Old Virtues in New Forms
The Age of Mother-Power, by C. Gasquoine Hartley (Mrs. Walter M. Gallichan). [Dodd, Mead and Company, New York.]
One is compelled to take Mrs. Gallichan seriously in her visioning of the future social status of men and of women in the world of sex; for the results of close observation, research, and computation strengthen the most reasonable prophecies. She is modest enough to state her big idea in simple terms. She points out that, since society had in its primitive days a long and up-tending period of mother-power, or female dominance; and, following that, a protracted season of masculine rule, which is only now awakening to feminine rebellion; it is clearly apparent that a new era is commencing, in which all the old virtues of mother-right will be re-established in new forms, with the distinctly modern addition of that solitary virtue of male despotism—father-protection. This is a theory—only a theory, if one wishes to preen one’s own prejudice—which the writer approaches and develops from various angles. She has fruitfully studied history, legend, folk-lore, savages, and other departments of human life. Her deductions are carefully and lucidly thought out, strongly original, and entirely worthy of attention.
Herman Schuchert.