FOOTNOTES:

“From the lying together of these twain, upon the great world water, so vitalising, life was conceived, whence began all beings of the earth, men and creatures, in the four-fold womb of the world. Thereupon the Earth-mother repulsed the Sky-father, growing big and sinking deep into the embrace of the waters below, thus separated from the Sky-father, in the embrace of the waters above.” The story states, “Warm is the Earth-mother and cold the Sky-father, even as woman is warm and man is cold.” Then it goes on, “‘So is thy will,’ said the Sky-father, ‘yet not alone shalt thou helpful be unto our children’;” and we learn how the Sky-father assisted the Earth-mother. “Thus in other ways, many diversed, they worked for their offspring.”[230]

There is one reflection only I desire to offer on this most beautiful maternal version of the creation legend. Here we find complete understanding of the woman’s part; she is the one who gives life; she is the active partner. The Sky-father is represented as her agent, her helper. Why should this be? Contrast this idea with the patriarchal creation story of the Bible.

“And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.... And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh insteadthereof: and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And the man said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”[231]

I would again assert my strong belief that in the religious conception of a people we find the true thoughts and the customs of the period in which they originated. A patriarchal people could not have given expression to a creation myth in which the female idea prevailed, and the mother, and not the father, was dominant. For men have ever fashioned the gods in their own human image, endowing them with their thoughts and actions. The sharp change in the view of woman’s part in the relationship of the sexes is clearly symbolised in these creation myths. Yes, it marks the degradation of woman; she has fallen from the maternal conception of the feminine principle, guiding, directing, and using the male, to that of the woman made for the man in the patriarchal Bible story.

Another group of legends that I would notice refer to the conflict between the right of the mother and that of the father in relation to the children. These stories belong to a period of transition. In ancient Greece, as we have seen, the paternal family succeeded the maternal clan. In hisOrestia, Æschylus puts in opposition before Pallas Athene the right of the mother and the right of the father.The chorus of the Eumenides, representing the people, defends the position of the mother; Apollo pleads for the father, and ends by declaring, in a fit of patriarchal delirium, thatthe child is not of the blood of the mother. “It is not the mother who begets what is called her child; she is only the nurse of the germ poured into her womb; he who begets is the father. The woman receives the germ merely as guardian, and when it pleases the gods, she preserves it.” Plato also brings forward this view, and states that the mother contributes nothing to the child’s being. “The mother is to the child what the soil is to the plant; it owes its nourishment to her, but the essence and structure of its nature are derived from the father.” Again the Orestes of Euripides takes up the same theory, when he says to Tyndarus: “My father has begotten me, and thy daughter has given birth to me, as the earth receives the seed that another confides to it.” Here we trace a different world of thoughts and conceptions; the mother was so little esteemed as to be degraded into the mere nourisher of the child. These patriarchal theories naturally consecrated the slavery of woman.[232]

Another point strikingly illustrated by many of these ancient legends is the struggle for power between the two sexes—a struggle that would seem to have been present at all stages of civilisation,but always most active in periods of transition. One out of many examples is all that I can give. In Hawaii, worship is given to the goddess Pele, the personification of the volcano Kilauea, and the god Tamapua, the personification of the sea, or rather, of the storm which lashes the sea and hurls wave after wave upon the land. The myth tells that Tamapua wooed Pele, who rejected his suit, whereupon he flooded the crater with water, but Pele drank up the water and drove him back into the sea.[233]

Here a brief digression into the early mythologies may be made, although this question of the connection between mother-right and religious ideas is one on which I have already enlarged. The most primitive theogony is that of Mother-Earth and her son. Goddesses are at first of greater importance than gods. The Earth-mother springs from chaos, and in the beginning her children have no father.[234]Traces of such a goddess are to be found in many ancient religions. Afterwards as a modification, or rather a development, of the Earth-mother, we have the goddesses of fertility. This idea arose with the development of agriculture, and was closely connected in the primitive mind with the sex functions. Demeter is of this type; and there are many of these mother-deities who once were universally worshipped. Virgin goddesses are a much latercreation, and must be connected with the patriarchal ideals for women. The original god-idea symbolised as woman is the free mother; she is the source of all fertility; she is the goddess of love. The servants of these goddesses were priestesses, or at a later date men dressed as women. At first the gods, in so far as they had any existence, appear in the form of temporary lovers of the goddesses; they are very plainly the transitory male element needful for fertilisation, and then destined to disappear.[235]We find very early the brother as the husband and dependent of the Mother-goddess. Thus Isis did not change or lose her independent position after her marriage to her brother Osiris; her importance as a deity remained always greater than his.[236]Only at a much later stage—the patriarchal stage—was the wandering lover-god or dependent brother-spouse raised to the position of authority of the All-Father. We may find in the religious sexual festivals, common to all civilisations, abundant confirmation of these facts. As one illustration out of many that might be chosen, I will refer to the account given by Prof. K. Pearson[237]of the festival of Sakäēs, held in Babylon in honour of the great goddess Mylitta, who was essentially a mother-goddess of fertility. The festival lasted for five days in the month of July. It was presided over by the priestess of the goddess, who representedthe goddess herself. She sat enthroned on a mound which for the time was the sanctuary of the deity, with the altar with oil and incense before her. To her came the god-lover represented by a slave, who made homage and worshipped. From her he received the symbols of kingly power, and she raised him to the throne by her side. As her accepted lover and lord of the festival, he remained for five days, during which the law of the goddess prevailed. Afterwards on the fifth day the god-lover was sacrificed on the pyre. The male element had performed its function.

I cannot leave this subject without emphasising the importance of these erotic-religious festivals, once of universal occurrence. They afford the strongest evidence of the early privileged position of women in the relationships between the two sexes. It is, I think, impossible to avoid giving to this a matriarchal interpretation. For it is by contrasting the religious-sex standpoints of the maternal and the paternal ideals that the inferior position of women under the later system can be demonstrated. Moreover, in much later periods, and even to our own day, we may yet find broken survivals of the old customs. Illustrations are not far to seek in the common festivals of the people in Germany and elsewhere, and as I have myself witnessed them in Spain, a land which has preserved its old customs much more unchanged than is usual.[238]One example may be noted in England,which would seem to have a very ancient origin; it is given by Prof. K. Pearson.[239]“The RomanLupercaliaheld on February 15 was essentially a worship of fertility, and the privileges supposed to be attached to women in our own country during this month—especially on February 14 and 29—are probably fossils of the same sex-freedom.”

Passing again to the old legends, we find not a few that attempt to account for both the rise and the decline of the custom of maternal descent. I will give an example of each. Newbold relates that in Menangkabowe, where the female line is observed, it is accounted for by this legend—

“Perpati Sabatang built a magnificent vessel, which he loaded with gold and precious stones so heavily that it got aground on the sands at the foot of the fiery mountains, and resisted the efforts of all the men to get it off. The sages were consulted, and declared that all attempts would be in vain until the vessel had passed over the body of a pregnant woman. It happened that the Rajah’s own daughter was in the condition desired; she was called upon to immolate herself for the sake of her country, but refused. At this juncture the pregnant sister of the Rajah boldly stepped forward, and cast herself beneath the prow of the vessel, which instantly put itself in motion, and again floated on the waves without injury to the princess. Whereupon the Rajah disinherited the offspring of his disobedient daughter in favour of the child of his sister, and caused this to be enrolled in therecords of the empire as the law of succession in time to come.”[240]

The second illustration is taken from the quarrel between Pallas Athene and Poseidon to which already I have referred. The myth tells us—

“A double wonder sprang out of the earth at the same time—at one place the olive tree and at another water. The people in terror sent to Delphi to ask what should be done. The god answered that the olive tree signified the power of Athene, and the water that of Poseidon; and that it remained with the burgesses to choose after which of the two they would name their town. An assembly was called of the burgesses, both men and women, for it was then the custom to let the women take part in the public councils. The men voted for Poseidon, the women for Athene; and as there were more women than men by one, Athene conquered. Thereupon Poseidon was enraged, and immediately the sea flowed over all the lands of Athens. To appease the sea-god, the burgesses found it necessary to impose a threefold punishment on their wives. They were to lose their votes; the children were to receive no more the mother’s name, and they themselves were no longer to be called after the goddess.”[241]

The origin of these myths is perfectly clear. There is no reason to force their interpretation by regarding them as historical evidence of a struggle taking place between the maternal and the paternal custom oftracing descent;[242]rather they are poetical explanations, plainly invented to account for women’s predominance at a time when such power had come to be considered as unusual. The same may be said of many of these old myths. Man’s fancy begins to weave poetic inventions around anything he considers abnormal or is not able to understand. The idea or custom for which an explanation is being sought must, however, have been present for long in the common life and thought of the people. Without realising this, all these old stories become unintelligible. I believe they have been greatly misinterpreted in the thought of writers bound by patriarchal ideas.

The limitation of my space does not allow me to enter into the great amount of evidence provided by these mythical stories of the privileged position of women. One instance, however, may be referred to as an illustration. We find a wide range of stories connected with the mythical Amazons. Now, if I am right, the frequency of these legends among so many races points to the acceptance of the Amazon heroines as an historical fact. Fancy, without doubt, wove the details of their stories, occurrences would be chosen or imagined to give colour to the narratives, but such poetic inventions, with all their repetitions, all their reproductions of what is practically one situation, would take only definite form from conditions so impressed on the popularmind by facts that must have had a real existence. Bearing this in mind, special significance attaches to a discovery recently made by Prof. d’Allosso. In the ancient necropolis of Belmonte, dating from the iron age, are two very rich tombs of women warriors with war chariots over their remains. Prof. d’Allosso states that several details given by Virgil of the Amazon Camilla, who fought and died on the field of battle, coincide with the details on these tombs. The importance of this discovery is thus very great, as it certainly seems to indicate what I am claiming—that the existence of the Amazon heroines, leaders of armies and sung by the ancient poets, is not a poetic fancy, but an historic reality.[243]

I must turn now to the last group of evidence that I am able to bring forward; to find this we must enter that realm of fancy—the world of fairyland. We shall see that this land has its own customs, and its own laws, entirely at variance with all those to which we are accustomed. How is this to be explained? These stories are founded really on the life of the common people, and they have come down from generation to generation, handed on by the storytellers, from a time long before the day when they were ever collected and written in books. It is the popular and social character of these stories that is so important; they are records of customs and habits long forgotten, but once common in the daily life of the people. In them the past is potent with life, and for this reason they claim the mostcareful and patient study. I speak of the most familiar stories that we have regarded as foolish fables. Nowhere else can we gain so clear and vivid a picture of the childhood of civilisation, when women were the transmitters of inheritance and the guardians of property.

Let me try to prove this. I have before me a collection of these folk-stories, gathered from many countries. Now, the most popular story (whose theme occurs again and again, the details varied in the different renderings) is concerned with the gaining of a princess as a bride by a wooer, usually of humble birth. This lover to obtain his wife achieves some mighty deed of valour, or performs tasks set for him by the parents of the bride; he thus inherits the kingdom through the daughter of the king. Hans, faring forth to seek his luck; the Dummling in the Golden Goose story; the miller’s son, who gained his bride by the wit of his cat, and Aladdin with his magic lamp are well-known examples of this story. The Scottish and Irish legends are particularly rich in examples of these hero lovers. Assipattle, the dirty ash-lad, who wins the fair Gemdelovely and then reigns with her as queen and king, is one of the most interesting. Similar stories may be found in the folk-lore of every country. Ash-lad figures in many of the Norwegian tales. There is a charming version in the Lapp story of the “Silk Weaver and her husband,” where we read, “Once upon a time a poor lad wooed a princess and the girl wanted to marry him,but the Emperor was against the match. Nevertheless she took him at last and they were wed together.”[244]

This “fairy theory” of marriage is really the maternal orbeenahform: such a marriage as was made by Jacob and is still common among all maternal peoples. The inheritance passes through the daughters; the suitors gain their position by some deed of valour or by service done for the bride’s family; sometimes it is the mother who sets the task, more often it is the father, while, in some cases, the girl herself imposes the conditions of marriage. It is possible to trace a development in these stories. We can see the growth of purchase-marriage in the service demanded by the parents of the bride, this taking the place of the earlier custom of the bridegroom proving his fitness by some test of strength. Again, those stories in which the arrangement of the marriage remains with the mother or with the girl, and not with the father, must be regarded as the older versions. This change appears also in the conditions of inheritance; in some cases the kingdom passes at once with the bride, in others the half of the kingdom is the marriage portion, while in the later stories the full authority to rule comes only after the death of the king. But always sooner or later the daughter of the king conveys the kingdom to her husband. The sons of the king do not inherit; they are of much less importance than the daughters; theyare sent forth to seek their own fortunes. This is the law where the inheritance passes through the daughter.

This law of female inheritance must at one time have been universal. We are brought, indeed, constantly back to that opinion—so amply evidenced by these folk-relics. In the old West country ballad “The Golden Vanity” or “The Lowland’s Low,” the boy who saves the ship from the Spanish pirate galleon is promised as a reward “silver and gold, with the skipper’s pretty little daughter who lives upon the shore.” Similarly in the well-known folksong “The Farmer’s Boy,” the lad who comes weary and lame to the farmer’s door, seeking work, eventually marries the farmer’s daughter and inherits the farm. Again, Dick Whittington, the poor country lad, who faithfully serves his master in London, marries his employer’s daughter. This theme is very frequently found in ballads, romances, and dramas; in all cases the way to fortune for the lover is through marriage—the daughter carries the inheritance.

Let us take Assipattle of the Scottish legend as a type of these hero wooers. He is represented always as the youngest son, held in contempt by his brothers, and merely tolerated by his parents. He lies in the ashes, from which he gains his name. Some emergency arises; a great danger threatens the land or, more often, a princess has to be delivered from a position of peril. Assipattle executes the deed, when his brothers and all others have failed;he frees the land or rescues the king’s daughter, and is covered with honour. He marries the princess and inherits the kingdom. Assipattle always begins in the deepest degradation, and ends on the highest summit of glory. There is a special interest in this story. The reader will not have failed to notice the similarity of Assipattle with Cinderella. In both stories the circumstances are the same, only the Ash-lad has been replaced by the Cinder-girl. There is no doubt which version is the older:[245]the one is the maternal form, the other the patriarchal.

The setting of these stories should be noticed. We see the simplicity of the habits and life so vividly represented. All folk-legends deal with country people living near to nature. So similar, indeed, are the customs depicted throughout that these folk-records might well be taken as a picture of the social organisation among many barbarous tribes. I should like to wait to point out these resemblances, such, for instance, as the tendency to personify natural objects, the identification of human beings with animals and trees, found so often in the stories, as well as many other things—the belief in magic and the power of wise women. And what I want to make clear is the very early beginning of these folk-tales; they take us back to the social institutions of the mother-age. Thus there is nothing surprising to find that kingdoms and riches are won by hero-lovers, and that daughters carry the inheritance.This is really what used to happen. It is our individual ideas and patriarchal customs that make these things seem so strange.

I wish I had space in which to follow further these still-speaking relics of a past, whose interest offers such rich reward. In his essay “Ashiepattle, or Hans seeks his Luck” (The Chances of Death, Vol. II, pp. 51-91), Prof. Karl Pearson has fully and beautifully shown the evidence for mother-right to be found in these stories. To this essay the reader, who still is in doubt, is referred. All that has been possible to me is to suggest an inquiry that any one can pursue for himself. It is the difficulty of treating so wide and fascinating a subject in briefest outline that so many things that should be noticed have to be passed over.

The witness afforded by these folk-stories for mother-right cannot be neglected. For what interpretation are we to place on the curious facts they record? Are we to regard this maternal marriage with descent through the daughter, and not the son, as idle inventions of the storytellers? Do these princesses and their peasant wooers belong to the topsy-turvy land of fairies? No: in these stories, drawn from so many various countries, we have echoes of a very distant past. It is by placing the customs here represented by the side of similar social conditions still to be found among primitive maternal peoples, that we find their significance. We then understand that these old, old stories of the folk really take us back to the age in whichthey first took form. We have read these “fairy stories” to our children, unknowing what they signified—a prophetic succession of witnesses, pointing us back to the ripening of that phase of the communal family, before the establishment of the individual patriarchal rule, when the law was mother-right, and all inheritance was through women.

I would add to this chapter a notice I have just recently lighted on[246]of the ancient warrior, Queen Meave of Ireland. She is represented as tall and beautiful, terrible in her battle chariot, when she drove full speed into the press of fighting men. Her virtues were those of a warlike barbarian king, and she claimed the like large liberty in morals. Her husband was Ailill, the Connaught king; their marriage was literally a partnership wherein Meave, making her own terms, demanded from her husband exact equality of treatment. The three essential qualities on which she insisted were that he should be brave, and generous, and completely devoid of jealousy.

FOOTNOTES:[230]Cushing,Zuñi Creation Myths.[231]Gen. ii, 18, 21-23.[232]McLennan,Studies, “Kinship in Ancient Greece”; Letourneau,Evolution of Marriage, pp. 336-337, and Starcke,The Primitive Family, pp. 115-116.[233]Starcke, pp. 249-250, citing Bachofen’sAntiquarische Briefe, Vol. I, p. 140.[234]K. Pearson,Chances of Death, Vol. II, Essays on the Mother-age Civilisation, etc. Many of the facts given in this chapter are taken from these illuminative essays.[235]K. Pearson,Ibid., p. 102.[236]The Truth about Woman, p. 198.[237]Ibid., pp. 109-110.[238]SeeSpain Revisited, andThings Seen in Spain.[239]Ibid., p. 158.[240]Newbold,Account of the British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca, Vol. II, p. 221.[241]McLennan,Studies, “Kinship in Ancient Greece,” p. 235.[242]This is done by Bachofen, and also, to some extent, by McLennan.[243]SeeThe Truth about Woman, p. 228.[244]K. Pearson,The Truth about Woman, p. 70note.[245]In this connection, see K. Pearson in the essay already quoted, p. 85et seq.[246]“Ancient Irish Sagas,”Century, Jan. 1907.

[230]Cushing,Zuñi Creation Myths.

[231]Gen. ii, 18, 21-23.

[232]McLennan,Studies, “Kinship in Ancient Greece”; Letourneau,Evolution of Marriage, pp. 336-337, and Starcke,The Primitive Family, pp. 115-116.

[233]Starcke, pp. 249-250, citing Bachofen’sAntiquarische Briefe, Vol. I, p. 140.

[234]K. Pearson,Chances of Death, Vol. II, Essays on the Mother-age Civilisation, etc. Many of the facts given in this chapter are taken from these illuminative essays.

[235]K. Pearson,Ibid., p. 102.

[236]The Truth about Woman, p. 198.

[237]Ibid., pp. 109-110.

[238]SeeSpain Revisited, andThings Seen in Spain.

[239]Ibid., p. 158.

[240]Newbold,Account of the British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca, Vol. II, p. 221.

[241]McLennan,Studies, “Kinship in Ancient Greece,” p. 235.

[242]This is done by Bachofen, and also, to some extent, by McLennan.

[243]SeeThe Truth about Woman, p. 228.

[244]K. Pearson,The Truth about Woman, p. 70note.

[245]In this connection, see K. Pearson in the essay already quoted, p. 85et seq.

[246]“Ancient Irish Sagas,”Century, Jan. 1907.

Myinvestigation of the mother-age might fitly have terminated with the preceding chapter; but the immense interest which attaches to the subject, and the amount of misconception which prevails regarding the origin and conditions of the maternal family, as well as my own special views upon it, induce me to devote a brief final chapter to a few observations that to me seem to be important.

In my little book (which must be regarded rather as a sketch or design than as a finished work) an attempt has been made to approach the problem of the primitive family from a new and decisive standpoint. I am well aware that in certain directions I have crossed the threshold only of the subjects treated. I hope that at least I have opened up suggestions of many questions on which I could not dwell at length. All this may bring the hesitation that leads to further inquiry. And I believe that those of my readers who will follow out an investigation for themselves in any direction—either in the collecting of maternal customs among existing primitive peoples, or in noting the relics of such customs to be met with in historical records andin folk-lore, will find an ever increasing store of evidence, and that then the discredited mother-age, with its mother-right customs, will become for them what it is for me, a necessary and accepted stage in the evolution of human societies.

Many of the conclusions to which I have come are so completely opposed to those which generally have been accepted as correct, that now, I am at the end of my inquiry it will be well to sum up briefly its result.

The facts I have so rapidly enumerated have a very wide bearing; they serve to destroy the accepted foundations on which the claim for mother-right has hitherto been based. The first stage of the family was patriarchal. All the evidence we possess tends to show that tracing descent through the mother was not the primitive custom. Throughout my aim has been to bring into uniformity the opposing theories of the primeval patriarchate and the maternal family. The current view, so often asserted, and manifestly inspired by a Puritanical ideal, insists that mother-descent arose through uncertain fatherhood, and was connected with an early period of promiscuous relationships between the two sexes. This view has been proved to be entirely wrong. The system of maternal descent was a system framed for order, and had in its origin, at least, no connection with sexual disorder. Further than this, it is certain that marriage in some form has always existed, and that the sexual relationships have never been unregulated. We must renounceany theory of primitive promiscuity. And there is more than this to be said. Such freedom in love and in marriage as we do find in barbarous societies is so strong a proof of friendly feeling and security that it is certain it could not have existed in the first stage of the jealous patriarchate; rather it must have developed at a subsequent period with the growth of the social-tribal spirit, and the liberty of women from the thrall of sexual ownership. In these particulars my opinion differs from all other writers who have sought to establish a theory of matriarchy. I venture to claim that the position of the mother-age has been strengthened, and, as I hope, built up on surer foundations.

Let us cast a brief glance backward over the way that we have travelled.

Our most primitive ancestors, half-men, half-brutes, lived in small, solitary and hostile family groups, held together by a common subjection to the strongest male, who was the father and the owner of all the women, and their children. There was no promiscuity, for there could be no possible union in peace. Here was the most primitive form of jealous ownership by the male, as he killed or drove off his rivals; his fights were the brutal precursors of all sexual restrictions for women. These customs of brute ownership are still in great measure preserved among the least developed races. This explains how there are many rude peoples that exhibit no traces at all of the system of mother-descent. In the lowest nomad bands of savagesof the deserts and forests we find still these rough paternal groups, who know no social bonds, but are ruled alone by brute strength and jealous ownership. With them development has been very slow; they have not yet advanced to the social organisation of the maternal clan.

From these first solitary families, grouped submissively around one tyrant-ruler, we reach a second stage out of which order and organisation sprang. In this second stage the family expanded into the larger group of the communal clan. The upward direction of this transformation is evident; the change was from the most selfish individualism to a communism more or less complete—from the primordial patriarchate to a free social organisation, all the members of which are bound together by a strict solidarity of interests. The progress was necessarily slow from the beginning to this first phase of social life. Yet the change came. With the fierce struggle for existence, association was the only possible way, not only to further progress, but to prevent extermination.

It has been shown that the earliest movements towards peace came through the influence of the women, for it was in their interest to consolidate the family, and, by means of union, to establish their own power. Collective motives were more considered by women, not at all because of any higher standard of feminine moral virtue, but because of the peculiar advantages arising to themselves and to their children—advantages of freedom which could not exist in a society inspired by individualinclination. And for this reason the clan system may be considered as a feminine creation, which had special relation to motherhood. Under this influence, the marital rights of the male members were restricted and confined. A system of taboos was established, which as time advanced was greatly strengthened by the sacred totem marks, and became of inexorable strictness. In this way association between the jealous fighting males was made possible.

Here, then, are the reasons that led to the formation of the maternal family and the communal clan. It was a movement that had nothing about it that was exceptional; it was a perfectly natural arrangement—the practical outgrowth of the practical needs of primitive peoples. The strong and certain claim for the acceptance for the mother-age, with its privileged position for women, rests on this foundation.

Let us be quite clear as to the real question involved, for it is a crucial one. I refer to the complete disturbance arising through this change in the family organisation in the relationships between the two sexes. A wife was no longer the husband’s property. Her position was unchanged by marriage, for her rights were safeguarded by her kindred, whose own interests could be protected only through her freedom.

If we turn next to the status of men—of the husband and father—in the maternal kindred group, we find their power and influence at first gradually, and then rapidly, decreasing. It was under these conditions of family communism that the rightsof the husband and father were restricted on every side. Not only does he not stand out as a principal person from the background of the familial clan; he has not even any recognised social existence in the family group. This restriction of the husband and father was clearly dependent on the form of marriage. We have seen that the individual relationships between the sexes began with the reception of temporary lovers by the woman in her own home. But a relationship thus formed would tend under favourable circumstances to be continued, and, in some cases, perpetuated. The lover became the husband; he left the home of his mother to reside with his wife among her kin; he was still without property or any recognised rights in her clan, 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. The wife’s position and that of her children was assured, and in the case of a separation it was the man who departed, leaving her in possession.

Under such an organisation the family and social customs were in most cases—and always, I believe, in their complete maternal form—favourable to women. Kinship was reckoned through the mother, since in this way alone could the undivided family be maintained. The continuity of the clan thus depending on the women, they were placed in a very special position of importance, the mother was at least the nominal head of the household, shaping the destiny of the clan through the aid of her clan-kindred.Her closest male relation was not her husband, but her brother and her son; she was the conduit by which property passed to and from them. Often women established their own claims and all property was held by them; which under favourable circumstances developed into what may literally be called a matriarchate. In all cases the child’s position was dependent entirely on the mother and not on the father. Such a system of inheritance may be briefly summarised as “mother-right.”

There is another matter to notice. Every possible experiment in sexual association has been tried, and is still practised among various barbarous races, with very little reference to those moral ideas to which we are accustomed. It is, however, very necessary to remember that monogamy is frequent and indeed usual under the maternal system. We have seen many examples where, with complete freedom of separation held by the wife, lasting and most happy marriages are the rule. When the husband lives with his wife in a dependent position to her family he can do so only in the case of one woman. For this reason polygamy is much less deeply rooted under the conditions in which the communal life is developed than in patriarchal communities. In the complete maternal family it is never common, and is even prohibited.[247]

As we might expect, the case is quite oppositewith polyandry. This form of marriage has evident advantages for women when compared with polygamy; it is also a form that requires a certain degree of social civilisation. It clearly involves the limitation of the individual marital rights of the husband. Polyandry in the joint family group was not due to a licentious view of marriage; far otherwise, it was an expression of the communism which is characteristic of this organisation. This fact has been forgotten by many writers, who have regarded this form of the sexual relationships as a very primitive development, connected with group-marriage and promiscuous ownership of women. It is very necessary to be clear on this point. Under the maternal conditions, nothing is more certain than the equality of women with men in all questions of sexual morality. In proof of this it is necessary only to recall the facts we have noted. We find little or no importance attached to virginity, which in itself indicates the absence of any conception of the woman as property. Thus no bride-price is claimed from the husband, who renders service in proof of his fitness as a lover, not to gain possession of the bride. The girl is frequently the wooer, and, in certain cases, she or her mother imposes the conditions of the marriage. After marriage the free provision for divorce (often more favourable to the wife than to the husband) is perhaps of even greater significance. There can, I think, be no doubt that this freedom in love was dependent on the wife’s position of security under the maternal form of marriage.

I hold that the facts brought forward entitle us to claim that the maternal communal clan was an organisation in which there was a freer community of interest, far more fellowship in labour and partnership in property, with a resulting liberty for woman, than we find in any patriarchal society. For this reason, shall we, then, look back to this maternal stage as to a golden period, wherein was realised a free social organisation, carrying with it privileges for women, which even to-day among ourselves have never been established, and only of late claimed? It is a question very difficult to answer, and we must not in any haste rush into mistakes. We found that the mother-age was a transitional stage in the history of the evolution of society, and we have indicated the stages of its gradual decline. It is thus proved to have been a less stable social system than the patriarchate which again succeeded it, or it would not have perished in the struggle with it. Must we conclude from this that the one form of the family is higher than the other—that the superior advantage rests with the patriarchal system? Not at all: rather it proves how difficult is the struggle to socialise. Human nature tends so readily towards individualism; it yields itself up to the joy of possession whenever it is possible.

The impulse to dominate by virtue of strength or property possession has manifested itself in every age. It cannot be a matter of surprise, therefore, that at this period of social development a rebellion arose against the customs of maternal communism.Within the large and undivided family of the clan the restricted family became gradually re-established by a reassertion of individual interests. In proportion as the family gained in importance (which would arise as the struggle for existence lessened and the need of association was less imperative) the interest of the individual members would become separated from the group to which they belonged. Each one would endeavour to get himself as large a share as possible of what was formerly held in common. As society advanced property would increase in value, and the social and political significance of its possession would also increase. Afterwards, when personal property was acquired, each man would aim at gaining a more exclusive right over his wife and children; he would not willingly submit to the bondage of the maternal form of marriage.

In the earlier days the clan spirit was too strong, now men had shaken off, to a degree sufficient for their purpose, the female yoke, which bound the clan together. We have seen the husband and father moving towards the position of a fully acknowledged legal parent by a system of buying off his wife and her children from their clan-group. The movement arose in the first instance through a property value being connected with women themselves. As soon as the women’s kindred found in their women the possibility of gaining worldly goods for themselves, they began to claim service and presents from their lovers. It was in this wayfor economic reasons, and for no moral considerations that the maternal marriage fell into disfavour. The payment of a bride-price was claimed, and an act of purchase was accounted essential. As we have seen, it was regarded as a condition, not so much of the marriage itself, but of the transference of the wife to the home of the husband and of the children to his kindred. The change was, of course, effected slowly; and often we find the two forms of marriage—the maternal and the purchase-marriage—occurring side by side. What, however, is certain is that the purchase-marriage in the struggle was the one that prevailed.

This reversal in the form of the marriage brought about a corresponding reversal in the status of women. This is so plain. The women of the family do not now inherit property, but are themselves property, passing from the hands of their father to that of a husband. As purchased wives they are compelled to reside in the husband’s house and among his kin, who have no rights or duties in regard to them, and where they are strangers. In a word, the wife occupies the same position of disadvantage as the man had done in the maternal marriage. 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. The protection of her own kindred was the source of the woman’s power and strength. This was now lost. The change was not brought about without a struggle, and for long the old customs contendedwith the new. But as the patriarchate developed, and men began to gain individual possession of their children by the purchase of their mothers, the father became the dominant power in the family. Little by little individual interests prevailed. Moral limits were set up. Women’s freedom was threatened on every side as the jealous ownership, which always arises wherever women are regarded as property, asserted itself. Mother-right passed away, remaining only as a tradition, or preserved in isolated cases among primitive peoples. The patriarchal age, which still endures, succeeded.

Yet in this connection it is very necessary to remember that the reassertion of the patriarchate was as necessary a stage in human development as the maternal stage. Whatever may have been the advantages arising to women from the clan organisation (and that the advantages were great I claim to have proved) such conditions could not remain fixed for ever. For society is not stable; it cannot be, as the need for adjustment is always arising, and at certain stages of development different tendencies are active. No one cause can be isolated, and, therefore, it is necessary in estimating any change to take a synthetic view of many facts that are contemporaneous and interacting. Yet, it would seem that the social and domestic habits of a people are decided largely by the degree of dominance held either by women or men; and almost everything else depends on the accurate adjustment of the rights of the two sexes.

The social clan organised around the mothers carried mankind a long way—a way the length of which we are only beginning to realise. But it could not carry mankind to that family organisation from which so much was afterwards to develop. 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.

But there is another aspect of this question that I must briefly touch upon. The opinion that the reversal in the position of authority of the mother and the father arose from male mastery, or was due to any unfair domination on the part of the husband must be set aside. To me the history of the mother-age does not teach this. I believe that the change to the individual family must have been regarded favourably by the women themselves, for such a change could not have arisen, at all events it would not have persisted, if women, with the power they then enjoyed, had not desired it. Nor need this bring any surprise. An arrangement that would give a closer relationship in marriage and the protection of a husband for herself and her children may well have come to be preferred by the wife. Nor do I think it unlikely that she, quite as strongly as the man, may have desired to live apart from her mother and her kindred in her husband’s home. Individual interests are not confined to men.

With all the evils father-right has brought to women, we have got to remember that the woman owes the individual relation of the man to herselfand her children to the patriarchal system. The father’s right in his children (which, unlike the right of the mother, was not founded upon kinship, but rested on the quite different and insecure basis of property) had to be re-established. Without this being done, the family in its complete development was impossible. The survival value of the patriarchal age consists in the additional gain to the children of the father’s to the mother’s care. I do not think this gain will ever be lost. We women need to remember this lest bitterness stains our sense of justice. It may be that progress could not have been accomplished otherwise; that the cost of love’s development has been the enslavement of women. 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 again to understand their power) better fitted for their refound freedom.

Such is the history of the past, what is the promise of the future?

We have traced three stages in the past evolution of the family—two individual and patriarchal, one communal and maternal. Is the patriarchal stage, then, the final stage? Has the upward growth, ever yet continuous, been arrested here? The social ideal of the mother-age was a transition and a dream—but as a moment of peace in the records of struggle, following the bloody opening drama in man’s history, and then passing into a forgetfulness so complete that its existence by manyhas been denied. Yet the feet of the race were in the way, though men and women let it pass, blindly unknowing.

Our age is working for scarcely yet formulated changes in the ownership of property and in the status of women. The patriarchal view of woman’s subjection to man is being questioned in every direction. What do these movements indicate? If, as seems probable, the individual evolution, already for so long continued, is perishing, what is to take its place? What form will the family take in the future? These are questions to which it is not possible for me here even to attempt to find the answer.[248]

Let us look for a moment in this new direction, the direction of the future, because it is there that the past becomes so important. In our contemporary society there is a deep-lying dissatisfaction with existing conditions, a yearning and restless need for change. We stand in the first rush of a great movement. It is the day of experiments, when again the old customs are in struggle with the new. We are questioning where before we have accepted, and are seeking out new ways in which mankind will go—will go because it must.

Social institutions alter very slowly as a rule; for long a change may pass unnoticed, until one day it is discovered that a step forward has been taken. Those changes that appear so new and are bringing fear to many to-day, are but the last consequencesof causes that for long have been operating slowly. The extraordinary enthusiasm now sweeping through womanhood reveals behind its immediate feverish expression a great power of emotional and spiritual initiative. Wide and radically sweeping are the changes in women’s outlook. So much stronger is the promise of a vital force when they have refound their emancipation. To this end women must gain economic security, and the freedom for the full expression of their womanhood. The ultimate goal I conceive—at least I hope—is the right to be women, not the right to become like men. There can be no gain for women except this. To be mothers were women created and to be fathers men. This rightly considered is the deepest of all truths.

What is needed at present is that women should be allowed to rediscover for themselves what is their woman’s work, rather than that they should continue to accept perforce the rôle which men (rightly or wrongly) have at various times allowed to them throughout the patriarchal ages. This necessity is as much a necessity for men as it is for women.

I do not think that women will fail (even if for a time they stumble a little) in finding the way. The vital germinal spot of each forward step in women’s position must be sought with the women who are the conscious mothers of the race. The great women reformers are not those who would have women act just like men in all externals, but those who are conscious that all men are born of women. In this lies women’s strength in thepast and in this must be their strength in that glad future that is to be. But only if motherhood is regarded as an intrinsic glory, and children are born in freedom. Think what this means. The birth of a child, in so far as its mother has not received the sanction of a man, is subject to the fire and brimstone of public scorn. And this scorn is the most pitiful result in all the patriarchal record. A woman’s natural right is her right to be a mother, and it is the most inglorious page in the history of woman that too often she has allowed herself to be deprived of that right. Women have this lesson first to learn. We, and not men, must fix the standard in sex, for we have to play the chief part in the racial life. Let us, then, reacquire our proud instinctive consciousness, which we are fully justified in having, of being the mothers of humanity; and having that consciousness, once more we shall be invincible.

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