[179] Papers of the Archæological Institute of America, Vol. II, p. 138.
CHAPTER X
TRACES OF MOTHER-RIGHT CUSTOMS IN ANCIENT AND
MODERN CIVILISATIONS
I propose in this chapter to examine, as fully as I can, the traces that mother-right customs have left among some of the great races of antiquity, as also in the early records of western civilisations. It is the more necessary to do this because there is so marked a tendency to minimise the importance of the mother-age, and to regard the patriarchal family as primeval and universal. So much interesting material is available, and so wide a field of inquiry must be covered, that I shall be able to give a mere outline sketch, for the purpose of suggesting, rather than proving, the widespread prevalence of the communal clan and the maternal family.
As to whether this maternal-stage, with kinship and inheritance passing through the mother, has everywhere preceded the second patriarchal period, it is difficult to be at all certain. Dr. Westermarck, Mr. Crawley and others have argued against this view. But (as I have before had occasion to point out) their chief motive has been to discredit the theory of promiscuity, with which mother-descent has been so commonly, and so mistakenly, connected. It does not seem to have been held as possible that the mother-age was a much later development, whose social customs were made for the regulation of the family relationships. A number of very primitive races exhibit no traces, that have yet been discovered, of such a system, and have descent in the male line. This has been thought to be a further proof against a maternal stage. But here again is an error; we are not entitled to regard mother-descent as necessarily the primitive custom. I believe and have tried to show, from the examples of the Australian tribes and elsewhere, that in many cases the stage of the maternal clan has not been reached. If I am right here, we have the way cleared from much confusion. I would suggest, as also possible, that there may among some people, have been retrogressions, customs and habits found out as beneficial, and perhaps for long practised, have by some tribes been forgotten. There can be no hard and fast rule of progress for any race. The whole subject is thorny and obscure, and the evidence on the question is often contradictory. Still I hold the claim I make is not without foundation. I have tried to show how the causes which led to the maternal system were perfectly simple and natural causes, arising out of needs that must have operated universally in the past history of mankind. And this indicates a maternal stage at some period for all branches of the human family. Again the widespread prevalence of mother-right survivals among races where the patriarchal system has been for long firmly established lends support to such a view, which will be strengthened by the evidence now to be brought forward. It will be necessary to go step by step, from one race to another, and to many different countries, and I would ask my readers not to shrink from the trouble of following me.
Let us turn first to ancient Egypt, where women held a position more free and more honourable than they have in any country to-day.
Herodotus, who was a keen observer, records his astonishment at this freedom, and writes—
“They have established laws and customs opposite for the most part to those of the rest of mankind.... With them women go to market and traffic; men stay at home and weave.... The men carry burdens on their heads; the women on their shoulders.... The boys are never forced to maintain their parents unless they wish to do so; the girls are obliged to, even if they do not wish it.”[180]
From this last rule it is logical to infer that women inherited property, as is to-day the case among the Beni-Amer of Africa,[181] where daughters have to provide for their parents.
Diodorus goes further than Herodotus: he affirms that in the Egyptian family it is the man who is subjected to the woman.