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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XV. But be this as it may, to woman the result was no less far-reaching and disastrous. She had become the property of one master, residing in her husband's tribe, which had no rights or duties in regard to her, where she was a stranger, perhaps speaking a different language. And her children kept her bound to this alien home in a much closer way than the husband could ever have been bound to her home under the earlier custom. Woman's early power rested in her organised position among her own kin: this was now lost.

XVI. The change was not brought about quickly. For long the mother's influence persisted as a matter of habit. We have its rather empty shadow with us to-day.

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

One final word more.

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

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

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

FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[104] Bede, II. 1-7.

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

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

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

[108] Gen. xxiv. 5-53.

[109] Gen. xxxi. 41, 43.

[110] Judges xv. 1.

[111] Num. xxxii. 8-11.

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

[113] Num. xxxvi. 4-8.

[114] Gen. xii.

[115] 2 Sam. xiii. 16.

[116] Exod. vi. 20.

[117] Gen. xi. 26-29.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[164] Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[184] Travels, p. 109.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[195] Arnot, Garenganze, p. 242.

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

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

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



CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VII

WOMAN'S POSITION IN THE GREAT CIVILISATIONS OF ANTIQUITY

I.—In Egypt

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

II.—In Babylon

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

III.—In Greece

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

IV.—In Rome

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



CHAPTER VII

WOMAN'S POSITION IN THE GREAT CIVILISATIONS OF ANTIQUITY

I.—In Egypt

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

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

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

Let us turn first to Egypt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If the view is accepted, as I think it must be, that these contracts were made to add the advantages of father-right to the natural privileges of mother-right, and thus to secure the enjoyment of the family property to all its members, it will become evident that, however surprising such an agreement might seem from the one-sided patriarchal view (which always accepts the subjection of the woman), it was entirely a wise and just arrangement. It was certainly one that was entered into voluntarily by both partners of the marriage; there was no compulsion of law. All the evidence that has come down to us is witness to the success in practice of these marriage contracts. No other nation has yet developed a family relationship so perfect in its working as the Egyptians. The reason is not far to seek. It was based on the equal freedom and responsibility of the mother with the father. There was no question, it seems to me, of one sex ruling or obeying the other, rather it was the co-operation of the two for the welfare of both and of the children.

So far we have dealt only with the position of the established wife. All the written marriage contracts refer to the "taking" and "establishing" a wife as two distinct steps, and in some cases the second stage, which seems to have conveyed the proprietary rights, was not taken until after the birth of children. There would thus be wives not necessarily holding the position of "lady of the house," but capable of being raised to such rank by later contract.[215] It is probable, as M. Revillout suggests,[216] that "the taking to wife" was a comparatively informal matter, but needing ratification by contract for any lasting establishment, which commonly would be done after the birth of a child to ensure the rights of the father's inheritance, passing through the mother to the children. All the evidence is in favour of this wise arrangement. There are many examples of contracts being entered into by the husband for the benefit of a woman, who had been "with him as a wife to him." Relations between the sexes of an even less binding character than this were not ignored.[217] It seems clear that little regard was paid to pre-nuptial chastity for women, and in no marriage contract is any stress laid on virginity, which, as Havelock Ellis[218] says, clearly indicates the absence of any idea of women as property. "It is the glory of Egyptian morality to have been the first to express the dignity of woman."[219]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

II.—In Babylon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III.—In Greece

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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