The Position of Woman in Primitive Society: A Study of the Matriarchy

by C. Gasquoine Hartley

Mr. Crawley considers this assumption may be taken for granted; so that he does not trouble himself about proofs. The subject of mother-right is dismissed as unworthy of serious attention. Such an attitude is surely instructive, and illustrates the failure, to which I have already pointed, in considering the woman’s side in these questions. There would seem to be a tendency to doubt as being possible any family arrangement favourable to the authority of women. Even when descent through the mother is accepted as a phase in social development, it is denied that such descent confers any special rights to women.

One reason of this prejudice must be sought in the persistence of the puritan spirit: the objection to mother-kin rests mainly on the objection to loose sexual relationships. Thus it became necessary to attempt a new explanation of the origin of the custom, and hence my examination of the primordial patriarchal group. It may be thought that I should have done better to confine my inquiry to existing primitive peoples. But, if I am right, mother-power is rooted much further back than history, and arose first in the dawn of the human family. This had to be established.

It is clearly of vital importance to an inquiry that claims to set up a new belief in a discredited theory to protect it from those objections which hitherto have prevented its acceptance. This I have attempted to do. I have shown that the customs connected with mother-right had no connection at all with a state of promiscuity; that they were the result of order in the sexual relationships, and not of disorder. I have traced the causes which appear to have given rise to such a system, showing that the maternal order was not the first phase of the family, but was a natural forward movement—one which developed slowly and quite simply from the conditions of the patriarchal group. Moreover, I have maintained, and tried to prove, that the initiative in progress was taken by the women, they being inspired by their collective interest to overcome the individual interests of the male members of the group. If this is not assented to, then indeed, my view of mother-power can find no acceptance.

It is necessary, however, once more to guard against any mistake. I do not wish to prove a theory of gynæcocracy, or rule of woman. The title chosen for this chapter at once opens the way to misinterpretation. It might appear as if I supported Bachofen’s supposition that, under a system of maternal descent women possessed supreme rule in the family and in the clan: this is a dream only of visionaries. I declare here that I consider the theory of the so-called matriarchate at once false and injurious: false, because it can lead to nothing; and injurious, because, while it cannot be supported by facts, it overthrows what can be proved by the evidence that is open to all investigators. Nothing will be gained by exaggeration and by claiming over much for women. The term “matriarchal” takes too much for granted that women at one period ruled. Such a view is far from the truth. All I claim, then, is this: the system by which the descent of the name and the inheritance of property passes through the female side of the family placed women in a favourable position, with definite rights in the family and clan, rights which, in some cases, resulted in their having great and even extraordinary power. This, I think, may be granted. If descent through the father stands, as it is held to do, for the predominance of man over woman—the husband over the wife, then it is at least surely possible that descent through the mother may in some cases have stood for the predominance of the wife over the husband. The reader will judge how far the examples of the maternal family I am able to bring forward support this claim.

The evidence for mother-right has never yet been fully brought into notice; but much of the evidence is now available. Our knowledge of the customs of primitive peoples has increased greatly of late years, and these afford a wide field for inquiry. And although the examples of the complete maternal family existing to-day are few in number—probably not more than twenty tribes,[41] yet the important fact is that they occur among widely separated peoples in all the great regions of the uncivilised world. Moreover, side by side with these, are found a much larger number of imperfect systems, which give unmistakable evidence of an earlier maternal stage. Such examples are specially instructive; they belong to a transitional period, and show the maternal family in its decline as it passes into a new patriarchal stage; often, indeed, we see the one system competing in conflict with the other.

In this connection I may note that Westermarck does not accept an early period when descent was traced exclusively through the mother; he gives a long list of peoples among whom the system is not practised. These passages occur in his well-known Criticism of the Hypothesis of Promiscuity,[42] and his whole argument is based on the assumption that mother-right arose through the tie between the father and the child being unrecognised. But mother-descent has no connection at all with uncertainty of paternity. I venture to think Dr. Westermarck has not sufficiently considered this aspect of the question, and, if I mistake not, it is this confusion of mother-descent with promiscuity which explains his attitude towards the maternal system, and his failure to recognise its favourable influence on the status of women. In his opinion this system of tracing descent does not materially affect the relative power of the two sexes.[43] In such a view I cannot help thinking he is mistaken; and I am supported in this by the fact that he makes the important qualification that the husband’s power is impaired when he lives among his wife’s kinsfolk. Now, it is this form of marriage, or the more primitive custom when the husband only visits his wife, that is practised among the peoples who have preserved the complete maternal family. Under such a domestic arrangement, which really reverses the position of the wife and the husband, mother-right is found; this maternal marriage is, indeed, the true foundation of the woman’s power. Where the marriage system has been changed from the maternal to the paternal form, and the wife is taken from the protection of her own kindred to live in the home of her husband, even when descent is still traced through the mother, the chief authority is almost always in the hands of the father. Thus it need not cause surprise to find mother-descent combined with a fully established patriarchal rule. But among such peoples practices may often be met with that can be explained only as survivals from an earlier maternal system. Moreover, in other cases, we meet with tribes that have not yet advanced to the maternal stage. A study of existing tribes, and of the records of ancient civilisations, will yield any number of examples.

Unmistakable traces of mother-right may, indeed, be found by those, whose eyes are opened to see, in all races. In peasant festivals and dances, and in many religious beliefs and ceremonies, we may meet with such survivals. They may be traced in our common language, especially in the words used for sex and for kin relationships. We can also find them shadowed in certain of our marriage rites, and sex habits to-day. Another source of evidence is furnished by the widespread early occurrence of mother-goddesses, who must be connected with a system which places the mother in the forefront of religious thought. Further proof may be gathered from folk stories and heroic legends, whose interest offers rich rewards in suggestions of a time when honour rested with the sex to whom the inheritance belonged. Thus, the difficulty of establishing a claim for mother-right and mother-power does not rest in any paucity of proof—but rather in its superabundance.

It would be superfluous for me to dwell on the difficulties of such an inquiry. The subject is immensely complicated and wide-reaching, so that I must keep strictly to the path set before me. It is my purpose to outline the domestic relations in the maternal family clan, and to examine the sex-customs and forms of marriage. I shall limit myself to those matters which throw some light on the position of women, and shall touch on the features of social life only in so far as they illustrate this. These questions will be discussed in the three succeeding chapters. Some portion of the matter given has appeared already in the section on the “Mother-Age Civilisation” in The Truth about Woman, which gives examples of the maternal family in America, Australia, India and other countries. Such examples formed a necessary part of the historical section of that work; they are even more necessary to this inquiry. Many new examples will be given, and the examination of the whole subject will be more exhaustive. These chapters will be followed by a discussion of certain difficulties, and an examination of the transition period in which the maternal family gave way to the second patriarchal stage with the family founded on the authority of the father. A short chapter will be devoted to the work done by women in primitive tribes and its importance in relation to their position. Then will come as full an account as is possible of the traces of the mother-age to be found in the records of ancient and existing civilised races; while a brief chapter will be added on certain myths and legends which help to elucidate the theory of women’s early power. The final chapter will treat of general conclusions, with an attempt to suggest certain facts which seem to bear on present-day problems. Throughout I shall support my investigation (as far as can be done in a work primarily designed for a text-book) by examples, which, in each case, have been carefully chosen from trustworthy evidence of those who are personally acquainted with the habits of the peoples of whom they write. I shall try to avoid falling into the error of a one-sided view. Facts will be more important than reflections, and as far as possible, I shall let these speak for themselves.

Let us now concentrate our attention on the complete maternal family, where the clan is grouped around the mothers.

The examples in this chapter will be taken from the aboriginal tribes of North and South America among whom traces of the maternal system are common, while in some cases mother-right is still in force. At the period of European discovery the American Indians were already well advanced in the primitive arts, and were very far removed from savagery. Their domestic and social habits showed an organisation of a very remarkable character; among certain tribes there was a communal maternal family, interesting and complicated in its arrangements. Such customs had prevailed from an antiquity so remote that their origin seems to have been lost in the obscurity of the ages. It is possible, however, to see how this communism in living may have arisen and developed out of the conditions we have studied in the far distant patriarchal groups. For this reason they afford a very special interest to our inquiry.