to the women.

5. And this state would necessarily attach the mothers to the home, much more closely than the father, whose desire lay in the opposite direction of disrupting the home. Moreover this attachment always would be present and acting on the female children, who, unless captured, would remain with the mothers, while it could never arise in the case of the sons, whose fate was to be driven from the home. Such conditions must, as time went on, have profoundly modified the women’s outlook, bending their desires to a steady, settled life, conditions under which alone the germ of social organisation could develop.

6. Again, the daily search for the daily food must have been undertaken chiefly by the women. For it is impossible that one man, howeverskilful a hunter, could have fed all the female members and children of the group. We may conceive that his attention and his time must have been occupied largely in fighting his rivals; while much of his strength, as sole progenitor, must have been expended in sex. It is therefore probable that frequently the patriarch was dependent on the food activities of his women.

7. The mothers, their inventive faculties quickened by the stress of child-bearing and child-rearing, would learn to convert to their own uses the most available portion of their environment. It would be under the attention of the women that plants were first utilised for food. Seeds would be beaten out, roots and tubers dug for, and nuts and fruits gathered in their season and stored for use. Birds would have to be snared, shell-fish and fish would be caught; while, at a later period, animals would be tamed for service. Primitive domestic vessels to hold and to carry water, baskets to store the food supplies would have to be made. Clothes for protection against the cold would come to be fashioned. All the faculties of the women, in exercises that would lead to the development of every part of their bodies, would be called into play by the work of satisfying the physical needs of the group.

8. This interest and providence for the familywould certainly have its effect on the development of the women. The formation of character is largely a matter of attention, and the attention of the mothers being fixed on the supply of the necessary food, doubtless often difficult to obtain, their energies would be driven into productive activities, much more than in the case of the father, whose attention was fixed upon himself.

9. In all these numerous activities the women of each group would work together. And through this co-operation must have resulted the assertion of the women’s power, as the directors and organisers of industrial occupations. As the group slowly advanced in progress, such power increasing would raise the women’s position; the mothers would establish themselves permanently as of essential value in the family, not only as the givers of life, but as the chief providers of the food essential to the preservation of the life of its members.

10. And a further result would follow in the treatment by the male of this new order. The women by obtaining and preparing food would gain an economic value. Wives would become to the patriarch a source of riches, indispensable to him, not only on account of his sex needs, but on account of the more persistent need of food. Thus the more women he possessed the greater would behis own comfort, and the physical prosperity of the group. The women would become of ever greater importance, and the economic power that they thus acquired would more and more favourably influence their position.

11. There is one other matter in this connection. The greater number of women in the group the stronger would become their power of combination. I attach great importance to this. Working together for the welfare of all, the social motive would grow stronger in women, so that necessarily they would come to consider the collective interests of the group. Can it be credited that such conditions could have acted upon the patriarch, whose conduct would still be inspired by individual appetite and selfish inclinations? I maintain such a view to be impossible.

12. Another advantage, I think, would arise for women out of the male’s jealous tyranny in the sexual relationship. Such an idea may appear strange, if we think only of the subjection of the females to the brute-appetite of the patriarch. Yet there is another side. The women must have gained freedom by being less occupied with sex passions, and also from being less jealously interested in the man than he was in them. It may be urged that the women would be jealous of each other. I do not think this could have been. Jealousy has its roots in the consciousnessof possession, and is only aroused through fear of loss. This could not have acted with any great power among the women in the patriarchal group. Their interest of possession in sex must have been less acute in consciousness than the interest of the male. Doubtless the woman would be attracted by the male’s courageous action in fighting his rivals for possession of her, but when the rival was the woman’s son such attraction would come into strong conflict with the deeper maternal instinct.

13. From the standpoint of physical strength, the patriarch was the master, the tyrant ruler of the group, who, doubtless, often was brutal enough. But the women, leading an independent life to some extent, and with their mental ingenuity developed by the conditions of their life, would learn, I believe, to outwit their master by passive united resistance. They would come to utilise their sex charms as an accessory of success. Thus the unceasing sexual preoccupation of the male, with the emotional dependence it entailed on the females, must, I would suggest, have given women an immense advantage. If I am right here, the patriarch would be in the power of his women, much more surely than they would be in his power.

14. Again, an antagonism must have arisen between the despot father and his women, in particularwith his daughters, forced to submit to his brute-passions. I confess I find grave difficulty in reconciling the view that the group-daughters would willingly become the wives of their father. I cannot conceive them without some power to exercise that choice in love, which is the right of the female throughout nature. There is great insistence by Mr. Atkinson, and all who have written on the subject, on the sexual passions of the males, while the desires of the women are not considered at all. Apparently they are held to have had none! This affords yet another instance of the strange concentration on the male side of the family. It is taken for granted, for instance, that in every case the young men, when driven from their home, had to capture their wives from other groups. I would suggest that often the capture was aided by the woman herself; she may even have escaped from the hearth-home in her desire to find a partner, preferring the rule of a young tyrant to an old one, who moreover was her father. I believe, too, that the wives and mothers must frequently have asserted their will in rebellion. I picture, indeed, these savage women ever striving for more privileges, and step by step advancing through peaceful combination to power.

15. I desire also to maintain that all I have here suggested finds support from what is knownof the position of women among primitive peoples; and I may add also, from the character of women to-day.

Now I have summarised briefly what seem to me the probable conditions of the women’s daily life in these earliest groups. I have attempted to show how the sexual jealousy, which acted for the destruction of the mutually hostile male members, would necessitate for the women conditions in many ways favourable; conditions of union in which lay the beginnings of peace and order. What we have to fix in our thoughts is the significant fact of the sociability of the women’s lives in contrast with the solitude of the jealous sire, watchfully resenting the intrusion of all other males. Such conditions cannot have failed to domesticate the women, and urged them forward to the work that was still to be done in domesticating man. During the development of the family, we may expect that the patriarch will seek to hold his rights, and that the women will exert their influence more and more in breaking these down; and this is precisely what we do find, as I presently shall show.

One point further. It may, of course, be urged that all I am affirming for women in this far back beginning is but a process of ingenious guessing. Such criticism is just. But I am speaking of conditions at a time when conjecture is necessary. I venture to say that my suggestions are in accord with what is likely to have happened. Moreover,many difficulties will be made clearer if these guesses are accepted. I believe that here in the earliest patriarchal stage we have already the germs of the maternal family. All the chances for success in power rested with the united mothers, rather than with the solitary father. Assuredly the jealous patriarchs paid a heavy price for their sexual domination.

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