This account of the Padang Malays may be supplemented by the Jesuit missionary De Mailla’s description of the maternal marriage in the Island of Formosa.[84] Speaking of this marriage, McGee says: “If it had received the notice it deserves, it might long ago have placed the study of maternal institutions on a sounder basis.”
“The Formosan youth wishing to marry makes music day by day at the maid’s door, till, if willing, she comes out to him, and when they are agreed, the parents are told, and the marriage feast is prepared in the bride’s house, whence the bridegroom returns no more to his father, regarding his father-in-law’s house as his own, and himself as the support of it, while his own father’s house is no more to him than in Europe the bride’s home is henceforth to her when she quits it to live with her husband. Thus the Formosans set no store on sons, but aspire to have daughters, who procure them sons-in-law to become the support of their old age.”
It will be noted that here the house is spoken of as the father’s, and not as belonging to the mother. The bridegroom is the suitor, and we see the creeping in of property considerations always associated with the rise of father-right. Though the husband has as yet no recognised position and lives in the wife’s home, he is valued for his service to his father-in-law, clearly a step in the direction of property assertion. Among many of the Malay hill tribes of Formosa the maternal system is dying out, though the old law forbidding marriage within the clan remains in force.
These changes must be expected wherever the transition towards father-right has begun; the older forms of courtship and marriage, so favourable to the woman, are replaced by patriarchal customs. One or two curious examples of primitive courtship, in which the initiative is taken entirely by the girl may be noted here. Among the Garos tribe it is not only the privilege, but the duty of the girl to select her lover, while an infringement of this rule is severely and summarily punished. Any declaration made on the part of the young man is regarded as an insult to the whole mahári (motherhood) to which the girl belongs, a stain only to be expiated by liberal presents made at the expense of the mahári of the over-forward lover. The marriage customs are equally curious. On the morning of the wedding a ceremony very similar to capture takes place, only it is the bridegroom who is abducted. He pretends to be unwilling and runs away and hides, but he is caught by the friends of the bride. Then he is taken by force, weeping as he goes, in spite of the resistance and counterfeited grief of his parents and friends, to the bride’s house, where he takes up his residence with his mother-in-law. It is instructive to find that these marriages are usually successful. Although divorce is easy, it is not frequent. “The Garos will not hastily make engagements, because, when they do make them, they intend to keep them.”[85]
In Paraguay, we are told, the women are generally endowed with stronger passions than the men, and are allowed to make the proposals.[86] So also among the Ahitas of the Philippine Islands, where, if her clan-parents will not consent to a love match the girl seizes the young man by the hair, carries him off, and declares she has run away with him. In such a case it appears the marriage is held to be valid whether the parents consent or not.[87] A similar custom of a gentler character, is practised by the Tarrahumari Indians of Northern Mexico, among whom, according to Lumboltz, the maiden is a persistent wooer employing a répertoire of really exquisite love songs to soften the heart of a reluctant swain.[88] Again, in New Guinea, where the women held a very independent position, “the girl is always regarded as the seducer. Women steal men.” A youth who proposed to a girl would be making himself ridiculous, would be called a woman, and laughed at by the girls. The usual method by which a girl proposes is to send a present to the youth by a third party, following this up by repeated gifts of food; the young man sometimes waits a month or two, receiving presents all the time, in order to assure himself of the girl’s constancy, before decisively accepting her advances.[89]
It is clear that these cases, which I have chosen from a number of similar courtship customs, differ very much from what is our idea of the customary rôle of the girl and her lover. To me they are very instructive. They show the error of the long-held belief in the passivity of the female as a natural law of the sex.[90] Such openness of conduct in courtship is impossible except where women hold an entirely independent position. Here, then, is another advantage that may be claimed as arising for women out of the maternal system. I claim this: the woman’s right of selection in love—yes, her greatest right, one that is necessary for a freer and more beautiful mating.
Terminating this short digression, I return to my examination of the peoples among whom the family is especially maternal.
The Pelew Islanders of the South Sea have customs in many respects the same as those of the Khasi tribes. They preserve strict maternal descent, and like the Khasis, the deities of all the clans are goddesses. The life and social habits of the people have been described by Kubary, a careful and sympathetic observer, for long resident in the island.[91] The tribes are divided into exogamous clans, and intermarriage between any relations on the mother’s side is unlawful. These clans are grouped together in villages and the life is of a communal character. Each village consists of about a score of clans, and forms with its lands a petty independent state.
Again we find the maternal system intimately connected with religious ideas, and it is interesting to recall what was said by Bachofen: “Wherever gynæcocracy meets us the mystery of religion is bound up with it, and lends to motherhood an incorporation in some divinity.” Among these Islanders every family traces its descent from a woman—the common mother of the clan. And for this reason the members worship a goddess and not a god. In the different states there are, besides other special deities, usually a goddess and a god, but as these are held to be derived directly from a household-goddess, it is evident that here, as among the Khasis, goddesses are older than the gods. This is shown also by the names of the goddesses. There is another fact of interest: some women are reputed to be the wives of the gods, they are called Amalalieys and have a great honour paid to them, while their children pass for the offspring of the gods.