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

by C. Gasquoine Hartley

[143] This passage is quoted from The Truth about Woman, p. 171. I give it here, because its importance seems to me to be very great.

CHAPTER IX

WOMEN AND PRIMITIVE INDUSTRY

I have referred in an earlier chapter to a letter from Mr. H. G. Wells, sent to me after the publication of my book, The Truth about Woman. Now, there is one sentence in this letter that I wish to quote here, because it brings home just what it is my purpose in this chapter to show—that the mother-age was a civilisation owing its institutions, and its early victories over nature, rather to the genius of woman than to that of man. Mr. Wells does not, indeed, say this. He rejects the mother-age, and in questioning my acceptance of it as a stage in the past histories of societies, he writes: “The primitive matriarchate never was anything more than mother at the washing-tub and father looking miserable.”

It seems to me that here, in his own inimitable way, Mr. Wells (though I think quite unconsciously) sums up the past labour-history of woman and man. His statement has very far-reaching considerations. It forces us to accept the active utility of primitive woman in the community—a utility more developed and practical than that of man. This was really the basis of women’s position of power. The constructive quality of the female mind, at a time when the male attention and energy were fixed chiefly on the destructive activities of warfare, was liberated for use and invention. Women were the seekers, slowly increasing their efficiency.

Very much the same account of the primitive sexual division in work was given by an Australian Kurnai to Messrs. Fison and Howitt, in a sentence that has been quoted very frequently: “A man hunts, spears fish, fights and sits about, all the rest is woman’s work.” This may be accepted as a fair statement of how work is divided between the two sexes among primitive peoples. Now, what I wish to make plain is that it was an arrangement in which the advantage was really on the side of the woman rather than on that of the man. I would refer the reader back to what has been said on this subject in Chapter III, where I summed up the conditions acting on the women in the hypothetical first stage of the primordial family. We saw that the males were chiefly concerned with the absorbing duties of sex and fighting rivals, and also hunting for game. The women’s interest, on the other hand, was bent on domestic activities—in caring for their children and developing the food supplies immediately around them. From the hearth-home, or shelter, as the start of settled life, and with their intelligence sharpened by the keen chisel of necessity, women carried on their work as the organisers and directors of industrial occupations. Very slowly did they make each far-reaching discovery; seeds cast into the ground sprouted and gave the first start of agriculture. The plant world gave women the best returns for the efforts they made, and they began to store up food. Contrivance followed contrivance, each one making it possible for women to do more. Certain animals, possibly brought back by the hunters from the forests, were kept and tamed. Presently the use of fire was discovered—we know not how—but women became the guardians of this source of life. And now, instead of caves or tree-shelters, there were huts and tents and houses, and of these, too, women were frequently the builders. The home from the first was of greater importance to the women; it was the place where the errant males rejoined their wives and children, and hence the women became the owners of the homes and the heads of households. For as yet the men were occupied in fighting. The clumsy and the stupid among them were killed soonest; the fine hand, the quick eye—these prevailed age by age. Tools and weapons were doubtless fashioned by these fighters, but for destruction; the male’s attention was directed mainly by his own desires. And may we not accept that among the most pressing activities of women was the need to tame man and make him social, so that he could endure the rights of others than himself?

So through the long generations the life of human societies continued. Those activities, due to female influence, developing and opening up new ways in all directions, until we have that early civilisation, which I have called the mother-age.

All the world over, even to this day, this separation in the labour activities of the two sexes can be traced. Destructive work, demanding a special development of strength, with corresponding periods of rest, falls to men; and contrasted with this violent and intermittent male force we find, with the same uniformity, that the work of women is domestic and constructive, being connected with the care of children and all the various industries which radiate from the home—work demanding a different kind of strength, more enduring, more continuous, but at a lower tension.

Bonwick’s account of the work of Tasmanian women may be taken as typical—

“In addition to the necessary duty of looking after the children, the women had to provide all the food for the household excepting that derived from the chase of the kangaroo. They climbed up hills for the opossum” (a very difficult task, requiring great strength and also skill), “delved in the ground for yams, native bread, and nutritious roots, groped about the rocks for shellfish, dived beneath the sea for oysters, and fished for the finny tribe. In addition to this, they carried, on their frequent tramps, the household stuffs in native baskets of their own manufacture.”[144]