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

by C. Gasquoine Hartley

[104] Letourneau, The Evolution of Marriage, pp. 180-181.

CHAPTER VIII

MOTHER-RIGHT CUSTOMS AND THE TRANSITION TO
FATHER-RIGHT

Endeavour has been made in the previous chapters to present the case for mother-right as clearly and concisely as possible. The point we have now reached is this: while mother-right does not constitute or make necessary rule by women, under that system they enjoy considerable power as the result (1) of their organised position under the maternal marriage among their own clan-kindred, (2) of their importance to the male members of the clan as the transmitters and holders of property.

It is necessary to remember the close connection between these mother-right customs and the communal clan, which was a free association for mutual protection. This is a point of much interest. As we have seen, the undivided family of the clan could be maintained only by descent through the mothers, since its existence depended on its power to retain and protect all its members. In this way it destroyed the solitary family, by its opposition to the authority and will of the husband and father.

These conclusions will be strengthened as we continue our examination of mother-right customs as we shall find them in all parts of the world. I must select a few examples only and describe them very briefly, not because these cases offer less interest than the complete maternal families already examined, but because of the length to which this part of my inquiry is rapidly growing. The essential fact to establish is the prevalence of mother-descent as a probable universal stage in the past history of mankind, and then to show the causes which, by undermining the dominion of the maternal clan, led to the adoption of father-right and the re-establishment of the patriarchal family.

Let us begin with Australia, where the aboriginal population is in a more primitive condition than any other race whose institutions have been investigated. I can notice a few facts only from the harvest of information brought together by anthropologists and travellers. The tribes are grouped into exogamous sub-divisions, and each group has its own land from which it takes a local name. Each group wanders about on its own territory in order to hunt game and collect roots, sometimes in detached families and, less often, in larger hordes, for there seems to be a tendency to local isolation. A remarkable feature of the social organisation is found in the more advanced tribes, where, in addition to the division into clans, the group is divided into male and female classes. All the members of such clans regard themselves as kinsmen, or brothers and sisters; they have the same totem mark and are bound to protect each other. The totem bond is stronger than any blood tie, while the sex totems are even more sacred than the clan totems.

Much confusion has arisen out of the attempts to explain the Australian system; and for long the close totem kinship was supposed to afford evidence of group marriage, by which a man of one clan was held to have sexual rights over all the women in another clan. But further insight into their customs has proved the error of such a view, which arose from a misunderstanding of the terms of relationship used among the tribes. Nowhere is marriage bound by more severe laws; death is the penalty for sexual intercourse with a person of a forbidden clan. And it is certain that there is no evidence at all of communism in wives.[105]

A system of taboos is very strongly established, and as we should expect the women appear to be most active in maintaining these sexual separations. If a man, even by mistake, kills the sex-totem of the women, they are as much enraged as if it were one of their own children, and they will turn and attack him with their long poles.

In Australia it is easy to recognise a very early stage in human society. The organisation of the family group into the clan is still taking place. Moreover, the most primitive patriarchal conditions have not greatly changed, for the males are great individualists and cannot readily suffer the rights of others than themselves. Mother-right can hardly be said to exist, and the position of women is low. It is not the custom among any tribes for the husband to reside in the home of the wife; this in itself is sufficient to explain the power of the husbands. Wives are frequently obtained by capture, and fights for women are of common occurrence. Here it would seem that progress has been very slow. Indeed, it is the chief interest of the Australian tribes that we can trace the transformation from the early patriarchal conditions to the communal clan.