“Round the fundamental facts of parenthood and the dependence of the breeding mother woman has built up the tissue of customs and conventions called ‘home,’ which expanded in ever widening circles became society.”—E. Colquhoun.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VII
THE MOTHER IN THE PRIMITIVE FAMILY
The importance of the customs of primitive peoples—Such knowledge necessary to an understanding of our present family system and form of marriage—My earlier book, The Age of Mother-Power—This work a necessary part of my present inquiry—Re-statement of my own views—An attempt to group the matter to be considered—The early period in which man developed from his ape-like ancestors—Parenthood more fixed, fewer experiments—The probable conditions of the primordial human family—Customs of brute male-ownership—This the pre-matriarchal stage of the family—Progress—The second stage—The growth of the communal clan—The increasing influence of the women—Reasons why this view may be accepted—Mother-descent and mother-rights—The importance of this early matriarchate—The maternal form of marriage—Visiting husbands—Communal dwelling houses—Contrast between the customs of the patriarchal individual family and the maternal communal clan—The power of the wife and the mother—The alien position of the husband and father—The assertion of the male force in the person of the woman’s brother—The communal clan a transitional stage—The re-establishment of the individual patriarchal family—The fixing of paternity and the rise of the father’s power—Lessons to be learnt from this past history of the family.