THE MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION
I.-Progress from Lower to Higher Forms of the Family Relationship
“The reader who grasps that a
thousand years is but a small period in the evolution
of man, and yet realises how diverse were morality
and customs in matters of sex in the period which
this essay treats of” (i.e. Mother-Age
Civilisation), “will hardly approach
modern social problems with the notion that there
is a rigid and unchangeable code of right and wrong.
He will mark, in the first place, a continuous
flux in all social institutions and moral standards;
but in the next place, if he be a real historical
student, he will appreciate the slowness of this
steady secular change; he will perceive how almost
insensible it is in the lifetime of individuals,
and although he may work for social reforms, he
will refrain from constructing social Utopias.”-Professor
KARL PEARSON.
Our study of the sexual associations
among animals has brought us to understand how large
a part the gratification of the sex-instincts plays
in animal life, equalling and, indeed, overmastering
and directing the hunger instinct for food. If
we now turn to man we find the same domination of
sex-needs, but under different conditions of expression.
Man not only loves, but he knows that he loves; a new
factor is added, and sex itself is lifted to a plane
of clear self-consciousness. Pathways are opened
up to great heights, but also to great depths.
We must not, therefore, expect to
take up our study of primitive human sexual and familial
associations at the point where those of the mammals
and birds leave off. We have with man to some extent
to begin again, so that it may appear, on a superficial
view, that the first steps now taken in love’s
evolution were in a backward direction. But the
fact is that the increased powers of recollection
and heightened complexity of nervous organisation among
men, led to different habits and social customs, separating
man radically in his love from the animals. Man’s
instincts are very vague when compared, for instance,
with the beautiful love-habits of birds; he is necessarily
guided by conflicting forces, inborn and acquired.
Thus precisely by means of his added qualities he
took a new and personal, rather than an instinctive,
interest in sex; and this after a time, even if not
at first, aroused a state of consciousness in love
which made sex uninterruptedly interesting in contrast
with the fixed pairing season among animals.
Hence arose also a human and different need for sexual
variety, much stronger than can ever have been experienced
by the animals, which resulted in a constant tendency
towards sexual licence, of a more or less pronounced
promiscuity, in group marriage and other forms of
sexual association which developed from it.
This is so essential to our understanding
of human love, that I wish I could follow it further.
All the elaborate phenomena of sex in the animal kingdom
have for their end the reproduction of the species.
But in the case of man there is another purpose, often
transcending this end-the independent significance
of sex emotion, both on the physical and psychical
side, to the individual. It seems to me that women
have special need to-day to remember this personal
end of human passion. This is not, however, the
place to enter upon this question.
I have now to attempt to trace as
clearly as I can the history of primitive human love.
To do this it will be necessary to refer to comparative
ethnography. We must investigate the sex customs,
forms of marriage and the family, still to be found
among primitive peoples, scattered about the world.
These early forms of the sexual relationship were
once of much wider occurrence, and they have left
unmistakable traces in the history of many races.
Further evidence is furnished by folk stories and
legends. In peasant festivals and dances and
in many religious ceremonies we may find survivals
of primitive sex customs. They may be traced
in our common language, especially in the words used
for sex and kin relationships. We can also find
them shadowed in certain of our marriage rites and
sex habits to-day. The difficulty does not rest
in paucity of material, but rather in its superabundance-far
too extensive to allow anything like adequate treatment
within the space of a brief and necessarily insufficient
chapter. For this reason I shall limit my inquiry
almost wholly to those cases which have some facts
to tell us of the position occupied by women in the
primitive family. I shall try to avoid falling
into the error of a one-sided view. Facts are
more important here than reflections, and, as far
as possible, I shall let these speak for themselves.
In order to group these facts it may
be well to give first a rough outline of the periods
to be considered-
1. A very early period, during
which man developed from his ape-like ancestors.
This may be called the pre-matriarchal stage.
With this absolutely primitive period we are concerned
only in so far as to suggest how a second more social
period developed from it. The idea of descent
was so feeble that no permanent family groups existed,
and the family remains in the primitive biological
relation of male, female and offspring. The Botocudos,
Fuegians, West Australians and Veddahs of Ceylon represent
this primitive stage, more or less completely.
They have apparently not reached the stage where the
fact of kinship expresses itself in maternal social
organisation. A yet lower level may be seen among
certain low tribes in the interior of Borneo-absolutely
primitive savages, who are probably the remains of
the negroid peoples, believed to be the first inhabitants
of Malaya. These people roam the forests in hordes,
like monkeys; the males carry off the females and
couple with them in the thickets. The families
pass the night under the trees, and the children are
suspended from the branches in a sort of net.
As soon as the young are capable of caring for themselves,
the parents turn them adrift as the animals do.
It was doubtless thus, in a way similar
to the great monkeys, that man first lived. With
the chimpanzee these hordes never become large, for
the male leader of the tribe will not endure the rivalry
of the young males, and drives them away. But
man, more gregarious in his habits, would tend to
form larger groups, his consciousness developing slowly,
as he learnt to control his brute appetites and jealousy
of rivals by that impulse towards companionship, which,
rooted in the sexual needs, broadens out into the
social instincts.
It is evident that the change from
these scattered hordes to the organised tribal groups
was dependent upon the mothers and their children.
The women would be more closely bound to the family
than the men. The bond between mother and child,
with its long dependence on her care, made woman the
centre of the family. The mother and her children,
and her children’s children, and so on indefinitely
in the female line, constituted the group. Relationship
was counted alone through them, and, at a later stage,
inheritance of property passed through them.
And in this way, through the woman, the low tribes
passed into socially organised societies. The
men, on the other hand, not yet individualised as
husbands and fathers, held no rights or position in
the group of the women and their children.
2. This leads us to the second
period of mother-descent and mother-rights. It
is this phase of primitive society that we have to
investigate. Its interest to women is evident.
Just as we found in our first inquiry that, in the
beginnings of sexuality the female was of more importance
than the male, so now we shall find society growing
up around woman. It is a period whose history
may well give pride to all women. Her inventive
faculties, quickened by the stress of child-bearing
and child-rearing, primitive woman built up, by her
own activities and her own skill, a civilisation which
owed its institutions and mother-right customs to
her constructive genius, rather than to the destructive
qualities which belonged to the fighting male.
3. But again we find, as in the
animal kingdom, that step by step the forceful male
asserts himself. We come to a third transitional
period in which the male relatives of the woman-usually
the brother, the maternal uncle-have usurped
the chief power in the group. Inheritance still
passes through the mother, but her influence is growing
less. The right to dispose of women and the property
which goes with them is now used by the male rulers
of the group. The sex habits have changed; endogamous
unions, or kin marriages within the clan, have given
place to exogamy, where marriage only takes place
between members of different groups. But at first
the position of the husband and father is little changed;
he marries into the wife’s group and lives with
her family, where he has no property rights or control
over his wife’s children, who are now under
the rule of the uncle.
4. It is plain that this condition
would not be permanent. The male power had yet
to advance further; the child had to gain a father.
We reach the patriarchal period, in which descent
through the male line has replaced the earlier custom.
Woman’s power, first passing to her brother
or other male relative, has been transferred to the
husband and father. This change of power did
not, of course, take place at once, and even under
fully developed father-right systems many traces of
the old mother-rights persist.
What it is necessary to fasten deeply
in our minds is this: the father as the head
of the woman and her children, the ruler of the house,
was not the natural order of the primitive human family.
Civilisation started with the woman being dominant-the
home-maker, the owner of her children, the transmitter
of property. It was-as will be made
abundantly clear from the cases we shall examine-a
much later economic question which led to a reversal
of this plan, and brought the rise of father-right,
with the father as the dominant partner; while the
woman sank back into an unnatural and secondary position
of economic dependence upon the man who was her owner-a
position from which she has not even yet succeeded
in freeing herself.
The maternal system of descent is
found in all parts of the world where social advance
stands at a certain level. This fact, added to
the widespread traces the custom has left in every
civilisation, warrants the assumption that mother-right
in all cases preceded father-right, and has been,
indeed, a stage of social growth for all branches
of the human race.
I shall not attempt to give the numerous
traces of mother-descent that are to be found in the
early histories of existing civilised nations, for
to do this would entail the writing of the whole chapter
on this subject. For the same reason I must reluctantly
pass over the abundant evidence of mother-right that
is furnished in folk-lore, in heroic legends, and
in the fairy stories of our children. These stories
date back to a time long before written history; they
are known to all of us, and belong to all countries
in slightly different forms. We have regarded
them as fables; they are really survivals of customs
and practices once common to all society. Wherever
we find a king ruling as the son of a queen, because
he is the queen’s husband, or because he marries
a princess, we have proof of mother-descent. The
influence of the mother over her son’s marriage,
the winning of a bride by a task done by the wooer,
the brother-sister marriage so frequent in ancient
mythologies, the interference of a wise woman, and
the many stories of virgin-births-all are
survivals of mother-right customs. Similar evidence
is furnished by mother-goddesses, so often converted
into Christian local saints. I wish it were possible
to follow this subject, whose interest offers
rich rewards. Perhaps nowhere else can we gain
so clear and vivid a picture as in these ancient stories
and legends of the early powerful position of woman
as the transmitter of inheritance and guardian of
property.
It may interest my readers to know
that mother-descent must once have prevailed in Britain.
Among the Picts of Scotland kingship was transmitted
through women. Bede tells us that down to his
own time-the early part of the eighth century-whenever
a doubt arose as to the succession, the Picts chose
their king from the female rather than from the male
line. Similar traces are found in England:
Canute, the Dane, when acknowledged King of England,
married Emma, the widow of his predecessor Ethelred.
Ethelbald, King of Kent, married his stepmother, after
the death of his father Ethelbert; and, as late as
the ninth century, Ethelbald, King of the West Saxons,
wedded Judith, the widow of his father. Such
marriages are intelligible only if we suppose that
the queen had the power of conferring the kingdom
upon her consort, which could only happen where matrilineal
descent was, or had been, recognised. In Ireland
(where mother-right must have been firmly established,
if Strabo’s account of the free sexual relations
of the people is accepted) women retained a very
high position and much freedom, both before and after
marriage, to a late period. “Every woman,”
it was said, “is to go the way she willeth freely,”
and after marriage “she enjoyed a better position
and greater freedom of divorce than was afforded either
by the Christian Church or English common law."
Similar survivals of mother-right
customs among the ancient Hebrews are made familiar
to us in Bible history. To mention a few examples
only: when Abraham sought a wife for Isaac, presents
were taken by the messenger to induce the bride to
leave her home; and these presents were given to her
mother and brothers. Jacob had to serve Laban
for fourteen years before he was permitted to marry
Leah and Rachel, and six further years of service
were given for his cattle. Afterwards when he
wished to depart with his children and his wives, Laban
made the objection, “these daughters are my
daughters, and these children are my children."
Such acts point to the subordinate position held by
Jacob, which is clearly a survival of the servitude
required from the bridegroom by the relatives of the
woman, who retain control over her and her children,
and even over the property of the man, as was usual
under the later matriarchal custom. The injunction
in Gen. i, “Therefore shall a man leave
his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife,”
refers without any doubt to the early marriage under
mother-right, when the husband left his own kindred
and went to live with his wife and among her people.
We find Samson visiting his Philistine wife, who remained
with her kindred. Even the obligation to blood
vengeance rested apparently on the maternal kinsmen
(Judges vii. The Hebrew father did not inherit
from his son, nor the grandfather from the grandson,
which points back to an ancient epoch when the children
did not belong to the clan of the father. Among
the Hebrews individual property was instituted in
very early times (Gen. xxii; but various customs
show clearly the ancient existence of communal clans.
Thus the inheritance, especially the paternal inheritance,
must remain in the clan. Marriage in the tribe
is obligatory for daughters. “Let them marry
to whom they think best; only to the family of the
tribe of their father shall they marry. So shall
not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove
from tribe to tribe." We have here an indication
of the close relation between father-right and property.
Under mother-descent there is naturally
no prohibition against marriage with a half-sister
upon the father’s side. This explains the
marriage of Abraham with Sara, his half-sister by the
same father. When reproached for having passed
his wife off as his sister to the King of Egypt and
to Abimelech, the patriarch replies: “For
indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my
father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she
became my wife." In the same way Tamar could
have married her half-brother Amnon, though they were
both the children of David. The father of Moses
and Aaron married his father’s sister, who was
not legally his relation. Nabor, the brother
of Abraham, took to wife his fraternal niece, the daughter
of his brother. It was only later that paternal
kinship became recognised among the Hebrews by the
same title as the natural kinship through the mother.
Other examples might be added.
All these survivals of mother-descent (and they may
be discovered in the early history of every people)
have their value; they are, however, only survivals,
and their interest rests mainly in comparing them
with similar facts among other peoples among whom
the presence of mother-right customs is undisputed.
To these existing examples of the primitive family
clan grouped around the mother we will now turn our
attention.
II.-The Matriarchal Family in America
Traces of mother-descent are common
everywhere in the American continent; and in some
districts mother-rule is still in force. Morgan,
who was commissioned by the American Government to
report on the customs of the aboriginal inhabitants,
gives a description of the system as it existed among
the Iroquois-
“Each household was made up on
the principle of kin. The married women,
usually sisters, own or collateral, were of the same
gens or clan, the symbol or totem
of which was often painted upon the house, while
their husbands and the wives of their sons belonged
to several other gentes. The children were
of the gens of their mother. As a
rule the sons brought home their wives, and in
some cases the husbands of the daughters were admitted
to the maternal household. Thus each household
was composed of persons of different gentes,
but the predominating number in each household
would be of the same gens, namely that
of the mother."
There are many interesting customs
belonging to the Iroquois; I can notice a few only.
The gens was ruled by chiefs of two grades,
distinguished by Morgan as sachem and common
chiefs. The sachem was the official head of the
gens. The actual occupant of the office
was elected by the adult members of the gens,
male and female, the own brother or son of a sister
being most likely to be preferred. The wife never
left the parental home, because she was considered
the mistress, or, at least, the heiress; her husband
lived with her. In the house all the duties and
the honour as the head of the household fell on her.
She was required in case of need to look after her
parents. The Iroquois recognised no right in the
father to the custody of his children; such power
was in the hands of the maternal uncle. Marriages
were negotiated by the uncles or the mothers; sometimes
the father was consulted, but this was little more
than a compliment, as his approbation or opposition
was usually disregarded. The suitor was required
to make presents to the bride’s family.
It was the custom for him to seek private interviews
at night with his betrothed. In some instances,
it was enough if he went and sat by her side in her
cabin; if she permitted this, and remained where she
was, it was taken for consent, and the act would suffice
for marriage. If a husband and wife could not
agree, they parted, or two pairs would exchange husbands
and wives. An early French missionary remonstrated
with a couple on such a transaction, and was told:
“My wife and I could not agree. My neighbour
was in the same case. So we exchanged wives,
and all four are content. What can be more reasonable
than to render one another mutually happy, when it
costs so little and does nobody any harm?" It
would seem that these primitive people have solved
some difficulties better than we ourselves have!
Among the Sénecas, an Iroquoian
tribe with a less organised social life, the authority
remained in the hands of the women. These people
led a communal life, dwelling in long houses, which
accommodated as many as twenty families, each in its
own apartments.
“As to their family system, it
is probable that some one clan predominated (in
the houses), the women taking in husbands, however,
from the other clans, and sometimes for novelty, some
of their sons bringing in their young wives until
they felt brave enough to leave their mothers.
Usually the female portion ruled the house, and
were doubtless clannish enough about it. The
stores were in common, but woe to the luckless husband
or lover who was too shiftless to do his share
of the providing. No matter how many children
or whatever goods he might have in the house,
he might at any time be ordered to pack up his blanket
and budge, and after such orders it would not be
healthful for him to attempt to disobey; the house
would be too hot for him, and, unless saved by
the intercession of some aunt or grandmother,
he must retreat to his own clan, or, as was often
done, go and start a new matrimonial alliance in
some other. The women were the great power
among the clans as everywhere else. They
did not hesitate, when occasion required, to ’knock
off the horns,’ as it was technically called,
from the head of a chief and send him back to
the ranks of the warrior. The original nomination
of the chiefs also always rested with them.”
This last detail is very interesting;
we find the woman’s authority extending even
over warfare, the special province of men.
The Wyandots, another Iroquoian tribe,
camp in the form of a horse-shoe, every clan together
in regular order. Marriage between members of
the same clan is forbidden; the children belong to
the clan of the mother. The husbands retain all
their rights and privileges in their own gentes,
though they live in the gentes of their wives.
After marriage the pair live for a time, at least,
with the wife’s mother, but afterwards they
set up housekeeping for themselves.
We may note here the creeping in of
changes which led to father-right. This is illustrated
further by the Musquakies, also belonging to the Algonquian
stock. Though still organised in clans, descent
is no longer reckoned through the mother. The
bridegroom, however, serves his wife’s mother,
and he lives with her people. This does not make
him of her clan; she belongs to his, till his death
or divorce separates her from him. As for the
children, the minors at the termination of the marriage
belong to the mother’s clan, but those who have
had the puberty feast are counted to the father’s
clan.
The male authority is chiefly felt
in periods of war. This may be illustrated by
the Wyandots, who have an elaborate system of government.
In each gens there is a small council composed
of four women, called yu-wai-yu-wa-na; chosen
by the women heads of the household. These women
councillors select a chief of the gens from
its male members, that is from their brothers and sons.
He is the head of the gentile council.
The council of the tribe is composed of the aggregated
gentile councils, and is thus composed of four-fifths
of women and one-fifth of men. The sachem
of tribes, or tribal-chief is chosen by chiefs of
the gentes. All civil government of the
gens and of the tribe is carried on by these
councils, and as the women so largely outnumber the
men, who are also-with the exception of
the tribal chief chosen by them-it is surely
fair to assume that the social government of the gens
and tribe is largely directed by them.
In military affairs, however, the men have sole authority;
there is a military council of all the able-bodied
men of the tribe, with a military chief chosen by
the council. This seems a very wise adjustment
of civic duties; the constructive civil work directed
by the women; the destructive work of war in the hands
of men.
Some interesting marriage customs
of the Seri, on the south-west coast, now reduced
to a single tribe, are described by McGee. The
matriarchal system exists here in its early form, it
is, therefore, an instructive example by which to
estimate the position held by the women-
“The tribe is divided into exogamous
totem clans. Marriage is arranged
exclusively by the women. The elder woman of the
suitor’s family carries the proposal to the
girl’s clan-mother. If this is entertained,
the question of the marriage is discussed at length
by the matrons of the two clans. The girl herself
is consulted; a jacal is erected for her, and
after many deliberations, the bridegroom is provisionally
received into his wife’s clan for a year,
under conditions of the most exacting character.
He is expected to prove his worthiness of a permanent
relation by demonstrating his ability as a provider,
and by showing himself an implacable foe to aliens.
He is compelled to support all the female relatives
of his bride’s family by the products of
his skill and industry in hunting and fishing
for one year. There is also another provision
of a very curious nature. The lover is permitted
to share the jacal and sleeping robe, provided
for the prospective matron by her kinswomen, not
as a privileged spouse, but merely as a protective
companion; and throughout this probationary term he
is compelled to maintain continence-he
must display the most indubitable proof of moral
force.”
This is the more extraordinary if
we compare the freedom granted to the bride.
“During this period the always dignified position
occupied by the daughters of the house culminates.”
Among other privileges she is allowed to receive “the
most intimate attentions from the clan-fellows of
the group." “She is the receiver of the
supplies furnished by her lover, measuring his competence
as would-be husband. Through his energy she is
enabled to dispense largess with lavish hand, and
thus to dignify her clan and honour her spouse in the
most effective way known to primitive life; and at
the same time she enjoys the immeasurable moral stimulus
of realising she is the arbiter of the fate of a man
who becomes a warrior or an outcast at her bidding,
and through him of the future of two clans-she
is raised to a responsibility in both personal and
tribal affairs which, albeit temporary, is hardly
lower than that of the warrior chief.” At
the close of the year, if all goes well, the probation
ends in a feast provided by the lover, who now becomes
husband, and finally enters his wife’s jacal
as “consort-guest.” His position is
wholly subordinate, and without any authority whatever,
either over his children or over the property.
In his mother’s hut he has rights, which seem
to continue after his marriage, but in his wife’s
hut he has none.
The customs of the Pueblo peoples
of the south-west of the United States are almost
equally interesting. They live in communal dwellings,
and are divided into exogamous totem clans.
Kinship is reckoned through the women, and the husband
on marriage goes to live with the wife’s kin
and becomes an inmate of her family. If the house
is not large enough, additional rooms are built adjoining
and connected with those already occupied. Hence
a family with many daughters increases, while one
consisting of sons dies out. The women are the
builders of the houses, the men supplying the material.
The marriage customs are instructive. As is the
case among the Seri, the lover has to serve his
wife’s family, but the conditions are much less
exacting. Unlike most maternal peoples, these,
the Zuni Indians, are monogamists. Divorce is,
however, frequent, and a husband and wife would “rather
separate than live together unharmoniously." Their
domestic life “might well serve as an example
for the civilised world.” They do not have
large families. The husband and wife are deeply
attached to one another and to their children.
“The keynote of this harmony is the supremacy
of the wife in the home. The house, with all
that is in it, is hers, descending to her through her
mother from a long line of ancestresses; and her husband
is merely her permanent guest. The children-at
least the female children-have their share
in the common home; the father has none.”
Outside the house the husband has some property in
the fields, though probably in earlier times he had
no possessory rights. “Modern influences
have reached the Zuni, and mother-right seems to have
begun its inevitable decay.”
The Hopis, another Pueblo tribe, are
more conservative, and with them the women own all
the property, except the horses and donkeys, which
belong to the men. Like the Zunis, the Hopis are
monogamists. Sexual licence is, however, often
permitted to a woman before marriage. This in
no way detracts from her good repute; even if she has
given birth to a child “she will be sure to
marry later on, unless she happens to be shockingly
ugly.” Nor does the child suffer, for among
these matriarchal people the bastard takes an equal
place with the child born in wedlock. The bride
lives for the first few weeks with her husband’s
family, during which time the marriage takes place,
the ceremony being performed by the bridegroom’s
mother, whose family also provides the bride with
her wedding outfit. The couple then return to
the home of the wife’s parents, where they remain,
either permanently, or for some years, until they
can obtain a separate dwelling. The husband is
always a stranger, and is so treated by his wife’s
kin. The dwelling of his mother remains his true
home, in sickness he returns to her to be nursed,
and stays with her until he is well again. Often
his position in his wife’s home is so irksome
that he severs his relation with her and her family
and returns to his old home. On the other hand,
it is not uncommon for the wife, should her husband
be absent, to place his goods outside the door:
an intimation which he well understands, and does
not intrude himself upon her again.
Lastly, among the Pueblo peoples we
may consider the Saï. Like the other tribes
they are divided into exogamous totem clans;
descent is traced only through the women. The
tribe through various reasons has been greatly reduced
in numbers, and whole clans have died out, and under
these circumstances exogamy has ceased to be strictly
enforced. This has led to other changes.
The Saï are still at least normally monogamous.
When a young man wishes to marry a girl he speaks first
to her parents; if they are willing, he addresses
himself to her. On the day of the marriage he
goes alone to her home, carrying his presents wrapped
in a blanket, his father and mother having preceded
him thither. When the young people are seated
together the parents address them in turn enjoining
unity and forbearance. This constitutes the ceremony.
Tribal custom requires the bridegroom to reside with
the wife’s family.
Now I submit to the judgment of my
readers-what do these examples of mother-right
among the aboriginal tribes of America show, if not
that, speaking broadly, women were the dominant force
in this early stage of civilisation? In some
instances, it is true, their power was shared, or
even taken from them, by their brothers or other male
relatives. This I believe to have been a later
development-a first step in the assertion
of male-force. In all cases the alien position
of the father, without tribal rights in his wife’s
clan and with no recognised authority over her children,
is evident. If this is denied, the only conclusion
that suggests itself to me is, that those who seek
to diminish the importance of mother-rule have done
so in reinforcement of their preconceived idea of
male superiority as the natural and unchanging order
in the relationship between the sexes. I have
no hesitation as the result of very considerable study,
in believing that it is the exact opposite of this
that is true. The mother, and not the father,
was the important partner in the early stages of civilisation;
father-right, the form we find in our sexual relationships,
is a later reversal of this natural arrangement, based,
not upon kinship, but upon property. This we shall
see more clearly later.
Thomas suggests another reason
for the general tendency among many investigators
to lessen the importance of the mother-age civilisations.
He thinks it due to dislike in acknowledging the theory
of promiscuity (notably Westermark in his History
of Human Marriage). This view would seem
to be connected with the mistaken opinion that womb-kinship
arose through the uncertainty of paternity. But
this was not the sole reason, or indeed the chief one,
of descent being traced through the mother. We
have found mother-rule in very active existence among
the Pueblo peoples, who are monogamists, and where
the paternity of the child must be known. The
modern civilised man cannot easily accustom himself
to the idea that in the old matriarchal family the
dominion of the mother was accepted as the natural,
and, therefore, the right order of society. It
is very difficult for us to accept a relationship
of the sexes that is so exactly opposite to that to
which we are accustomed.
After I had written the foregoing
account of mother-rule as it exists in the continent
of America, I had the exceeding good fortune to attend
a lecture given by a native Iroquois. I wish it
were possible for me to write here those things that
I heard; but I could not do this, I know, without
spoiling it all. This would destroy for me what
is a very beautiful and happy memory. For to hear
of a people who live gladly and without any of those
problems that are rotting away our civilisation brings
a new courage to those of us who sometimes grow hopeless
at this needless wastage of life.
The lecturer told us much of the high
status and power of women among the Iroquoian tribes.
What he said, not only corroborated all I have written,
but gave a picture of mother-rule and mother-rights
far more complete than anything I had found in the
records of investigators and travellers. The
lecturer was a cultured gentleman, and I learnt how
false had been my view that the race to which he belonged
was uncivilised. I learnt, too, that the Iroquoian
tribes were now increasing in numbers, and must not
be looked upon as a diminishing people. They
have kept, against terrible difficulties, and are
determined to keep, their own civilisation and customs,
knowing these to be better for them than those of
other races. The lecturer astonished me by his
familiarity with, and understanding of, our social
problems. He spoke, in particular, of the present
revolution among women. This, in his opinion,
was due wholly to the unnatural arrangement of our
family relationship, with the father at the head instead
of the mother. There seem to be no sex-problems,
no difficulties in marriage, no celibacy, no prostitution
among the Iroquoians. All the power in the domestic
relationship is in the hands of women. I questioned
the lecturer on this point. I asked him if the
women did not at times misuse their rights of authority,
and if men did not rebel? He seemed surprised.
His answer was: “Of course the men follow
the wishes of the women; they are our mothers.”
To him there seemed no more to be said.
III.-Further Examples of the Matriarchal Family in Australia, India,
and other countries
It is only fair to state that the
question of the position of women during the mother-age
is a disputed one. Bachofen was the first
to build up in his classical works of Matriarchy, the
gynaecocratic theory which places the chief social
power under the system of mother-descent in the hands
of women. This view has been disputed, especially
in recent years, and many writers who acknowledge the
widespread existence of maternal descent deny that
it carries with it, except in exceptional cases, mother-rights
of special advantage to women; even when these seem
to be present they believe such rights to be more
apparent than real.
One suspects prejudice here.
To approach this question with any fairness it is
absolutely essential to clear the mind from our current
theories regarding the family. The order is not
sacred in the sense that it has always had the same
form. It is this belief in the immutability of
our form of the sexual relationship which accounts
for the prejudice with which this question is so often
approached. I fully admit the dark side of the
mother-age among many peoples; its sexual licence,
often brutal in practice, its cruelties and sacrifice
of life. But these are evils common to barbarism,
and are found existing under father-right quite as
frequently as under mother-right. I concede,
too, that mother-descent was not necessarily or universally
a period of mother-rule. It was not. But
that it did in many cases-and these no
exceptional ones-carry with it power for
women, as the transmitters of inheritance and property
I am certain that the known facts prove. Nor
do I forget that cruel treatment of women was not
uncommon in matriarchal societies. I have shown
how in many tribes the power rested in the woman’s
brother or male relations, and in all such cases mother-descent
was really combined with a patriarchal system, the
earlier authority of the mother persisting only as
a habit. But to argue from the cases of male
cruelty that mother-descent did not confer special
advantages upon women is, I think, as absurd as it
would be to state that under the fully developed patriarchal
rule (as also in our society to-day) the authority
was not in the hands of men, because cases are not
infrequent in which women ill-treat their husbands.
And, indeed, when we consider the position of the husband
and father under this early system, without rights
of property and with no authority over his children,
and subject to the rule either of his wife or of her
relatives, no surprise can be felt if sometimes he
resorted to cruelties, asserting his power in whatever
direction opportunity permitted. I may admit
that for a long time I found it difficult to believe
in this mother-power. The finding of such authority
held by primitive woman is strange, indeed, to women
to-day. Reverse the sexes, and in broad statement
the conditions of the mother-age would be true of
our present domestic and social relationship.
Little wonder, then, that primitive men rebelled,
disliking the inconveniences arising from their insecure
and dependent position as perpetual guests in their
wives’ homes. It is strange how history
repeats itself.
Women, from their association with
the home, were the first organisers of all industrial
labour. A glance back at the mother-age civilisation
should teach men modesty. They will see that woman
was the equal, if not superior, to man in productive
activity. It was not until a much later period
that men supplanted women and monopolised the work
they had started. Through their identification
with the early industrial processes women were the
first property owners; they were almost the sole creators
of ownership in land, and held in respect of this a
position of great advantage. In the transactions
of North American tribes with the colonial government
many deeds of assignment bear female signatures.
A form of divorce used by a husband in ancient Arabia
was: “Begone, for I will no longer drive
thy flocks to pasture." In almost all cases the
household goods belonged to the woman. The stores
of roots and berries laid up for a time of scarcity
were the property of the wife, and the husband would
not touch them without her permission. In many
cases such property was very extensive. Among
the Menomini Indians, for instance, a woman of good
circumstances would own as many as from 1200 to 1500
birch-bark vessels. In the New Mexican pueblo
what comes from outside the house, as soon as it is
inside is put under the immediate control of the women.
Bandelier, in his report of his tour in Mexico, tells
us that “his host at Cochiti, New Mexico, could
not sell an ear of corn or a string of chilli without
the consent of his fourteen-year-old daughter Ignacia,
who kept house for her widowed father."
The point we have now reached is this:
while mother-descent did not constitute or make necessary
rule by women, under this system they enjoyed considerable
power as the result (1) of their position as property-holders,
(2) of their freedom in marriage and the social habits
arising from it. This conclusion will be strengthened
if we return to our examination of mother-right customs,
as we shall find them in all parts of the world.
I must select a few examples from as various countries
as is possible, and describe them very briefly; not
because these cases offer less interest than the matrilineal
tribes of America, but because of the length to which
this part of my inquiry is rapidly growing.
Let us begin with Australia, where
the aboriginal population is in a more primitive condition
than any other race whose institutions have been investigated.
In certain tribes the family has hardly begun to be
distinguished from kin in general. The group is
divided into male and female classes, in addition
to the division into clans. This is so among
the tribes of Mount Gambier, of Darling River, and
of Queensland. Marriage within the clan is strictly
forbidden, and the male and female classes of each
clan are regarded as brothers and sisters. But
as every man is brother to all the sisters of his clan,
he is husband to all the women of the other clans of
his tribe. Marriage is not an individual act,
it is a social condition. The custom is not always
carried out in practice, but any man of one clan has
the right, if he wishes to exercise it, to call any
woman belonging to another clan of his tribe his wife,
and to treat her as such. The children of each
group belong naturally to the clan of the mother,
and there is no legal parenthood between them and their
father. In the case of war the son must join the
maternal tribe. But this is not the universal
rule, and in many tribes the children now belong to
the paternal clan. The paternal family is beginning
to be established in Australia, and varied artifices
are used to escape from the tribal marriage and to
form unions on an individual basis.
Mother-right is still in force in
parts of India, though owing to the influence of Brahmanism
on the aboriginal tribes the examples are fewer than
might be expected. This change has brought descent
through the fathers, and has involved, besides, the
more or less complete subjugation of women, with insistence
on female chastity, abolition of divorce, infant marriage,
and perpetuation of widowhood. Not every tribe
is yet thus revolutionised. Among the Kasias of
south-east India the husband lives with the wife or
visits her occasionally.
“Laws of rank and property follow
the strictest maternal rule; when a couple separate
the children remain with the mother, the son does
not succeed his father, but a raja’s neglected
offspring may become a common peasant or a labourer;
the sister’s son succeeds to rank and is
heir to the property."
This may be taken as an extreme example
of the conditions among the unchanged tribes.
The Garos tribe have an interesting marriage custom.
The girl chooses her lover and invites him to follow
her; any advance made on his side is regarded as an
insult to the woman’s clan, and has to be expiated
by presents. This marriage is very similar to
the ceremony of capture, only the actors change parts;
it is here the bridegroom who runs away, and is conducted
by force to his future wife amidst the lamentations
of his relations.
Even tribes that have adopted paternal
descent preserve numerous customs of the earlier system.
The husband still remains in the wife’s home
for a probationary period, working for her family.
Women retain rights which are inconsistent with father-rule.
The choice of her lover often remains with the girl.
If a girl fancies a young man, all she has to do is
to give him a kick on the leg at the tribal dance
of the Karama, and then the parents think it
well to hasten on a wedding. Among Ghasiyas in
United Provinces a wife is permitted to leave her
husband if he intrigues with another woman, or if he
become insane, impotent, blind or leprous, while these
bodily evils do not allow him to put her away.
We find relics of the early freedom enjoyed by women
in the licence frequently permitted to girls before
marriage. Even after marriage adultery within
the tribal rules is not regarded as a serious offence.
Divorce is often easy, at the wish of either the woman
or the man. This is the case among the Santal
tribes, which are found in Western Bengal, Northern
Orissa, Bhagulpur and the Santal Parganas.
It seems probable that fraternal polyandry must formerly
have been practised.
Polyandry must have been common at
one time in southern India. It will be sufficient
to give a few examples. The interesting Todas
tribe of the Nil’giri Hills practise fraternal
polyandry. The husbands of the women are usually
real brothers, but sometimes they are clan brothers.
The children belong to the eldest brother, who performs
the ceremony of giving the mother a miniature bow
and arrow; all offspring, even if born after his death,
are counted as his until one of the other brothers
performs this ceremony. It is also allowed sometimes
for the wife to be mistress to another man besides
her husbands, and any children born of such unions
are counted as the children of the regular marriage.
There is little restriction in love of any kind.
In the Toda language there is no word for adultery.
It would even seem that “immorality attaches
rather to him who grudges his wife to another man."
Similarly among a fine tribe of Hindu
mountaineers at the source of the Djemmah fraternal
polyandry has been proved to have existed. A
woman of this tribe, when asked how many husbands she
had, answered, “Only four!” “And
all living?” “Why not?” This tribe
had a high standard of social conduct; they held lying
in horror, and to deviate from the truth even quite
innocently was almost a sacrilege. To-day the
Kammalaus (artisans) of Malabar practise fraternal
polyandry. The wives are said to greatly appreciate
the custom; the more husbands they have the greater
will be their happiness.
At another extremity of India, in
Ceylon, the polyandric rule is still common,
but it is particularly in lamaic Thibet that fraternal
polyandry is in full vigour, for in this country religion
sanctions the custom, and it is practised by the ruling
classes. Its customs are too well known to need
description. “The tyranny of man is hardly
known among the happy women of Thibet; the boot is
perhaps upon the other leg,” writes Hartland.
Polyandry is a survival of the group-marriage
of the mother-age. It is not really dependent
on, though in many cases it occurs in connection with,
the economic causes of poverty and a scarcity of women,
due to the practice of female infanticide. This
form of sexual association has evident advantages
for women when compared with polygamy. That freedom
in love carried with it domestic and social rights
and privileges to women I have no longer to prove.
The case of the Nayars of Malabar,
where polyandry exists with the early system of maternal
filiation, is specially instructive. It is impossible
to give the details of their curious customs.
The young girls are married when children by a rite
known as tying the tali; but this marriage
serves only the purpose of initiation, and is often
performed by a stranger. On the fourth day the
fictitious husband is required to divorce the girl.
Afterwards any number of marriages may be entered
upon without any other restrictions than the
prohibitions relative to cast and tribe. These
later unions, unlike the solemn initial rite, have
no ceremony connected with them, and are entered into
freely at the will of the women and their families.
As a husband the man of the Nayars cannot be said
to exist; he does not as a rule live with his wife.
It is said that he has not the right to sit down by
her side or that of her children, he is merely a passing
guest, almost a stranger. He is, in fact, reduced
to the primitive rôle of the male, and is simply progenitor.
“No Nayar knows his father, and every man looks
upon his sister’s children as his heirs.
A man’s mother manages his family; and after
her death his eldest sister assumes the direction.”
The property belongs to the family and is enjoyed
by all in common (though personal division is coming
into practice under modern influences). It is
directed and administered by the maternal uncle or
the eldest brother.
The Malays of the Pedang Highlands
of Sumatra have institutions bearing many points of
similarity with the Nayars. On marriage neither
husband nor wife changes abode, the husband merely
visits the wife, coming at first by day to help her
work in the rice-fields. Later the visits are
paid by night to the wife’s house. The husband
has no rights over his children, who belong wholly
to the wife’s suku, or clan. Her
eldest brother is the head of the family and exercises
the rights and duties of a father to her children.
The marriage, based on the ambel-anak, in which
the husband lives with the wife, paying nothing, and
occupying a subordinate position, may be taken as
typical of the former conditions.
But among other tribes who have come
in contact with outside influences this custom of
the husband visiting the wife, or residing in her
house, is modified.
From a private correspondent, a resident
in the Malay States, I have received some interesting
notes about the present condition of the native tribes
and the position of the women. In most of the
Malay States exogamous matriarchy has in comparatively
modern times been superseded by feudalism (i.e.
father-right). But where the old custom survives
the women are still to a large extent in control.
The husband goes to live in the wife’s village;
thus the women in each group are a compact unity,
while the men are strangers to each other and enter
as unorganised individuals. This is the real basis
of the woman’s power. In other tribes where
the old custom has changed women occupy a distinctly
inferior position, and under the influence of Islam
the idea of secluding adult women has been for centuries
spreading and increasing in force.
Male kinship prevails among the Arabs,
but the late Professor Robertson Smith discovered
abundant evidence that mother-right was practised
in ancient Arabia. We find a decisive example
of its favourable influence on the position of women
in the custom of beena marriage.
Under such a system the wife was not only freed from
any subjection involved by the payment of a bride-price
(which always places her more or less under the authority
of her husband), but she was the owner of the tent
and household property, and thus enjoyed the liberty
which ownership always entails. This explains
how she was able to free herself at pleasure from
her husband, who was really nothing but a temporary
lover. Ibn Batua in the fourteenth century found
that the women of Zebid were perfectly ready to marry
strangers. The husband might depart when he pleased,
but his wife in that case could never be induced to
follow him. She bade him a friendly adieu and
took upon herself the whole charge of any child of
the marriage. The women in the 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 that he was dismissed and did not enter.”
The tent belonged to the woman; the husband was received
there and at her good pleasure.
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."
A similar case of the rebellion of
men against their position is recorded in Guinea,
where religious symbolism was used by the husband
as a way of escape. The maternal system held with
respect to the chief wife.
“It was customary, however, for
a man to buy and take to wife a slave, a friendless
person with whom he could deal at pleasure, who
had no kindred that could interfere for her, and to
consecrate her to his Bossum or god. The Bossum
wife, slave as she had been, ranked next to the
chief wife, and was exceptionally treated.
She alone was very jealously guarded, she alone
was sacrificed at her husband’s death. She
was, in fact, wife in a peculiar sense. And
having, by consecration, been made of the kindred
and worship of her husband, her children could be
born of his kindred and worship."
This practice of having a slave-wife
who was the property of the husband became more and
more common; and was one of the causes that led to
the establishment of father-right. How this came
we have now to see.
IV.-The Transition to Father-right
In the preceding sections of this
chapter I have collected together, with as much exactitude
as I could, many examples of the maternal family.
I want now to refer briefly to a few further cases,
which will make clearer the causes which led to the
adoption of father-right.
Many countries where the patriarchal
system is firmly established retain practices which
can only be explained as survivals of the earlier
custom of mother-descent. It must suffice to mention
one or two examples. In Burma, which offers in
this respect a curious contrast to India, the women
have preserved under father-right most of the privileges
of mother-right. This is the more remarkable as
the law of marriage and the relationship of the sexes
is founded on the code of Manu, which proclaims aloud
the inferiority of woman. It is interesting,
however, to note that the code recognises only three
kinds of men: the good man, the indifferent man,
and the bad man. Women, though recognised solely
in their relation as wives, are placed in seven classes:
the mother-wife, the sister-wife, the daughter-wife,
the friend-wife, the master-wife, the servant-wife,
and the slave-wife. Manu holds that the last
of these, the slave-wife, is the best wife. It
is, however, certain that the interpretation of the
code in Burma was entirely opposed to any subjection
of the wife. That mother-right must have been
once practised and was very firmly established is
proved by the occurrence of brother-sister marriages.
The queens of the last rulers of the country, Minden-Min
and Thebaw, were either their own or their half-sisters,
and the power of government seems to have been almost
wholly in the hands of these queens. The patriarchal
custom, so far as the position of women was concerned,
is but a thread, binding them in their marriage, but
leaving them entirely free in other respects.
The Burmese wife is much more the master than the
slave of her husband, though she is clever enough
as a rule not to let him feel any inconvenience from
her power, which, therefore, he accepts. The
exceptional position of the women is clearly indicated
by the fact that they enter freely into trade, and,
indeed, carry out most of the business of the country.
Nearly all the shops are kept by women. In the
markets, where everything that any one could possibly
want is sold, almost all the dealers are women.
All classes of the Burmese girls receive their training
in these markets; the daughters of the rich sell the
costly and beautiful stuffs, the poorer girls sell
the cheaper wares. It is this training which
accounts for the business capacity shown by the women.
The boys are trained by the priests, as every boy
is required, “in order to purify his soul, to
acquire a knowledge of sacred things.” This
explains a great deal. It would seem that religion
enforces the same penalties on men that in most countries
fall upon women. The Burmese women are very attractive,
as is testified by all who know them. The streets
of the towns are thronged with women at all hours
of the day, and they show the greatest delight in
everything that is lively and gay.
Given such complete freedom of women,
it is self-evident that the sexual relationships will
also be free. Very striking are the conditions
of divorce. The marriage contract can be dissolved
freely at the wish of both, or even of one, of the
partners. In the first case the family property
is divided equally between the wife and the husband,
while if only one partner desires to be freed the property
goes to the partner who is left. The children
of the marriage remain with the mother while they
are young; but the boys belong to the father.
I wish it were possible for me to give a fuller account
of the Burmese family. The freedom and active
work of the women offer many points of special interest.
One thing further must be noted. The Burmese
women would seem not to be wholly satisfied with their
power, disliking the work and responsibility which
their freedom entails. For this reason many of
them prefer to marry a Chinese husband; he works for
them, while with a husband of their own country they
have to work for him. This is very instructive.
It points to what I believe to be the truth.
The loss of her freedom by woman is often the result
of her own desire for protection and her dislike of
work, and is not caused by man’s tyranny.
Woman’s own action in this matter is not sufficiently
recognised. I must not enter upon this here, as
I shall return to the subject later in this chapter.
We must now consider the traces left by mother-descent
in Japan and China.
In Japan, as among the Basques, filiation
is subordinated to the transmission of property.
It is to the first-born, whether a boy or a girl,
that the inheritance is transmitted, and he or she
is forbidden to abandon it. At the time of marriage
the husband or wife must take the name of the heir
or heiress who marries and personifies the property.
Filiation is thus sometimes paternal and sometimes
maternal. The maternal uncle still bears the
name of “second little father." The children
of the same father, but not of the same mother, were
formerly allowed to marry, a decisive proof of mother-descent.
The wife remained with her own relatives, and the
husband had the right of visiting her by night.
The word commonly used for marriage signified to
slip by night into the house. It was not
until the fourteenth century that the husband’s
residence was the home of the wife, and marriage became
a continued living together by the married pair.
Even now when a man marries an only daughter he frequently
lives with her family, and the children take her name.
There is also a custom by which a man with daughters,
but no son, adopts a stranger, giving him one of his
daughters in marriage; the children are counted as
the heirs of the maternal grandfather. Similar
survivals are frequent in China. The patriarchate
is rigidly established, but there is evidence to show
that the family in this ancient civilisation has passed
through the usual stages of development, having for
its starting-point the familial clan, and passing
from this through the stage of mother-right. The
Chinese language itself attests the ancient existence
of the earliest form of marriage, contracted by a
group of brothers having their wives in common, but
not marrying their sisters. Thus a Chinaman calls
the sons of his brothers “his sons,” but
he considers those of his sisters as his nephews.
Certain of the aboriginal tribes still require the
husband to live with his wife’s family for a
period of seven or ten years before he is allowed
to take her to his home. The eldest child is
given to the husband, the second belongs to the family
of the wife. The authority which the Chinese
mother exercises over her son’s marriage and
over his wife can only be explained by mother-right
customs. There are many other examples which I
must pass over.
In the Island of Madagascar, with
whose interesting civilisation, as it existed before
the unfortunate conquest of the country by the French,
I am personally acquainted, mother-right has left much
more than traces. Great freedom in sexual relations
was permitted to the men, and in certain cases to
women also. There was no word in the native language
for virgin; the word mpitovo, commonly used,
means only an unmarried woman. On certain festive
ceremonies the licence was very great. The hindrances
to marriage were much more stringent with the mother’s
relations than with the father’s. Divorce
was frequent and easy; the power to exercise it rested
with the husband; but the wife could, and often did,
run away, and thus compel a divorce. A Malagasy
proverb compared marriage to a knot so lightly tied
that it could be undone by a touch. Such freedom
was due to the great desire for children; every child
was welcome in the family, whatever its origin.
The children belonged to the husband, and so complete
was this possession, that in the case of a divorce
not only the children previously born, but any the
wife might afterwards bear, were counted as his.
Among the ruling classes mother-right
remained in its early force. The royal family
and nobility traced their descent, contrary to the
general practice, through the mother, and not through
the father. The rights of an unmarried queen
were great. She was permitted to have a family
by whomsoever she wished, and her children were recognised
as legitimately royal through her. Among the
Hovas not only wealth, but political dignities, and
even sacerdotal functions, were transmitted to the
nephew, in preference to the son.
In the adjacent continent of Africa
we find similar privileges enjoyed by royal women.
A delightful example is given by Frazer in Central
Africa, where a small state, near to the Chambezi river,
is governed by a queen, who belongs to the reigning
family of Ubemba. She bears the title Mamfumer,
“Mother of Kings.” The privileges
attached to this dignity are numerous; the husbands
may be chosen at will and from among the common people.
“The chosen man becomes prince
consort, without sharing in the government of
affairs. He is bound to leave everything to follow
his royal and often little accommodating spouse.
To show that in these households the rights are
inverted and that a man may be changed into a
woman, the queen takes the title of Monsieur
and the husband that of Madame.”
A visitor to this state, who had an interview
with the queen, reports that, “she was a woman
of gigantic stature, wearing many amulets.”
Battle reported that “Loango
was ruled by four princes, the sons of a former king’s
sister, since the sons of a king never succeed.
Frazer gives an account of the tyrannical authority
of the princesses in this state.
“The princesses are free to choose
and divorce their husbands at pleasure, and to
cohabit at the same time with other men. The
husbands are nearly always plebeians. The
lot of a prince consort is not a happy one, for
he is rather the slave and prisoner than the mate
of his imperious princess. In marrying her
he engages never more to look at a woman; when he goes
out he is preceded by guards whose duty it is
to drive all females from the road where he is
to pass. If, in spite of these precautions,
he should by ill-luck cast his eyes on a woman, the
princess may have his head chopped off, and commonly
exercised, or used to exercise, the right.
This sort of libertinism, sustained by power,
often carries the princesses to the greatest excesses,
and nothing is so much dreaded as their anger.”
In Africa descent through women is
the rule, though there are exceptions, and these
are increasing. The amusing account given by
Miss Kingsley of Joseph, a member of the Batu
tribe in French Congo, strikingly illustrates the
prevalence of the custom. When asked by a French
official to furnish his own name and the name of his
father, Joseph was wholly nonplussed. “My
fader?” he said. “Who my fader?”
Then he gave the name of his mother.
The case is the same among the Negroes.
The Fanti of the Gold Coast may be taken as an example.
Among them an intensity of affection (accounted for
partly by the fact that the mothers have exclusive
care of the children) is felt for the mother, while
the father is hardly known, or disregarded, notwithstanding
that he may be a wealthy and powerful man and the
legal husband of the mother. The practice of
the Wamoima, where the son of a sister is preferred
in legacies, “because a man’s own son
is only the son of his wife,” is typical.
The Bush husband does not live with his wife, and often
has wives in different places. The maternal uncle
supplies his place in the family.
Wherever mother-right has progressed
towards father-right, as is the condition, broadly
speaking, in the African continent, the supreme authority
is vested in the maternal uncle. The tribal duty
of blood-revenge falls to him, even against the father.
Thus, in some cases, if a woman is murdered, the duty
of revenge is undertaken by her kinsman. In the
state of Loango among the common people the uncle
is addressed as tate (father). He has even
the power to sell his sister’s children.
The child is so entirely the property of the kin that
he may be given in pledge for their debts. Among
the Bavili the mother has the right to pawn the child,
but she must first consult the father, so that he
may have a chance of giving her goods to save the
pledging. 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. An even stronger example of the property
value of children is furnished by the custom found
among many tribes, by which the father has to make
a present to the wife’s kin when a child dies:
this is called “buying the child."
These cases, with the inferences they
suggest, show that though mother-descent may be strongly
established in Africa, this does not confer (except
to the royal princesses) any special distinction upon
women. This is explained if we recognise that
a transitional period has been reached, when, under
the pressure of social, and particularly of military
activities, the government of the tribe has passed
to the male kindred of the women. It wants but
a step further for the establishment of father-right.
There are many cases pointing to this
new father-force asserting itself and pushing aside
the earlier order. Again I can give one or two
examples only. Among Wayao and Mang’anja
of the Shire highlands, south of Lake Nyassa, a man
on marrying leaves his own village and goes to live
in that of his wife; but, as an alternative, he is
allowed to pay a bride-price, in which case he takes
his wife away to his home. Whenever we find the
payment of a bride-price, there is sure indication
of the decay of mother-right: woman has become
property. Among the Bassa Komo of Nigeria marriage
is usually effected by an exchange of sisters or other
female relatives. The women are supposed to be
faithful to their husbands. If, however, as frequently
happens, there is a preliminary courtship period, during
which the marriage is considered as provisional, considerable
licence is granted to the woman. Chastity is
only regarded as a virtue when the woman has become
the property of the husband. The men may marry
as many wives as they have sisters or female relatives
to give in exchange. In this tribe the women
look after the children, but the boys, when four years
old, go to work and live with their fathers. 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.
Among the Basanga on the south-west of Lake Moeru
the children of the wife belong to the mother’s
kin, but the children of slaves are the property of
the father.
It is rendered clear by such cases
as these, that the rise of father-right was dependent
on property and had nothing to do with blood relationship.
The payment of a bride-price, the giving of a sister
in exchange, as also marriage with a slave, gained
for the husband the control over his wife and ownership
of her children. I could bring forward much more
evidence in proof of this fact did the limits of my
space allow me to do this; such cases are common in
all parts of the world where the transitional stage
from mother-right to father-right has been reached.
But I believe that the causes by which the father
gained his position as the dominant partner in marriage
must be clear to every one from the examples I have
given. I will, therefore, quote only one final
and most instructive case. It illustrates in
a curious way the conflict between the old rights of
the woman and the rising power of the male force in
connection with marriage. It occurs among the
Hassanyeh Arabs of the White Nile, where the wife
passes by contract for only a portion of her time under
the authority of her husband.
“When the parents of the man and
the woman meet to settle the price of the woman,
the price depends on how many days in the week
the marriage tie is to be strictly observed. The
woman’s mother first of all proposes that,
taking everything into consideration, with due
regard to the feelings of the family, she could
not think of binding her daughter to a due observance
of that chastity which matrimony is expected to
command for more than two days in the week.
After a great deal of apparently angry discussion,
and the promise on the part of the relations of
the man to pay more, it is arranged that the marriage
shall hold good as is customary among the first
families of the tribe, for four days in the week,
viz. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday,
and in compliance with old established custom, the
marriage rites during the three remaining days
shall not be insisted on, during which days the
bride shall be perfectly free to act as she may
think proper, either by adhering to her husband
and home, or by enjoying her freedom and independence
from all observance of matrimonial obligation."
We have at length concluded our investigation
of this first period of organised society, and have
ascertained many facts that we can use as a touchstone
to try the truth of the various theories that are put
forward with regard to woman and her position in the
family and in the State. The importance of the
mother-age to women is evident. Thus I offer
no apology for the length at which I have treated the
subject. It has seemed to me after careful revision
that no one of the examples given can be omitted.
Facts are of so much more importance than opinions
if we are to come to the truth.
Without attempting to trace exhaustively
the history or even to enumerate the peoples living,
or who have lived, under mother-right customs, we
have examined many and varied cases of the actual working
of this system, with special reference to the position
held by women. The examples have been chosen
from all parts of the world, so as to prove (what
is sometimes denied) that mother-right has not been
confined to any one race, that it is not a local custom
under special conditions, but that it has been a necessary
stage of growth of human societies. My aim has
been to illustrate the stages through which society
passed from mother-right to father-right. It has
not been possible to arrange the evidence in any exact
progressive sequence, but I hope the cases given will
make clear what I believe to have been the general
trend of growth: at first the power in the hands
of the women, but this giving way to the slow but
steady usurping of the mother’s authority by
the ever-assertive male.
I shall now conclude this study of
the mother-age by attempting to formulate the general
truths, which, it seems to me, may be drawn from the
examples we have examined.
I. The first effort of primitive society
was to establish some form of order, and in that order
the women of the group were the more stable and predominant
partners in the family relationship.
II. Impelled by the conditions
of motherhood to a more settled life than the men
of the tribe, women were the first agriculturists,
weavers, dyers and dressers of skins, potters, the
domesticators of animals, the first architects, and
sometimes the primitive doctors-in a word,
the inventors and organisers of the peaceful art of
life. Primitive women were strong in body
and capable in work. The power they enjoyed as
well as their manifold activities were a result of
their position as mothers, this function being to them
a source of strength and not a plea of weakness.
III. Moral ideas, as we understand
them, hardly existed. The oldest form of marriage
was what is known as “group marriage,”
which was the union of two tribal groups or clans,
the men of one totem group marrying the women
of another, and vice versa, but no man or woman
having one particular wife or husband.
IV. The individual relationship
between the sexes began with the reception of temporary
lovers by the woman in her own home. But as society
progressed, a relationship thus formed would tend under
favourable circumstances to be continued, and, in some
cases, perpetuated. The lover thus became the
husband, but he was still without property right,
with no-or very little-control
over the woman, and none over her children, occupying,
indeed, the position of a more or less permanent guest
in her hut or tent.
V. The social organisation which followed
this custom was in most cases-and always,
I believe, in their primitive form-favourable
to women. Kinship was recognised through the
mother, and the continuity of the family thus depending
solely on the woman, it followed she was the holder
of all property. Her position and that of her
children was, by this means, assured, and in the case
of a separation it was the man who departed, leaving
her in possession. The woman was the head of the
household, and in some instances held the position
of tribal chief.
VI. This early power of women,
arising from the recognition alone of womb-kinship,
with the resulting freedom in sexual relationships
permitted to women, could not continue. It was
no more possible for society to be built up on mother-right
alone than it is possible for it to remain permanently
based on father-right.
VII. It is important to note
that the causes which led to the change in the position
of the sexes had no direct connection with moral development;
it was not due, as many have held, to the recognition
of fatherhood. The cause was quite different
and was founded on property. It arose, in the
first instance, through a property value being connected
with women themselves. As soon as the women’s
kin began to see in their women a means by exchange
of obtaining wives for themselves, and also the possibility
of gaining worldly goods, both in the property held
by women, and by means of the service and presents
that could be claimed from their lovers, we find them
exercising more or less strict supervision over the
alliances of their female relatives.
VIII. At first, and for a long
time, the early freedom of women persisted in the
widely spread custom of a preliminary period before
marriage of unrestricted sexual relationships.
But permanent unions became subject to the consent
of the woman’s kindred.
It was in this way, I am certain,
and for no moral considerations that the stringency
of the sexual code was first tightened for women.
IX. At a much later date virginity
came to have a special market-value, from which time
a jealous watch began to be kept upon maidenhood.
It seems to me of very great importance
that women should grasp firmly this truth: the
virtue of chastity owes its origin to property.
Our minds fall so readily under the spell of such
ideas as chastity and purity. There is a mass
of real superstition on this question-a
belief in a kind of magic in purity. But, indeed,
chastity had at first no connection with morals.
The sense of ownership has been the seed-plot of our
moral code. To it we are indebted for the first
germs of the sexual inhibitions which, sanctified
by religion and supported by custom, have, under the
unreasoned idealism of the common mind, filled life
with cruelties and jealous exclusions, with suicides
and murders and secret shames.
X. This intrusion of economics into
the sexual relationships brought about the revolution
in the status of women. As soon as women became
sexually marketable, their early power was doomed.
First came what I hold to have been the transitional
stage of the mother-age. This will explain how
it is that, even where matrilineal descent is in full
force, we may find the patriarchal subjection of women.
The mother’s authority has been usurped by her
male kindred, usually her brother.
XI. We have noted the alien position
of the father even among peoples at a stage of development
where paternity was fully established. This subjection,
which, perhaps, would not be felt in the earlier stage
of mother-right, must have been increased by the intrusion
of the authority of the wife’s male kindred.
The impulse to dominate by virtue of strength or of
property possessions has manifested itself in every
age. As society advanced property would increase
in value, and the social and political significance
of its possession would also increase. It is
clear that such a position of insecurity for the husband
and father would tend to become impossible.
XII. One way of escape-which
doubtless took place at a very early stage-was
by the capture of women. Side by side with the
customary marriages in which the husband resided in
the home of the wife, without rights and subject to
her clan-kindred, we find the practice of a man keeping
one or more captive wives in his own home for his use
and service. It will be readily seen that the
special rights in the home over these owned wives
(rights, moreover, that were recognised by the tribe)
would come to be desired by other men. But the
capture of wives was always difficult as it frequently
led to a quarrel and even warfare with the woman’s
tribe, and for this reason was never widely practised.
It would, therefore, be necessary for another way of
escape to be found. This was done by changing
the conditions of the customary marriage. Nor
do I think it unlikely that such change may have been
received favourably by women. The captive wives
may even have been envied by the regular wife.
An arrangement that would give a more individual relationship
to marriage and the protection of a husband for herself
and the children of their union may well have been
preferred by woman to her position of subjection that
had now arisen to the authority of her brother or
other male relative. The alteration from the
old custom may thus be said to have been due, in part,
to the interests of the husband, but also, in part,
to the inclination of the wife.
XIII. The change was gained by
elopement, by simulated capture, by the gift or exchange
of women, and by the payment of a bride-price.
The bride-price came to be the most usual custom,
gradually displacing the others. As we have seen,
it was often regarded as a condition, not of the marriage
itself, but of the transfer of the wife to the home
of the husband and of the children to his kin.
XIV. It was in this way, for
economic reasons, and the personal needs of both the
woman and the man, and not, I believe, specially through
the fighting propensities of the males, and certainly
not by any unfair domination or tyranny on the part
of the husband that the position of the sexes was
reversed.
XV. But be this as it may, to
woman the result was no less far-reaching and disastrous.
She had become the property of one master, residing
in her husband’s tribe, which had no rights or
duties in regard to her, where she was a stranger,
perhaps speaking a different language. And her
children kept her bound to this alien home in a much
closer way than the husband could ever have been bound
to her home under the earlier custom. Woman’s
early power rested in her organised position among
her own kin: this was now lost.
XVI. The change was not brought
about quickly. For long the mother’s influence
persisted as a matter of habit. We have its rather
empty shadow with us to-day.
XVII. But, under the pressure
of the new conditions, the old custom of tracing descent
and the inheritance of property in the female line
(so favourable to women) died. Mother-right passed
away, remaining only as a tradition, or practised
in isolated cases among primitive peoples. The
patriarchal age, which still endures, succeeded.
Women became slaves, who of old had been dominant.
One final word more.
The opinion that the subjection of
women arose from male mastery, or was due to any special
cruelty, must be set aside. To me the history
of the mother-age does not teach this. I believe
this charge could not have arisen, at all events it
would not have persisted, if women, with the power
they then enjoyed, had not desired the gaining of a
closer relationship with the father of their children.
With all the evils that father-right has brought to
woman, we have got to remember that woman owes the
individual relation of the man to herself and her
children to the patriarchal system. The father’s
right in his children (which, unlike the right of
the mother, was not founded on kinship, but rested
on the quite different and insecure basis of property)
had to be established. Without this being done,
the family in its full and perfect development was
impossible. We women need to remember this, lest
bitterness stains our sense of justice. It may
be that progress social and moral could not have been
accomplished otherwise; that the cost of love’s
development has been the enslavement of woman.
If so, then women will not, in the long account of
Nature, have lost in the payment of the price.
They may be (when they come at last to understand
the truth) better fitted for their refound freedom.
Neither mother-right alone, nor father-right
alone, can satisfy the new ideals of the true relationship
of the sexes. The spiritual force, slowly unfolding,
that has uplifted, and is still uplifting, womanhood,
is the foundation of woman’s claim that the further
progress of humanity is bound up with her restoration
to a position of freedom and human equality.
But this position she must not take from man-that,
indeed, would be a step backwards. No, she is
to share it with him, and this for her own sake and
for his, and, more than all, for the sake of their
children and all the children of the race.
This replacement of the mother side
by side with the father in the home and in the larger
home of the State is the true work of the Woman’s
Movement.