In the face of these facts it can hardly be denied that mother-right and mother-power among the Khasis are still very much alive. Here at least descent through the mother does involve power to women, and confers exceptional rights, especially as regards inheritance. I have already called attention to the equality of the women with men in the code of sexual morality. This is so important that it is worth while to follow it a little further. That freedom in love carries with it domestic and social rights and privileges to women I have no longer to prove. We found the same freedom under the maternal family among the Iroquois and Zuni Indians: there courtship was in the hands of the woman; there also divorce was free, and a couple would rather separate than live together inharmoniously. I have given proof of the happy domestic life of these peoples. Equality in the sexual relationships has always been closely associated with the status of women. Wherever divorce is difficult, there woman's lot is hard, and her position low. It is part of the patriarchal custom which regards the man as the owner of the woman. It would be easy to prove this by the history of marriage in the races of the past, as also by an examination of the present divorce laws in civilised countries. I cannot do this, but I make the assertion without the least shadow of doubt. "Free divorce is the charter of Woman's Freedom." I would point back in proof to these examples of the maternal family, foremost among whose privileges is this equality of partnership in marriage. Here you have before you, solved by these primitive peoples, some of the most urgent questions that yet have to be faced by us to-day. To hear of peoples who live gladly, and without those problems that are rotting away our civilisation, brings a new courage to those of us, who sometimes grow hopeless at our own needless wastage of love and life.

I must not say more upon this question, though it is one that tempts me strongly. It is not, however, my purpose in this book to offer opinions of my own on these problems of the relations of the two sexes; I prefer to leave the facts of the mother-age to speak for themselves. Those whose eyes are not blinded will not fail to see.[81]

[81] Mrs. Chapman Catt has an article in the April number of Harper's Magazine on "A Survival of Matriarchy." It gives an account of her visit to the Malay States, and the favourable position of the women under the maternal customs. I have received a letter from the great American champion of Women's Rights in which she states how pleased she is that I am writing this book on the Mother-age. "There are many facts," she says, "of the early power of women which the great world does not know."



CHAPTER VII

FURTHER EXAMPLES OF THE MATERNAL FAMILY

Pursuing our inquiry into the social organisation of mother-right, an interesting example occurs among the peoples of the Malay States, where, notwithstanding the centres of Hindu and Moslem influence, much has been retained of the maternal system, once universally prevalent. The maternal marriage, here known as the ambel-anak, in which the husband lives with the wife, paying nothing to the support of the family and occupying a subordinate position, may be taken as typical of the former condition. But among the tribes who have come in contact with outside influences the custom of the husband visiting the wife, or residing in her house, is modified, and in some cases has altogether disappeared.

From a private correspondent, a resident in the Malay States, I have received some interesting notes about the present conditions of the native tribes and the position of women. "In most of the Malay States exogamous matriarchy has in comparatively modern times been superseded by feudalism (i. e., the patriarchal rights of the father). But where the old customs survive, the women are still to a large extent in control. The husband goes to live in the wife's village; thus the women in each group are a compact unity, while the men are strangers to each other and enter as unorganised individuals. This is the real basis of the women's power. In other tribes, where the old customs have changed, the women occupy a distinctly inferior position, and under the influence of Islam the idea of secluding adult women has been for centuries spreading and increasing in force." Here, again, clear proof is shown of the maternal system exercising a direct influence on the position of women. And this statement is in agreement with Robertson Smith, who, in writing of the maternal marriage, says: "And it is remarkable that when both customs—the woman receiving her husband in her own hut, and the man taking his wife to his—occur side by side among the same people, descent in the former case is traced through the mother, in the latter through the father."[82]

[82] Marriage and Kinship in Early Arabia, p. 74. See also Marsden, History of Sumatra, p. 225.

In its ancient form the maternal communal family has notably persisted among the Padang Highlanders of Sumatra. These people live in village communities, with long timber houses placed in barrack-like rows, very similar to the communal dwellings of the American Indians. The houses are gay in appearance, and are adorned with carved and coloured woodwork. One dwelling will contain as many as a hundred people, who form a sa-mandei, or mother-hood. Again we find the family consisting of the house-mother and her descendants in the female line—sons and daughters, and the daughters' children. McGee thus describes these maternal households—[83]

[83] "The Beginning of Marriage," American Anthropologist, Vol. IX, p. 376.

"If the visitor, mounting the ladder steps, looks in at one of the doors of the separate dwellings, he may see seated beyond the family hearth the mother and her children, eating the midday meal, and very likely the father, who may have been doing a turn of work in his wife's rice-plot. If he is a kindly husband, he is there much as a friendly visitor, but his real home remains in the house in which he was born."

The husband has no permanent residence in the woman's house, and at dusk each evening the men may be seen walking across the village to join their wives and families. The father has no rights over his children, who belong wholly to the wife's suku, or clan. But this in no way implies that the father is unknown, for monogamy is the rule; as is usual the question is one rather of social right than of relationship. The maternal uncle is the male head of the house, and exercises under the mother the duties of a father to the children. The brother of the eldest grandmother is the male head of the family settlement and the clan consists of a number of these families. It would seem that these male rulers act as the agents of the female members, whose authority is great. This power is dependent on the inheritance; as is the descent, so is the property, and its transmission is arranged for the benefit of the maternal lineage. For this reason daughters are preferred rather than sons.

This account of the Padang Malays may be supplemented by the Jesuit missionary De Mailla's description of the maternal marriage in the Island of Formosa.[84] Speaking of this marriage, McGee says: "If it had received the notice it deserves, it might long ago have placed the study of maternal institutions on a sounder basis."

[84] Lettres edefiantes et curieux, Vol. XVIII, p. 441, copied in Dunhalde, Description de la Clune, Vol. I, p. 166, and cited by McGee.

"The Formosan youth wishing to marry makes music day by day at the maid's door, till, if willing, she comes out to him, and when they are agreed, the parents are told, and the marriage feast is prepared in the bride's house, whence the bridegroom returns no more to his father, regarding his father-in-law's house as his own, and himself as the support of it, while his own father's house is no more to him than in Europe the bride's home is henceforth to her when she quits it to live with her husband. Thus the Formosans set no store on sons, but aspire to have daughters, who procure them sons-in-law to become the support of their old age."

It will be noted that here the house is spoken of as the father's, and not as belonging to the mother. The bridegroom is the suitor, and we see the creeping in of property considerations always associated with the rise of father-right. Though the husband has as yet no recognised position and lives in the wife's home, he is valued for his service to his father-in-law, clearly a step in the direction of property assertion. Among many of the Malay hill tribes of Formosa the maternal system is dying out, though the old law forbidding marriage within the clan remains in force.

These changes must be expected wherever the transition towards father-right has begun; the older forms of courtship and marriage, so favourable to the woman, are replaced by patriarchal customs. One or two curious examples of primitive courtship, in which the initiative is taken entirely by the girl may be noted here. Among the Garos tribe it is not only the privilege, but the duty of the girl to select her lover, while an infringement of this rule is severely and summarily punished. Any declaration made on the part of the young man is regarded as an insult to the whole mahari (motherhood) to which the girl belongs, a stain only to be expiated by liberal presents made at the expense of the mahari of the over-forward lover. The marriage customs are equally curious. On the morning of the wedding a ceremony very similar to capture takes place, only it is the bridegroom who is abducted. He pretends to be unwilling and runs away and hides, but he is caught by the friends of the bride. Then he is taken by force, weeping as he goes, in spite of the resistance and counterfeited grief of his parents and friends, to the bride's house, where he takes up his residence with his mother-in-law. It is instructive to find that these marriages are usually successful. Although divorce is easy, it is not frequent. "The Garos will not hastily make engagements, because, when they do make them, they intend to keep them."[85]

[85] Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, pp. 64, 142. See also Tylor, "The Matriarchal Theory," Nineteenth Century, July 1896, p. 89.

In Paraguay, we are told, the women are generally endowed with stronger passions than the men, and are allowed to make the proposals.[86] So also among the Ahitas of the Philippine Islands, where, if her clan-parents will not consent to a love match the girl seizes the young man by the hair, carries him off, and declares she has run away with him. In such a case it appears the marriage is held to be valid whether the parents consent or not.[87] A similar custom of a gentler character, is practised by the Tarrahumari Indians of Northern Mexico, among whom, according to Lumboltz, the maiden is a persistent wooer employing a repertoire of really exquisite love songs to soften the heart of a reluctant swain.[88] Again, in New Guinea, where the women held a very independent position, "the girl is always regarded as the seducer. Women steal men." A youth who proposed to a girl would be making himself ridiculous, would be called a woman, and laughed at by the girls. The usual method by which a girl proposes is to send a present to the youth by a third party, following this up by repeated gifts of food; the young man sometimes waits a month or two, receiving presents all the time, in order to assure himself of the girl's constancy, before decisively accepting her advances.[89]

[86] Moore, Marriage Customs: Modes of Courtship, etc., p. 261. Rengger, Naturgeschichte der Saeugelliere von Paraguay, p. 11, cited by Westermarck, op. cit., p. 158.

[87] J. M. Wheeler, "Primitive Marriage," an article in Progress, 1885, p. 128.

[88] McGee, "The Beginning of Marriage," American Anthropologist, Vol. IX.

[89] Haddon, "Western Tribes of the Torres States," Journal of the Anthropological Society, Vol. XIX, Feb. 1890. Cited by Havelock Ellis, Psychology of Sex, Vol. III, p. 185.

It is clear that these cases, which I have chosen from a number of similar courtship customs, differ very much from what is our idea of the customary role of the girl and her lover. To me they are very instructive. They show the error of the long-held belief in the passivity of the female as a natural law of the sex.[90] Such openness of conduct in courtship is impossible except where women hold an entirely independent position. Here, then, is another advantage that may be claimed as arising for women out of the maternal system. I claim this: the woman's right of selection in love—yes, her greatest right, one that is necessary for a freer and more beautiful mating.

[90] For further examination of this question of the supposed passivity of the woman in courtship, see The Truth about Woman, pp. 65-69, 251-257.

Terminating this short digression, I return to my examination of the peoples among whom the family is especially maternal.

The Pelew Islanders of the South Sea have customs in many respects the same as those of the Khasi tribes. They preserve strict maternal descent, and like the Khasis, the deities of all the clans are goddesses. The life and social habits of the people have been described by Kubary, a careful and sympathetic observer, for long resident in the island.[91] The tribes are divided into exogamous clans, and intermarriage between any relations on the mother's side is unlawful. These clans are grouped together in villages and the life is of a communal character. Each village consists of about a score of clans, and forms with its lands a petty independent state.

[91] Die socialen Einrichtungen der Pelauer. Die Religion, de Pelauer. Mr. Frazer, Golden Bough, Part IV, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, pp. 387 et seq., summarises the account of Kubary. See also Waitz-Gerland, Vol. V, Part II, p. 106 et seq., and an account of the Pelews given by Ymer.

Again we find the maternal system intimately connected with religious ideas, and it is interesting to recall what was said by Bachofen: "Wherever gynaecocracy meets us the mystery of religion is bound up with it, and lends to motherhood an incorporation in some divinity." Among these Islanders every family traces its descent from a woman—the common mother of the clan. And for this reason the members worship a goddess and not a god. In the different states there are, besides other special deities, usually a goddess and a god, but as these are held to be derived directly from a household-goddess, it is evident that here, as among the Khasis, goddesses are older than the gods. This is shown also by the names of the goddesses. There is another fact of interest: some women are reputed to be the wives of the gods, they are called Amalalieys and have a great honour paid to them, while their children pass for the offspring of the gods.

The reverence paid to the ancestral goddesses is explained by Mr. Kubary as arising from the importance of women in the clans.

"The existence of the clan depends entirely on the life of the women, and not at all on the life of the men. If the women survive, it is no matter though every man in the clan should perish, for the women will, as usual, marry men of another clan, and their offspring will inherit their mother's clan, and thereby prolong its existence. Whereas if the women of the clan die out the clan necessarily becomes extinct, even if every man in it should survive; for the men must, as usual, marry women of another clan, and their offspring will inherit their mother's clan and not the clan of the father, which accordingly, with the death of the father, is wiped off the community."

I quote this passage because it shows so clearly what I am claiming, that descent through the mother, under the condition of strict exogamy, conferred a very marked distinction on the female members of the clan, whose existence depended on them; this cannot possibly have failed to act favourably on their position. I may note, too, in passing, the fallacy of Mr. McLennan's view that polyandry (which, it will be remembered, he held to have been developed from and connected with mother-descent) arose as a result of female infanticide. Such a practice is clearly impossible in clans whose existence depends on the life of its female members; daughters among them are prized more highly than sons.

The case we are now examining affords the strongest confirmation of the honour paid to women under the strict maternal system. Take alone the titles that these Pelew islanders give to their women, as Adhalal a pelu, "mothers of the land," and Adhalal a blay, "mothers of the clan." The testimony of those who know their customs is that the women enjoy complete equality with the men in every respect. Mr. Kubary affirms the predominance of female influence in all the social life of the clan. He asserts, without qualification, that the women both politically and socially enjoy a position superior to that of the men. The eldest women in the clans exercise the most decisive influence in the conduct of affairs; the head men do nothing without full consultation with them, and their power extends to affairs of state and even to foreign politics. No chief would venture to come to a decision without the approval of the mothers of the families. As one consequence of this power the women have clubs of association similar to the clubs of men that are common in so many tribes. A curious privilege given to women is recorded: "The women have an unlimited privilege of striking, fining, or if it be done on the spot, killing any man who makes his way into their bathing places."[92]

[92] Semper, Die Palau-Inseln, p. 68, cited by Westermarck op. cit., p. 211.

The marriage customs I shall pass over briefly, as they are similar to those of other tribes under the maternal system, though changes may be noted, such, for instance, as presents in the form of a kind of bride-price being given by the bridegroom to the parents of the bride. This is not a maternal custom, and although half of such presents belongs by right to the girl, it is clearly a form of wife-purchase. Then polygamy is practised, though it is expressly stated to be uncommon.[93] There is now a marriage ceremony. Divorce still remains free, and the conditions are favourable for the wife. Jealousy is said to be prevalent both among the men and the women. The wedding monologue is interesting and indicates the relative position of the female and male members of the family. The salutation is as follows—

[93] Ymer, Vol. IV, p. 333.

"Hei, thou, oh mother; oh grandmothers; oh maternal uncle; oh elder grandmother; oh younger grandfather; oh elder grandfather! As the flesh has fallen the ring has been put on.... You will all of you give ear [the ancestresses and ancestors] you will continue giving strength and spirit that they [the bride and bridegroom] may be well."

There is left an important fact to consider, which explains the persistence of the women's authority under marriage conditions much less favourable than the complete maternal form. The Pelew women have another source of power; their position has an industrial as well as a kinship basis. In this island the people subsist mainly on the produce of their taro fields, and the cultivation of this, their staple food, is carried out by the women alone. And this identification of women with the industrial process has without doubt contributed materially to the predominance of female influence on the social life of the people. Wherever the control over the means of production is in the hands of women, we find them exercising influence and even authority. Among these islanders the women do not merely bestow life on the people, they also work to obtain that which is most essential for the preservation of life, and therefore they are called "mothers of the land."[94] Now, considering this honour paid to the Pelew women, it is clearly impossible to regard their work in cultivating the taro as a sign of their subordinate position in the social order. The facts of primitive life are often mistaken. This is a question to which I shall refer again in a later chapter.

[94] Frazer, op. cit., p. 380.

In the same way among the Pani Kotches, tribes of Bengal, we find the women in a privileged position, due to their greater industrial activity and intelligence.

"It is the women's business to dig the soil, to sow and plant, as well as to spin, weave and brew beer; they refuse no task, and leave only the coarsest labour to the men. The mother of the family marries her daughter at an early age; at the feast of betrothal she dispenses half as much again to the bride as to the bridegroom-elect. As for the grown-up girls and the widows, they know very well how to find husbands; the wealthy never lack partners. The chosen one goes to reside with his mother-in-law, who both reigns and governs, with her daughter for prime minister. If the consort permits himself to incur expenses without special authorisation, he must meet them as best he can. Fathers of families have been known to be sold as slaves, the wives refusing to pay the penalties they incurred. Under these circumstances, it was lawful for them to marry again."[95]

[95] Hodgson, Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1847 (Dalton).

Here, as among the Pelew islanders, special industrial conditions are combined with the maternal system, and as a result we find what may, perhaps, be termed "an economic matriarchy." Another cause of authority, quite as powerful, is the possession by women of inherited property. Among barbarous peoples the importance of this is not so great, but where mother-descent has, for any reason, been maintained up to a time when individual possession has been developed and property is large, we meet with a remarkable "pecuniary matriarchate," based on the women holding the magic power of money.

An example may be found in the interesting Touaregs of the Sahara, a race very far advanced in civilisation, who, even at the present day, have preserved their independence and many of their ancient customs. Among them all relationship is still maternal and confers both rank and inheritance. "The child follows the blood of the mother," and the son of a slave or serf father and a noble woman is noble. "It is the womb which dyes the child," the Touaregs say in their primitive language.[96] All property descends only through the mother, and by means of accumulation the greatest part of the fortune of the community is in the hands of women. This is the real basis of the women's power. "Absolute mistress of her fortune, her actions, and her children, who belong to her and bear her name, the Targui woman goes where she will and exercises a real authority." The unusual position of the wife is significantly indicated by the fact that, although polygamy is permitted by the law, she practically enforces monogamy, for the conditions of divorce are so favourable for a woman that she can at once separate from a husband who attempts to give her a rival. Again the initiative in courtship is taken by the woman, who chooses from her suitors the one whom she herself prefers.[97]

[96] Duveyrier, Touareg du Nord, p. 337 et seq.

[97] Chavanne, Die Sahara, pp. 181, 209, 234.

It is interesting to note that the Targui women know how to read and write in greater numbers than the men. Duveyrier states that to them is due the preservation of the ancient Libyan and Berber writings.[98] "Leaving domestic work to their slaves, the Targui ladies occupy themselves with reading, writing, music and embroidery; they live as intelligent aristocrats."[99] "The ladies of the tribe of Ifoghas, in particular, are renowned for their savoirvivre and their musical talent; they know how to ride mehari better than all their rivals. Secure in their cages, they can ride races with the most intrepid cavaliers, if one may give this name to riders on dromedaries; in order, also, to keep themselves in practice in this kind of riding, they meet to take short trips together, going wherever they like without the escort of any man."[100] In the tribe of Imanan, who are descended from the ancient sultans, the women are given the title Timanokalin, "royal women," on account of their beauty and their talent in the art of music. They often give concerts, to which the men come "from long distances—decked out like male ostriches." In these concerts the women improvise the songs, accompanying themselves on the tambourine and a sort of violin or rebaza. They are much sought after in marriage, because of the title of cherif which they confer on their children.[101]

[98] Ibid., p. 387.

[99] Duveyrier, op. cit., p. 430.

[100] Ibid., p. 362.

[101] Ibid., p. 347.

There is a touch of chivalrous sentiment in the relations between men and women.[102] "If a woman is married," Duveyrier tells us, "she is honoured all the more in proportion to the number of her masculine friends, but she must not show preference to any one of them. The lady may embroider on the cloak, or write on the shield of her chevalier, verses in his praise and wishes for his good fortune. Her friend may, without being censured, cut the name of the lady on the rocks or chant her virtues. 'Friends of different sexes,' say the Touaregs, 'are for the eyes and heart, and not for the bed only, as among the Arabs.'"[103] Letourneau, in quoting these passages from Duveyrier, makes the following comment: "Such customs as these indicate delicate instincts, which are absolutely foreign to the Arabs. They strongly remind us of the times of our southern troubadours and of the cours d'amour, which were the quintessence of chivalry."[104]

[102] Chavanne, op. cit., p. 208 et seq.

[103] Duveyrier, op. cit., p. 429.

[104] Letourneau, The Evolution of Marriage, pp. 180-181.

The foregoing example is exceedingly interesting; it shows women holding the position that as a rule belongs to men, and is thus worthy of most careful study, but at the same time we must guard against according it a general value which it does not possess. Such a case is exceptional, though it by no means stands alone, and the social position of Targui women is analogous to that of the women of ancient Egypt. It is important to note that their great independence arose through the persistence of maternal descent, and could not have been maintained apart from that system, which placed in their hands the strong power of wealth. Here, then, is certain proof of the favourable influence mother-descent may exercise on the status of women. It is because of this I have brought forward this example of the Targui women.

Enough has now been said. I have examined the institution of the maternal family, both in the early communal stage and also under later social conditions, where, in certain cases, mother-descent has been maintained. In all the examples cited I have given the marriage customs and domestic habits of the people as they are testified to by authorities whose records cannot be questioned. Many similar examples, it may be said, might be brought forward from other races, and the proof of mother-right and mother-power greatly strengthened thereby. There is, however, so much similarity in the maternal family, so much correspondence in the marriage forms and social habits prevailing among races widely separated, that the points of difference are little in comparison with those they have in common. My object is not so much to exhaust the subject as to bring into relief the radical differences between the maternal communal clan, with its social life centred around the mothers, and the opposite patriarchal form in which the solitary family is founded on the individual father. I hold that, other conditions being equal, the one system is favourable to the authority of women, the other to the authority of men. The facts which have been cited are, I submit, amply sufficient to support this view.

We have seen that the life of the maternal clan is dependent on the women—and not upon the men; we have noted that the inheritance of the family name and the family property passing through the women adds considerably to their importance, and that daughters are preferred to sons. We have found women the organisers of the households, the guardians of the household stores, and the distributors of food, under a social organisation that may be termed "a communal matriarchy." More important than all else, we have noted the remarkable freedom of women in the sexual relationships; in courtship they are permitted to take the active part; in marriage their position is one of such power that, sometimes, they are able to impose the form of the marriage; in divorce they enjoy equal, and even superior, rights of separation; moreover, they are always the owners and controllers of the children. Nor is the influence of women restricted to the domestic sphere. We have found them the advisers, and in some cases the dictators, in the social organisation under the headmen of the clan. Then we examined the cases in which the women's power has an industrial as well as a kinship basis, and have proved the existence of an "economic matriarchy." And further even than this, we have found women the sole possessors of accumulated wealth, and noted that, under the favourable conditions of such a "pecuniary matriarchy," they are able to obtain a position in learning and the arts excelling that of the men. We have even seen goddesses set above the gods, and women worshipped as deities.

Now I submit to the judgment of my readers—what do these examples of mother-right show, if not that, broadly speaking, women were the dominant force in this stage of the family. No doubt too much importance may be attached to the idea of women ruling. This is an error I have tried to guard against. My aim throughout has been to establish mother-right, not mother-rule. I believe it is only by an extraordinary power of illusion that we can recognise, in the favourable position of women under mother-descent Bachofen's view of an Amazonian gynaecocracy. But this does not weaken at all my position. I maintain that such customs of courtship, marriage and divorce, of property inheritance and possession, and of the domestic and social rights, as those we have seen in the cases examined, afford conclusive proof of women's power in the maternal family. If this is denied, the only conclusion that suggests itself to me is that, those who seek to diminish the power of mother-right have done so in reinforcement of a preconceived idea of the superiority of the man as the natural and unchanging order in the relationships of the sexes. One suspects prejudice here. To approach this question with any fairness, it is absolutely essential to clear the mind from the current theories regarding the family. The order is not sacred in the sense that it has always had the same form. It is this belief in the immutability of our form of marriage and the family which accounts for the prejudice with which this question is approached. The modern civilised man cannot easily accustom himself to the idea that in the maternal family the dominion of the mother was regarded as the natural, and, therefore, the right and accepted order of the family. It is very difficult for us even to believe in a relationship of the mother and the father that is so exactly opposite to that with which we are accustomed.



CHAPTER VIII

MOTHER-RIGHT CUSTOMS AND THE TRANSITION TO FATHER-RIGHT

Endeavour has been made in the previous chapters to present the case for mother-right as clearly and concisely as possible. The point we have now reached is this: while mother-right does not constitute or make necessary rule by women, under that system they enjoy considerable power as the result (1) of their organised position under the maternal marriage among their own clan-kindred, (2) of their importance to the male members of the clan as the transmitters and holders of property.

It is necessary to remember the close connection between these mother-right customs and the communal clan, which was a free association for mutual protection. This is a point of much interest. As we have seen, the undivided family of the clan could be maintained only by descent through the mothers, since its existence depended on its power to retain and protect all its members. In this way it destroyed the solitary family, by its opposition to the authority and will of the husband and father.

These conclusions will be strengthened as we continue our examination of mother-right customs as we shall find them in all parts of the world. I must select a few examples only and describe them very briefly, not because these cases offer less interest than the complete maternal families already examined, but because of the length to which this part of my inquiry is rapidly growing. The essential fact to establish is the prevalence of mother-descent as a probable universal stage in the past history of mankind, and then to show the causes which, by undermining the dominion of the maternal clan, led to the adoption of father-right and the re-establishment of the patriarchal family.

Let us begin with Australia, where the aboriginal population is in a more primitive condition than any other race whose institutions have been investigated. I can notice a few facts only from the harvest of information brought together by anthropologists and travellers. The tribes are grouped into exogamous sub-divisions, and each group has its own land from which it takes a local name. Each group wanders about on its own territory in order to hunt game and collect roots, sometimes in detached families and, less often, in larger hordes, for there seems to be a tendency to local isolation. A remarkable feature of the social organisation is found in the more advanced tribes, where, in addition to the division into clans, the group is divided into male and female classes. All the members of such clans regard themselves as kinsmen, or brothers and sisters; they have the same totem mark and are bound to protect each other. The totem bond is stronger than any blood tie, while the sex totems are even more sacred than the clan totems.

Much confusion has arisen out of the attempts to explain the Australian system; and for long the close totem kinship was supposed to afford evidence of group marriage, by which a man of one clan was held to have sexual rights over all the women in another clan. But further insight into their customs has proved the error of such a view, which arose from a misunderstanding of the terms of relationship used among the tribes. Nowhere is marriage bound by more severe laws; death is the penalty for sexual intercourse with a person of a forbidden clan. And it is certain that there is no evidence at all of communism in wives.[105]

[105] See Westermarck, op. cit., pp. 54-56.

A system of taboos is very strongly established, and as we should expect the women appear to be most active in maintaining these sexual separations. If a man, even by mistake, kills the sex-totem of the women, they are as much enraged as if it were one of their own children, and they will turn and attack him with their long poles.

In Australia it is easy to recognise a very early stage in human society. The organisation of the family group into the clan is still taking place. Moreover, the most primitive patriarchal conditions have not greatly changed, for the males are great individualists and cannot readily suffer the rights of others than themselves. Mother-right can hardly be said to exist, and the position of women is low. It is not the custom among any tribes for the husband to reside in the home of the wife; this in itself is sufficient to explain the power of the husbands. Wives are frequently obtained by capture, and fights for women are of common occurrence. Here it would seem that progress has been very slow. Indeed, it is the chief interest of the Australian tribes that we can trace the transformation from the early patriarchal conditions to the communal clan.

There is still another fact of very special interest. In the large majority of tribes known to us descent is traced through the mother; the proportion of these tribes to those with father-descent being four to one. Now, the question arises as to which of these two systems is the earlier custom? As a rule it is assumed that in all cases descent was originally traced through the mother. But is this really so? The evidence of the Australian tribes points to the exact opposite opinion. For what do we find? The tribes that have established mother-descent have advanced further, with a more developed social organisation, which could hardly be the case if they were the more primitive. To this question Starcke, in The Primitive Family, has drawn particular attention; he regards "the female line as a later development," arrived at after descent through the father was recognised, such change being due to an urgent necessity which arose in the primitive family for cohesion among its members, making necessary sexual regulation and the maternal clan.

It is certainly difficult to decide on the priority of this or that custom. But what is significant is that in Australia the tribes which maintain the male line of descent must be assigned to the lowest stage of development. The rights established by marriage among them are less clearly defined, and the use of the totem marks, with the sexual taboos arising from them, are less developed. Everything tends to show that clan organisation and union in peace have arisen with mother-descent, which cannot thus be regarded as a survival from the earlier order, but as a later development—a step forward in progress and social regulation.

I take this as being exceedingly important: it serves to establish what it has been my purpose to show, that in the first stage the family was patriarchal—small hostile groups living under the jealous authority of the fathers; and that only as advancement came did the maternal clan develop, since it arose through a community of purpose binding all its members in peace, and thereby controlling the warring individual interests. The reasons for mother-descent have been altogether misunderstood by those who regard it as the earliest phase of the family, and connect the custom with sexual disorder and uncertainty of paternity. In all cases the clan system shows a marked organisation, with a much stronger cohesion than is possible in the restricted family, which is held together by the force of the father. It was within the clan that the rights of the father and husband were endangered: he lost his position as supreme head of the family, and became an alien member in a free association where his position was strictly defined. The incorporation of the family into the clan arose through the struggle for existence forcing it into association; it was the subordinate position of the husband under such a system which finally made the women the rulers of the household. If we regard the social conditions of the maternal system as the first stage of development, they are as difficult to understand as they become intelligible when we consider it as a later and beneficent phase in the growth of society.

This, then, I claim as the chief good of the maternal system. As I see it, each advance in progress rests on the conquest of sexual distrusts and fierceness forcing into isolation. These jealous and odious monopolist instincts have been the bane of humanity. Each race must inevitably in the end outlive them; they are the surviving relics of the ape and the tiger. They arise out of that self-concentration and intensity of animalism that binds the hands of men and women from taking their inheritance. The brute in us still resents association. Am I wrong in connecting this individual monopolist idea of My power! My right! with the paternal as opposed to the maternal family? At any rate I find it absent in the communal clan grouped around the mothers, where the enlarged family makes common cause and life is lived by all for and with each other.

An instructive example of the joint maternal family is furnished by the Nairs of Malabar, where we see a very late development of the clan system. The family group includes many allied families, who live together in large communal houses and possess everything in common. There is common tenure of land, over which the eldest male member of the community presides; while the mother, and after her death the eldest daughter, is the ruler in the household. It is impossible to give the details of their curious conjugal customs. The men do not marry, but frequent other houses as lovers, without ceasing to live at home, and without being in any way detached from the maternal family. There is, however, a symbolic marriage for every girl, by a rite known as tying the tali; but this marriage serves the purpose only of initiation, and the couple separate after one day. When thus prepared for marriage, a Nair girl chooses her lovers, and any number of unions may be entered upon without any restrictions other than the strict prohibitions relative to caste and tribe. These later marriages, unlike the solemn initial rite, have no ceremony connected with them, and are entered into freely at the will of the woman and her family.[106]

[106] Starcke's Primitive Family, pp. 85-88. Letourneau, Evolution of Marriage, pp. 80-81, 311-312. Hartland, Primitive Paternity, Vol. I, pp. 269, 288.

Now, if we regard these customs in the light of what has already been established, it is clear that they cannot be regarded as the first stage in the maternal family. Such a view is entirely to mistake the facts. The Nairs are in no respect a people of primitive culture. Through a long period they have most strictly preserved the custom of matriarchal heredity, which has led to an unusual concentration of the family group, and it is probable that here is the best explanation of the conjugal liberty of the Nair girls. However singular their system may appear to us, it is the most logical and complete of any polyandric system. If we compare it with the more usual form of patriarchal polyandry we see at once the influence of maternal descent. Here, the woman makes a free choice of her husbands; in no sense is she their property. It is common for them to work for her, one husband taking on himself to furnish her with clothes, another to give her rice and food, and so on. It is, in fact, the wife who possesses, and it is through her that wealth is transmitted. In fraternal polyandry, on the other hand (as, for instance, it is practised in Thibet and Ceylon), the husbands of a woman are always brothers; she belongs to them, and for her children there is a kind of collective fatherhood. But among the Nairs the man as husband and father cannot be said to exist; he is reduced to the most subordinate role of the male—he is simply the progenitor.

I know of no stronger case than this of the degraded position of the father. And what I want to make clear is that in such negation of all father-right rested the inherent weakness in the matriarchal conditions—a weakness which led eventually to the re-establishment of the paternal family. We must be very clear in our minds as to the sharp distinction between the restricted family and the communal clan. The clan as a confederation of members was opposed to the family whose interests were necessarily personal and selfish. Such communism, to some may appear strange at so early a stage of primitive cultures, yet, as I have more than once pointed out, it was a perfectly natural development; it arose through the fierce struggle for existence, forcing the primitive hostile groups to expand and unite with one another for mutual protection. Such conditions of primitive socialism were specially favourable for women. As I have again and again affirmed, the collective motive was more considered by the mothers, and must be sought in the organisation of the maternal clan. But since individual desires can never be wholly subdued, and the male nature is ever directed towards self-assertion, the clan, organised on the rights of the mothers, had always to contend with an opposing force. At one stage the clan was able to absorb the family, but only under exceptional conditions could such a system be maintained. The social organisation of the clan was inevitably broken up as society advanced. With greater security of life the individual interests reasserted their power, and this undermined the dominion of the mother.

To bring these facts home, we must now consider some further examples of mother-right, in order to show how closely these customs are connected with the conditions of the maternal familiar clan.

The Yaos of Africa have what may be regarded as a matriarchal organisation. Kinship is reckoned and property is inherited through the mother. When a man marries, he is expected to live in his wife's village, and his first conjugal duties are to build a house for her, and hoe a garden for her mother. This gives the woman a very important position, and it is she, and not the man, who usually proposes marriage.[107]

[107] Alice Werner, "Our Subject Races", National Reformer, Aug. 1897, p. 169.

In Africa descent through the mother is the rule, though there are exceptions, and these are increasing. The amusing account given by Miss Kingsley[108] of Joseph, a member of the Batu tribe in French Congo, strikingly illustrates the prevalence of the custom. When asked by a French official to furnish his own name and the name of his father, Joseph was wholly nonplussed. "My fader!" he said. "Who my fader?" Then he gave the name of his mother. The case is the same among the negroes. The Fanti of the Gold Coast may be taken as typical. Among them an intensity of affection (accounted for partly by the fact that the mothers have exclusive care of the children) is felt for the mother, while the father is almost disregarded as a parent, notwithstanding the fact that he may be a wealthy and powerful man. The practice of the Wamoimia, where the son of a sister is preferred in legacies, "because a man's own son is only the son of his wife," is typical. The Bush husband does not live with his wife, and often has wives in different places.[109]

[108] Travels, p. 109.

[109] Lippert, Kulturgeschichte, etc., Vol. II, p. 57. Hartland, Primitive Paternity, Vol. I, pp. 274, 286.

In Africa the clan system is firmly established, which explains the prevalence of mother-descent. Women, on the whole, take an important position, and here, as elsewhere, their inheritance of property enables them to maintain their equality with their husbands. Individual possession of wealth is allowed, but a married man usually cannot dispose of any property unless his wife agrees, and she acts as the representative of the children's claims upon the father. The privilege that, according to Laing, the Soulima women have, of leaving their husbands when they please, is also proof of the maternal customs.[110] Moreover, among some tribes, the influence of the mothers as the heads of families extends to the councils of state; it is even said that the chiefs do not decide anything without their consent.[111]

[110] Letourneau, pp. 306-307; citing Laing, Travels in Western Africa.

[111] Giraud-Teulon, Les origines du mariage et de la famille, pp. 215 et seq.

Mother-right is still in force in many parts of India, though owing to the influence of Brahminism on the aboriginal tribes the examples of the maternal family are fewer than might be expected. Among the once powerful Koochs the women own all the property, which is inherited from mother to daughter. The husband lives with his wife and her mother, and, we are told, is subject to them. These women are most industrious, weaving, spinning, planting and sowing, in a word, doing all the work not above their strength.[112] The Koochs may be compared with the Khasis, already noticed, and these maternal systems among the Indian hill tribes may surely be regarded as showing conditions at one time common. Even tribes who have passed from the clan organisation to the patriarchal family preserve numerous traces of mother-right. Thus, the choice of her lover often remains with the girl; again, divorce is easy at the wish either of the woman or the man.[113] Such freedom in love is clearly inconsistent with the patriarchal authority of the husband. I must note too the practice, common among many tribes, by which the husband remains in the wife's home for a probationary period, working for her family.[114] This is clearly a step towards purchase marriage, as is proved by the Santals, where this service is claimed when a girl is ugly or deformed and cannot be married otherwise, while other tribes offer their daughters when in want of labourers. This service-marriage must not be confused with the true maternal form, where the bridegroom visits or lives with the wife and any service claimed is a test of his fitness; it shows, however, the power of the woman's kindred still curbing the rights of the husband.

[112] Hodgson, Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1855, Vol. XVIII, p. 707, cited by Starcke, op. cit., pp. 79, 285.

[113] Hartland, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 155-157.

[114] This custom prevails, for instance, among the Kharwars and Parahiya tribes, and is common among the Ghasiyas, and is also practised among the Tipperah of Bengal.

The existence of mother-descent among the peoples of Western Asia has been ascertained with regard to some ancient tribes; but I may pass these over, as they offer no points of special interest. I must, however, refer briefly to the evidence brought forward by the late Prof. Robertson Smith[115] of mother-right in ancient Arabia. We find a decisive example of its favourable influence on the position of women in the custom of beena marriage. Under this maternal form, the wife was not only freed from any subjection involved by the payment of a bride-price in the form of compulsory service or of gifts to her kindred (which always places her more or less under authority), but she was the owner of the tent and the household property, and thus enjoyed the liberty which ownership always entails. This explains how she was able to free herself at pleasure from her husband, who was really nothing but a temporary lover. Ibn Batua, even in the fourteenth century found that the women of Zebid were perfectly ready to marry strangers. The husband might depart when he pleased, but his wife in that case could never be induced to follow him. She bade him a friendly adieu and took upon herself the whole charge of any children of the marriage. The women in Jahiliya had the right to dismiss their husbands, and the form of dismissal was this: "If they lived in a tent they turned it round, so that if the door faced east it now faced west, and when the man saw this, he knew he was dismissed and did not enter." The tent belonged to the woman: the husband was received there, and at her good pleasure. We find many cases of beena marriage among widely different peoples. Frazer[116] cites an interesting example among the tribes on the north frontier of Abyssinia, partially Semitic peoples, not yet under the influence of Islam, who preserve a maternal marriage closely resembling the beena form, but have as well a purchase marriage, by which a wife is acquired by the payment of a bride-price and becomes the property of her husband.

[115] Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia. See also Barton, Semitic Origins.

[116] Academy, March 27, 1886.

A very curious form of conjugal contract is recorded among the Hassanyeh Arabs of the White Nile, where the wife passed by contract for a portion of her time only under the authority of her husband. It illustrates in a striking way the conflict in marriage between the old rights of the woman and the rising power of the husband.

"When the parents of the man and the woman meet to settle the price of the woman, the price depends on how many days in the week the marriage tie is to be strictly observed. The woman's mother first of all proposes that, taking everything into consideration, with due regard to the feelings of the family, she could not think of binding her daughter to a due observance of that chastity which matrimony is expected to command for more than two days in the week. After a great deal of apparently angry discussion, and the promise on the part of the relations of the man to pay more, it is arranged that the marriage shall hold good, as is customary among the first families of the tribe, for four days in the week, viz. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and in compliance with old established custom, the marriage rites during the three remaining days shall not be insisted on, during which days the bride shall be perfectly free to act as she may think proper, either by adhering to her husband and home, or by enjoying her freedom and independence from all observance of matrimonial obligations."[117]

[117] Spencer, Descriptive Sociology, Vol. V, p. 8, citing Petherick, Egypt, the Soudan, and Central Africa, pp. 140-141.

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

"Even when the man had contributed an equal share of property on marriage, the wife dictated everything, and the man could undertake nothing without her approval; but if the woman committed an offence, the man was held responsible and suffered the punishment. The women could speak in the assembly; they held property, and if a woman asked anything of a man, he gave it up without a murmur. If a wife was unfaithful, the husband could send her home, keep her property, and kill the adulterer; but if the man was guilty or even suspected of the same offence, the women of the neighbourhood destroyed his house and all his visible property, and the owner was fortunate if he escaped with a whole skin; and if the wife was not pleased with her husband, she withdrew, and a similar attack followed. On this account many men were not married, preferring to live with paid women."[118]

[118] Thomas, Sex and Society, pp. 73-74, quoting Waitz-Gerland.

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

"It was customary, however, for a man to buy and take to wife a slave, a friendless person with whom he could deal at pleasure, who had no kindred who could interfere with her, and to consecrate her to his Bossum, or god. The Bossum wife, slave as she had been, ranked next to the chief wife, and was exceptionally treated. She alone was very jealously guarded, she alone was sacrificed at her husband's death. She was, in fact, wife in a peculiar sense. And having by consecration been made of the kindred and worship of her husband her children could be born of his kindred and worship."[119]

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

It will be readily seen that the special rights held by the husband over these captive-wives would come to be greatly desired. But the capture of women was always difficult, as it frequently led to quarrels and even warfare with the woman's tribe, and for this reason was never widely practised. It would therefore be necessary for another way of escape from the bonds of the maternal marriage to be found. This was done by a system of buying the wife from her clan-kindred, in which case she became the property of her husband.

The change did not, of course, take place at once, and we have many examples of a transition period where the old customs are in conflict with the new. Both forms of marriage, the maternal and the purchase contract, are practised side by side by many peoples. These cases are so instructive that I must add one or two examples to those already noticed. The ambel-anak marriage of Sumatra is the maternal form, but there is another marriage known as djudur, by which a man buys his wife as his absolute property. There is a complicated system of payments, on which the husband's rights to take the wife to his home depends. If the final sum is paid (but this is not commonly claimed except in the case of a quarrel between the families) the woman becomes to all intents and purposes the slave of the man; but if, on the other hand, as is not at all uncommon, the husband fails or has difficulty in making the main payment, he becomes the debtor of his wife's family, and he is practically the slave, all his labour being due to his wife's family without any reduction in the debt, which must be paid in full, before he regains his liberty.[120] In Ceylon, again, there are two forms of marriage, called beena and deega, which cause a marked difference in the position of the wife. A woman married under the beena form lives in the house or immediate neighbourhood of her parents, and if so married she has the right of inheritance along with her brothers; but if married in deega she goes to live in her husband's house and village and loses her rights in her own family.[121]

[120] Marsden, History of Sumatra, pp. 225-227.

[121] Forbes, Eleven Years in Ceylon, Vol. I, p. 333.

In Africa where the beena maternal marriage is usual, and the husband serves for his wife and lives with her family, it is said that families are usually more or less willing for value received to give a woman to a man to take away with him, or to let him have his beena wife to transfer to his own house. Among the Wayao and Mang'anja of the Shirehighlands, south of Lake Nyassa, a man on marrying leaves his own village and goes to live in that of his wife; but, as an alternative, he is allowed to pay a bride-price, in which case he takes his wife away to his home.[122] Again among the Banyai on the Zambesi, if the husband gives nothing the children of the marriage belong to the wife's family, but if he gives so many cattle to his wife's parents the children are his.[123] Similar cases may be found elsewhere. In the Watubela Islands between New Guinea and Celebes a man may either pay for his wife before marriage, or he may, without paying, live as her husband in her parents' house, working for her. In the former case, the children belong to him, in the latter to the mother's family, but he may buy them subsequently at a price.[124] Campbell records of the Limboo tribe (where the bride is usually purchased and lives with the husband), that if poverty compels the bridegroom to serve for his wife, he becomes the slave of her father, "until by his work he has redeemed his bride."[125] An interesting case occurs in some Californian tribes where the husband has to live with the wife and work, until he has paid to her kindred the full price for her and her child. So far has custom advanced in favour of father-right that the children of a wife not paid for are regarded as bastards and held in contempt.[126]

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

[123] Livingstone, Travels, p. 622.

[124] Riedel, p. 205; cited by McLennan, Patriarchal Theory, p. 326.

[125] Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. IX, p. 603.

[126] Bancroft, Vol. I, p. 549.

Wherever we find the payment of a bride-price, in whatever form, there is sure indication of the decay of mother-right: woman has become property. Among the Bassa Komo of Nigeria marriage is usually effected by an exchange of sisters or other female relatives. The men may marry as many wives as they have women to give to other men. In this tribe the women look after the children, but the boys, when four years old, go to live and work with the fathers.[127] The husbands of the Bambala tribe (inhabiting the Congo states between the rivers Inzia and Kwilu) have to abstain from visiting their wives for a year after the birth of each child, but they are allowed to return to her on the payment to her father of two goats.[128] Among the Bassanga on the south-west of Lake Moeru the children of the wife belong to the mother's kin, but the children of slaves are the property of the father.

[127] Journal African Society, VIII, 15 et seq.

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

The right of a father to his children was established only by contract. Even where the wife had been given up by her kindred and allowed to live with her husband, we find that the children may be claimed by her family. Thus among the Makolo the price paid on marriage might merely cover the right to have the wife, and in this case the children belonged to the wife's family. It might, however, cover a certain right to the children if that had been contracted for, but never such a right as separated them wholly from the mother's family. To effect this it was necessary that a further price should be paid at the father's death. This sum once paid, her family had "given her up" and her children were entirely severed from them.[129] The legal acknowledgment of fatherhood in all cases had to be paid for.

[129] McLennan, The Patriarchal Theory, pp. 324-325, 240.

There are many customs pointing to this new father-force asserting itself, and pushing aside the mother-power. In Africa, among the Bavili the mother has the right to pawn her child, but she must first consult the father, so that he may have a chance of giving her goods to save the pledging.[130] This is very plainly a step towards father-right. There is no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children. Similar conditions prevail among the Alladians of the Ivory Coast, but here the mother cannot pledge her children without the consent of her brother or other male head of the family. The father has the right to ransom the child.[131] An even stronger example of the property value of children is furnished by the custom found among many tribes, by which the father has to make a present to the wife's family when a child dies: this is called "buying the child."[132] A similar custom prevails among the Maori people of New Zealand; when a child dies, or even meets with an accident, the mother's relations, headed by her brothers, turn out in force against the father. He must defend himself until wounded. Blood once drawn, the combat ceases; but the attacking party plunders his house and appropriates the husband's property, and finally sits down to a feast provided by him.[133]

[130] Dennett, Jour. Afr. Soc., I, 266.

[131] Jour. Afr. Soc., I, 412.

[132] Hartland, Primitive Paternity, Vol. I, pp. 275 et seq.

[133] Old New Zealand, p. 110.

These cases, with the inferences they suggest, show that the power a husband and father possessed over his wife and her children was gained through purchase. And it is not the fact of the husband's power, however great it might be, that is so important, but the fact that by the change in the form of marriage the wife and her children were cut off from the woman's clan-kindred, whose duty to protect them was now withdrawn. Here, then, was the reason of the change from mother-right to father-right. The monopolist desire of the husband to possess for himself the woman and her children (perhaps the deepest rooted of all the instincts) reasserted itself. But the regaining of this individual possession by man was due, not to male strength, but to purchase. I must insist upon this. As soon as women became sexually marketable their freedom was doomed.

There are many interesting cases of transition in which the children belong sometimes to the mother and sometimes to the father. Again I can give one or two examples only. In the island of Mangia the parents at the birth of the child arranged between themselves whether it should be dedicated to the father's god or to the mother's. The dedication took place forthwith, and finally determined which parent had the ownership of the child.[134] Among the Haidis, children belong to the clan of the mother, but in exceptional cases when the clan of the father is reduced in numbers, the new-born child may be given to the father's sister to suckle. It is then spoken of as belonging to the paternal aunt and is counted to its father's clan.[135] It is also possible to transfer a child to the father by giving it one of the names common to his clan. There are many curious customs practised by certain tribes, wavering between mother and father descent. In Samoa religion decides the question. At the birth of a child the totem of each parent is prayed to in turn (usually, though not always, starting with that of the father) and whichever totem happens to be invoked at the moment of birth is the child's totem for life and decides whether he or she belongs to the clan of the mother or the father.[136] Equally curious was the custom of the Liburni, where the children were all brought up together until they were five years old. They were then collected and examined in order to trace their likeness to the men and they were assigned to their fathers accordingly. Whoever received a boy from his mother in this way regarded him as his son.[137] Similarly with the Arabs, where one woman was the wife of several men, the custom was either for the woman to decide to which of them the child was to belong, or the child was assigned by an expert to one of the joint husbands to be regarded as his own.[138]

[134] McLennan, The Patriarchal Theory.

[135] Survey of Canada, Report for 1878-79, 134 B. Cited by Frazer, Totemism, p. 76.

[136] Turner, Samoa, p. 78.

[137] Das Mutterrecht, p. 20, quoted by Starcke, op. cit., pp. 126-127.

[138] Wilken, Das Matriarchat bei den alten Arabern, p. 26.

These facts throw a strong light on the bond between the father and the child, which was a legal bond, not dependent, as it is with us, upon blood relationship. Fatherhood really arose out of the ownership of purchase. And for this reason the father's right came to extend to all the children of the wife. It does not appear that the husband makes any distinction between his wife's children, even if they were begotten by other men. Chastity is not regarded as a virtue, and in those cases where unfaithfulness in a wife is punished, it is always because the woman, who has passed from the protection of her kindred, acts without her husband's permission. Interchange of wives is common, while it is one of the duties of hospitality to offer a wife to a stranger guest. Husbands sometimes, indeed, seek other men for their wives, believing they will obtain sons who will excel all others. Thus of the Arabs we are told, there is one form of marriage according to which a man says to his wife, "Send a message to such a one and beg him to have intercourse with you." The husband acts in this way in order that his offspring may be noble.[139] When a Hindu marries, all the children previously born from his wife become his own; in Pakpatan, even when a woman has forsaken her husband for ten years, the children she brings forth are divided between her and her lover.[140] Similarly in Madagascar, when a woman is divorced, any children she afterwards bears belong to her husband.[141] Campbell tells us of children born out of wedlock in the Limboo tribe that the father may obtain possession of the boys by purchase and by naming them, but the girls belong to the mother.[142]

[139] Wilken, op. cit., p. 26.

[140] Wade, Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. VI, p. 196.

[141] See Truth about Woman, pp. 160-161, for account of Madagascar.

[142] Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. IX, p. 603.

I am very certain that it was through property considerations and for no moral causes that the stringency of the moral code was tightened for women. It seems to me of very great importance that women should grasp firmly this truth: the virtue of chastity owes its origin to property. Our minds fall so readily under the spell of such ideas as chastity and purity. There is a mass of real superstition on this question—a belief in a kind of magic in chastity. But, indeed, continence had at first no connection with morals. The sense of ownership has been the seed-plot of our moral code. To it we are indebted for the first germs of the sexual inhibitions which, sanctified, by religion and supported by custom, have, under the unreasoned idealism of the common mind, filled life with cruelties and jealous exclusions, with suicides, and murders, and secret shames.[143]

[143] This passage is quoted from The Truth about Woman, p. 171. I give it here, because its importance seems to me to be very great.

This brings me to summarise the point we have reached. Father-right was dependent on purchase-possession and had nothing to do with actual fatherhood. The payment of a bride-price, the giving of a sister in exchange, as also marriage with a slave, gained for the husband the control over his wife and ownership of the children. I could bring forward much more evidence in proof of this fact that property, and not kinship, was the basis of fatherhood, did the limits of my space allow me to do so; such cases are common in all parts of the world where the transitional stage has been reached. The maternal clan, with its strong social cohesion is then broken up by the growing power of individual interests pushing aside the old customs, and bringing about the restoration of the family. I believe that the causes by which the father gained his position as the dominant partner in marriage must be clear to every one from the examples I have given. Fatherhood established in the first stage of the family on jealous authority, now, after a period of more or less complete obscuration, rises again as the dominant force in marriage. The father has bought back his position as patriarch. On the other hand the mother has lost her freedom that came with the protection of her kindred, under the social organisation of the clan. Looking back through the lengthening record, we find that another step has been taken in the history of the family. This time is it a step forward, or a step backward? This is a question I shall not try to answer, for, indeed, I am not sure.

Yet in case I am mistaken here, let me say at once I am certain that this return to the restricted family was a necessary and inevitable step. The individual forces had to triumph. This may seem a contradiction to all I have just said. What I wish to show is this: one and all the phases in the development of society have been needful and fruitful as successive stages in growth; yet none can continue—none be regarded as the final stage, for each becomes insufficient and narrow from the standpoint of the needs of a later stage. We have reached the third stage—the patriarchal family which still endures. And last and hardest to eradicate is that monopoly of sexual possession, which says: "This woman and her children are mine: I have tabooed her for life." Mankind has still to outlive this brute instinct in its upward way to civilisation.



CHAPTER IX

WOMEN AND PRIMITIVE INDUSTRY

I have referred in an earlier chapter to a letter from Mr. H. G. Wells, sent to me after the publication of my book, The Truth about Woman. Now, there is one sentence in this letter that I wish to quote here, because it brings home just what it is my purpose in this chapter to show—that the mother-age was a civilisation owing its institutions, and its early victories over nature, rather to the genius of woman than to that of man. Mr. Wells does not, indeed, say this. He rejects the mother-age, and in questioning my acceptance of it as a stage in the past histories of societies, he writes: "The primitive matriarchate never was anything more than mother at the washing-tub and father looking miserable."

It seems to me that here, in his own inimitable way, Mr. Wells (though I think quite unconsciously) sums up the past labour-history of woman and man. His statement has very far-reaching considerations. It forces us to accept the active utility of primitive woman in the community—a utility more developed and practical than that of man. This was really the basis of women's position of power. The constructive quality of the female mind, at a time when the male attention and energy were fixed chiefly on the destructive activities of warfare, was liberated for use and invention. Women were the seekers, slowly increasing their efficiency.

Very much the same account of the primitive sexual division in work was given by an Australian Kurnai to Messrs. Fison and Howitt, in a sentence that has been quoted very frequently: "A man hunts, spears fish, fights and sits about, all the rest is woman's work." This may be accepted as a fair statement of how work is divided between the two sexes among primitive peoples. Now, what I wish to make plain is that it was an arrangement in which the advantage was really on the side of the woman rather than on that of the man. I would refer the reader back to what has been said on this subject in Chapter III, where I summed up the conditions acting on the women in the hypothetical first stage of the primordial family. We saw that the males were chiefly concerned with the absorbing duties of sex and fighting rivals, and also hunting for game. The women's interest, on the other hand, was bent on domestic activities—in caring for their children and developing the food supplies immediately around them. From the hearth-home, or shelter, as the start of settled life, and with their intelligence sharpened by the keen chisel of necessity, women carried on their work as the organisers and directors of industrial occupations. Very slowly did they make each far-reaching discovery; seeds cast into the ground sprouted and gave the first start of agriculture. The plant world gave women the best returns for the efforts they made, and they began to store up food. Contrivance followed contrivance, each one making it possible for women to do more. Certain animals, possibly brought back by the hunters from the forests, were kept and tamed. Presently the use of fire was discovered—we know not how—but women became the guardians of this source of life. And now, instead of caves or tree-shelters, there were huts and tents and houses, and of these, too, women were frequently the builders. The home from the first was of greater importance to the women; it was the place where the errant males rejoined their wives and children, and hence the women became the owners of the homes and the heads of households. For as yet the men were occupied in fighting. The clumsy and the stupid among them were killed soonest; the fine hand, the quick eye—these prevailed age by age. Tools and weapons were doubtless fashioned by these fighters, but for destruction; the male's attention was directed mainly by his own desires. And may we not accept that among the most pressing activities of women was the need to tame man and make him social, so that he could endure the rights of others than himself?

So through the long generations the life of human societies continued. Those activities, due to female influence, developing and opening up new ways in all directions, until we have that early civilisation, which I have called the mother-age.

All the world over, even to this day, this separation in the labour activities of the two sexes can be traced. Destructive work, demanding a special development of strength, with corresponding periods of rest, falls to men; and contrasted with this violent and intermittent male force we find, with the same uniformity, that the work of women is domestic and constructive, being connected with the care of children and all the various industries which radiate from the home—work demanding a different kind of strength, more enduring, more continuous, but at a lower tension.

Bonwick's account of the work of Tasmanian women may be taken as typical—

"In addition to the necessary duty of looking after the children, the women had to provide all the food for the household excepting that derived from the chase of the kangaroo. They climbed up hills for the opossum" (a very difficult task, requiring great strength and also skill), "delved in the ground for yams, native bread, and nutritious roots, groped about the rocks for shellfish, dived beneath the sea for oysters, and fished for the finny tribe. In addition to this, they carried, on their frequent tramps, the household stuffs in native baskets of their own manufacture."[144]

[144] Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians, p. 55.

Among the Indians of Guiana the men's work is to hunt, and to cut down the trees when the cassava is to be planted. When the men have felled the trees and cleaned the ground, the women plant the cassava and undertake all the subsequent operations; agriculture is entirely in their hands. They are little, if at all, weaker than the men, and they work all day while the men are often in their hammocks smoking; but there is no cruelty or oppression exercised by the men towards the women.[145]

[145] Everard im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana.

In Africa we meet with much the same conditions of labour. "The work is done chiefly by the women, this is universal; they hoe the fields, sow the seed, and reap the harvest. To them, too, falls all the labour of house-building, grinding corn, brewing beer, cooking, washing, and caring for almost all the material interests of the community. The men tend the cattle, hunt, go to war; they also spend much time sitting in council over the conduct of affairs."[146]

[146] Macdonald, "East Central African Customs," Journal Anthropological Institute, Feb. 1890, p. 342.

I may note the interesting account of Prof. Haddon[147] of the work of the Western Tribes of the Torres Straits—

[147] Journal Anthropological Institute, Feb. 1890, p. 342.

"The men fished, fought, built houses, did a little gardening, made fish-lines, fish-hooks, spears, and other implements, constructed dance-masks and head-dresses, and all the paraphernalia for the various ceremonies and dances. They performed all the rites and dances, and in addition did a good deal of strutting up and down, loafing and 'yarning.' The women cooked and prepared the food, did most of the gardening, collected shell-fish, and speared fish on the reefs, made petticoats, baskets and mats."

Similar examples might be almost indefinitely multiplied. Among the Andamanese, while the men go into the jungle to hunt pigs, the women fetch drinking water and firewood, catch shell-fish, make fishing nets and baskets, spin thread, and cook the food ready for the return of the men.[148] The Moki women of America have fifty ways of preparing corn for food. They make all the preparations necessary for these varied dishes, involving the arts of the stonecutter, the carrier, the mason, the miller and the cook.[149] In New Caledonia "girls work in the plantations, boys learn to fight."[150]

[148] Owen, Transactions of the Ethnological Society, New Series, Vol. II, p. 36.

[149] Mason, Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, p. 143.

[150] Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 424.

We should, however, fall into a popular error concerning the division of labour in savagery, if we consider that all women's work is regarded as degrading to men and all men's work is tabooed to women. The duties of war and the chase are the chief occupation of men, yet in all parts of the world women have fought at need, and sometimes habitually, both to assist their men and also against them. Thus Buckley, who lived for many years among the Australian tribes, relates that when the tribe he lived with was attacked by a hostile party, the men "raised a war-cry; on hearing this the women threw off their rugs and, each armed with a short club, flew to the assistance of their husbands and brothers."[151] In Central Australia the men occasionally beat the women through jealousy, but on such occasions it is by no means rare for the women, single handed, to beat the men severely.[152] Again, men carry on, as a rule, the negotiations on tribal concerns, but in such matters exceptions are very numerous. Among the Australian Dieyerie, Curr states that the women act as ambassadors to arrange treaties, and invariably succeed in their mission.[153] The same conditions are found among the American Indians. Men are the hunters and fishers, but women also hunt and fish. Among the Yahgan of Tierra del Fuego fishing is left entirely to the women,[154] and this is not at all unusual. Mrs. Allison states of the Similkameen Indians of British Columbia that formerly "the women were nearly as good hunters as the men," but being sensitive to the ridicule of the white settlers, they have given up hunting.[155] In hunting trips, the help of women is often not to be despised. Warburton Pike writes thus: "I saw what an advantage it is to take women on a hunting trip. If we killed anything, we had only to cut up and cache the meat, and the women would carry it. On returning to camp we could throw ourselves down on a pile of caribou skins and smoke our pipes in comfort, but the women's work was never finished."[156] This account is very suggestive. The man undergoes the fatigue of hunting, and when he has thrown the game at the woman's feet his part is done; it is her duty to carry it and to cook it, as well as to make the vessels in which the food is placed. The skins and the refuse are hers to utilise, and all the industries connected with clothing are chiefly in her hands.[157] Hearne, in his delightful old narrative, speaks of the assistance of women on hunting expeditions—

"For when all the men are heavy laden they can neither hunt nor travel to any considerable distance; and in case they meet with any success in hunting, who is to carry the produce of their labour?"

[151] Life and Adventures of William Buckley, p. 43.

[152] Journal Anthropological Institute, Aug. 1890, p. 61.

[153] Australian Races, cited by Ellis, Man and Woman, p. 9 note.

[154] Haydes et Deniker, Mission Scientifique de Cape Horn, tome vii, 1891.

[155] Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Feb. 1892, p. 307.

[156] Warburton Pike, Barren Grounds, p. 75.

[157] Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman, p. 5.

He adds with a charming frankness—

"Women were made for labour; one of them can carry or haul as much as two men can do. They also pitch our tents, make and mend our clothing, keep us warm at night, and, in fact, there is no such thing as travelling any considerable distance, or any length of time, in this country without their assistance."[158]

[158] A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort to the Northern Ocean, p. 55.

Numerous other examples might be added which illustrate how women take part in the destructive work of men; conversely we find not a few cases of the co-operation of men in the women's activities. The world over, women are usually the weavers and spinners; but with the Navajo and in some of the Pueblos the men are among the best weavers.[159] Among the Indians of Guiana the men are specially skilful in basket-weaving, and here also they as well as the women spin and weave.[160] More curious is the custom in East Africa where all the sewing for their own and the women's garments is done by the men, and very well done. Sewing is here so entirely recognised as men's work that a wife may obtain a divorce if she "can show a neglected rend in her petticoat."[161]

[159] Mason, op. cit., p. 10.

[160] Im Thurn, Among the Indians of British Guiana.

[161] Macdonald, Journal Anthropological Institute, Aug. 1892.

It is a common mistake, arising from insufficient knowledge, to suppose that savage women are specially subject to oppression. Their life is hard as we look at it, but not as they look at it. We have still much to learn on these matters. An even greater error is the view that these women are a source of weakness to the male members of their families. The very reverse is the truth. Primitive women are strong in body and capable in work. Fison and Howitt, in discussing this question, state of the Australian women, "In times of peace, they are the hardest workers and the most useful members of the community." And in times of war, "they are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves at all times, and so far from being an encumbrance on the warriors, they will fight, if need be, as bravely as the men, and with even greater ferocity."[162] This is no exceptional case. The strength of savage women is proved by reports from widely different races, of which all testify to their physical capability and aptness for labour. Schellong,[163] who has carefully studied the Papuans of the German protectorate of New Guinea, from the anthropological point of view, "considers that the women are more strongly built than the men." Nor does heavy work appear to damage the health or beauty of the women, but the contrary. Thus among the Andombies on the Congo, to give one instance, the women, though working very hard as carriers, and as labourers in general, lead an entirely happy existence; they are often stronger than the men and more finely developed: some of them, we are told, have really splendid figures. And Parke, speaking of the Manyuema of the Arruwimi in the same region, says that "they are fine animals, and the women very handsome; they carry loads as heavy as those of the men and do it quite as well."[164] Again, McGee[165] comments on the extraordinary capacity of quite aged women for heavy labour. He tells of "a withered crone, weighing apparently not more than 80 to 90 lb. who carried a kilio containing a stone mortar 196 lb. in weight for more than half a mile on a sandy road without any perceptible exhaustion. The proportion of the active aged is much larger than among civilised people."

[162] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 133, 147.

[163] Cited by Ellis, Man and Woman, p. 4.

[164] H. H. Johnston, The Kilimanjaro Expedition; Parke, Experiences in Equatorial Africa. These examples are cited by Ellis.

[165] "The Beginnings of Agriculture," American Anthropologist, Oct. 1895, p. 37.

I may pause to note some of the numerous industries of which women were the originators. First of all, woman is the food-giver; all the labours relating to the preparation of food, and to the utilisation of the side products of foodstuffs are usually found in the hands of women. Women are everywhere the primitive agriculturists. They beat out the seeds from plants; dig for roots and tubers, strain the poisonous juices from the cassava and make bread from the residue; and it was under their attention that a southern grass was first developed into what we know as Indian corn.[166] The removal of poisonous matter from tapioca by means of hot water is also the discovery of savage women.[167] All the evolution of primitive agriculture may be traced to women's industry. Power tells of the Yokia women in Central California who employ neither plough nor hoe, but cultivate the ground by digging the earth deep and rubbing it fine with their hands, and by this means they get an excellent yield.[168] Women have everywhere been the first potters; vessels were needed for use in cooking, to carry and to hold water, and to store the supplies of food. For the same reason baskets were woven. Women invented and exercised in common multifarious household occupations and industries. Curing food, tanning the hides of animals, spinning, weaving, dyeing—all are carried on by women. The domestication of animals is usually in women's hands. They are also the primitive architects; the hut, in widely different parts of the world—among Kaffirs, Fuegians, Polynesians, Kamtschatdals—is built by women. We have seen that the communal houses of the American Indians are mainly erected by the women. Women were frequently, though not always, the primitive doctors. Among the Kurds, for instance, all the medical knowledge is in the hands of the women, who are the hereditary hakims.[169] Women seem to have prepared the first intoxicating liquors. The Quissama women in Angola climb the gigantic palm trees to obtain palm-beer.[170] In the ancient legends of the North, women are clearly represented as the discoverers of ale.[171]

[166] Thomas, Sex and Society, p. 136.

[167] Mason, op. cit. p. 24.

[168] Cont. North American Ethnology, Vol. III, p. 167.

[169] Mrs. Bishop, Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, cited by H. Ellis, op. cit., p. 6.

[170] Jour. Anthrop. Inst., Vol. I, p. 190.

[171] "Magic Songs of the Finns," Folk-lore, Mar. 1892.

It would be easy to go on almost indefinitely multiplying examples of the industries of primitive women. There can be no doubt at all that their work is exacting and incessant; it is also inventive in its variety and its ready application to the practical needs of life. If a catalogue of the primitive forms of labour were made, each woman would be found doing at least half-a-dozen things while a man did one. We may accept the statement of Prof. Mason that in the early history of mankind "women were the industrial, elaborative, conservative half of society. All the peaceful arts of to-day were once women's peculiar province. Along the lines of industrialism she was pioneer, inventor, author, originator."[172]

[172] American Antiquarian, Jan. 1899.

There is another matter that must be noted. The primitive division of labour between the sexes was not in any sense an arrangement dictated by men, nor did they impose the women's tasks upon them. The view that the women are forced to work by the laziness of the men, and that their heavy and incessant labour is a proof of their degraded position is entirely out of focus. Quite the reverse is the truth. Evidence is not wanting of the great advantage arising to women from their close connection with labour. It was largely their control over the food supply and their position as actual producers which gave them so much influence, and even authority in the mother-age. In this connection I may quote the statement of Miss Werner about the African women as representing the true conditions—

"I cannot say that, so far as my own observations went, the women's lot seemed to be a specially hard one. In fact, they are too important an element in the community not to be treated with consideration. The fact that they do most of the heavy field-work does not imply that they are a down-trodden sex. On the contrary, it gives them a considerable pull, as a man will think twice before endangering his food supply."[173]

[173] "Our Subject Races," The Reformer, April 1897, p. 43.

Mr. Horatio Hale, a well-known American anthropologist likewise observes—

"The common opinion that women among savage tribes in general are treated with harshness, and regarded as slaves, or at least as inferiors, is, like many common opinions, based on error, originating in too large and indiscriminate deduction from narrow premises.... The wife of a Samoan landowner or Navajo shepherd has no occasion, so far as her position in her family or among her people, to envy the wife of a German peasant."[174]

[174] Journal Anthropological Institute, May 1892, p. 427, cited by H. Ellis.

Certainly savage women do not count their work as any degradation. There is really an equal division of labour between the sexes, though the work of the men is accomplished more fitfully than that of the women. The militant activities of fighting and hunting are essential in primitive life. The women know this, and they do their share—the industrial share, willingly, without question, and without compulsion. It is entirely absurd in this work-connection to regard men as the oppressors of women. Rather the advantage is on the women's side. For one thing, just because they are accustomed to hard labour all their lives, they are little, if any, weaker than men. Primitive women are strong in body, and capable in work. The powers they enjoy as well as their manifold activities are the result of their position as mothers, this function being to them a source of strength and not a plea of weakness.

"They who are accustomed to the ways of civilised women only," remarks Mr. Fison, "can hardly believe what savage women are capable of, even when they may well be supposed to be at their weakest. For instance, an Australian tribe on the march scarcely take the trouble to halt for so slight a performance as childbirth. The newly born infant is wrapped in skins, the march is resumed, and the mother trudges on with the rest. Moreover, as is well known, among many tribes elsewhere it is the father who is put to bed, while the mother goes about her work as if nothing had happened."[175]

[175] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 358.

Another important advantage arising to women, through their identification with the early industrial process, was their position as the first property owners. They were almost the sole creators of ownership in land, and held in this respect a position of great power. This explains the fact that in the transactions of the North American tribes with the Colonial Government many deeds of assignment bear female signatures.[176] A form of divorce used by a husband in ancient Arabia was: "Begone, for I will no longer drive thy flocks to pasture."[177] In almost all cases the household goods belonged to the woman. The stores of roots and berries laid up for a time of scarcity were the property of the wife, and the husband would not touch them without her permission. In many cases such property was very extensive. Among the Menomini Indians, for instance, a woman of good circumstances would own as many as 1200 to 1500 birch-bark vessels.[178] In the New Mexico Pueblos what comes from the outside of the house as soon as it is inside is put under the immediate control of the women. Bandelier, in his report of his tour in Mexico, tells us that "his host at Cochiti, New Mexico, could not sell an ear of corn or a string of chili without the consent of his fourteen-year-old daughter, Ignacia, who kept house for her widowed father."[179]

[176] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, p. 130.

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

[178] Hoffman, "The Menomini Indians," Fourteenth Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, p. 288.

[179] Papers of the Archaeological Institute of America, Vol. II, p. 138.

I must now bring this brief chapter to a close. But first I would give one further example. It is an account of the Pelew matrons' work in the taro fields. Here the richest and most influential women count it their privilege to labour, and it will be remembered that these women are called "mothers of the land." They are politically and socially superior to the men; and their position is dependent largely on their close connection with the staple industry of the island.

"The richest woman in the village looks with pride on her taro patch, and although she has female followers enough to allow her merely to superintend the work without taking part in it, she nevertheless prefers to lay aside her fine apron, and to betake herself to the field, merely clad in a small apron that barely hides her nakedness, with a little mat on her back to protect her from the burning heat of the sun, and with a shade of banana leaves for her eyes. There, dripping with sweat in the burning sun, and coated with mud to the hips and over the elbows, she toils to set the younger women a good example. Moreover, as in every other occupation, the Kalitho, the gods must be invoked, and who could be better fitted for the discharge of so important a duty than 'the Mother of the House.'"