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

by C. Gasquoine Hartley

“All this explains why the queen receives more power and respect than the king, and why, among private individuals, the woman rules over the man, and that it is stipulated between married couples, by the terms of the dowry-contract, that the man shall obey the woman.”[182]

There is probably some exaggeration in this account, nevertheless, the demotic deeds, in a measure, confirm it. By the law of maternal inheritance, an Egyptian wife was often richer than her husband, and enjoyed the dignity and freedom always involved by the possession of property. More than three thousand three hundred years ago men and women were recognised as equal in this land.

Under such privileges the wife was entirely preserved from any subjection; she was able to dictate the terms of the marriage. She held the right of making contracts without authorisation; she remained absolute mistress of her dowry. The marriage-contract also specified the sums that the husband was to pay to his wife, either as a nuptial gift or annual pension, or as compensation in case of divorce. In some cases the whole property of the husband was made over to the wife, and when this was done, it was stipulated that she should provide for him during his life, and discharge the expenses of his burial and tomb.

These unusual proprietary rights of the Egyptian wife can be explained only as being traceable to an early period of mother-right. Without proof of any absolutely precise text, we have an accumulation of facts that render it probable that, at one time, descent was traced through the mother. It is significant that the word husband never occurs in the marriage deeds before the reign of Philometor. This ruler (it would appear in order to establish the position of the father in the family) decreed that all transfers of property made by the wife should henceforth be authorised by the husband. Up to this time public deeds often mention only the mother, but King Philometor ordered the names of contractors to be registered according to the paternal line. Besides this, the hieroglyphic funeral inscriptions frequently bear the name of the mother, without indicating that of the father.[183]

All these facts attest that women in Egypt enjoyed an exceptionally favourable position. We may compare this position with that held by the Touareg women of the Sahara, who, through the custom of maternal inheritance, for long continued, have in their hands the strong power of wealth, and thus exercise extraordinary authority, giving rise to what I have called “a pecuniary matriarchy.”

It is probable that in Egypt property was originally entirely in the hands of women, as is usual under the matriarchal system. Later, a tradition in favour of the old privileges would seem to have persisted after descent was changed from the maternal to the paternal line. The marriage-contracts may thus be regarded as enforcing by agreement what would occur naturally under the maternal customs. The husband’s property was made over by deed to the wife (at first entirely, and afterwards in part) to secure its inheritance by the children of the marriage. It was in such wise way the Egyptians arranged the difficult problem of the fusing of mother-right with father-right.

In the very ancient civilisation of Babylon we find women in a position of honour, with privileges similar in many ways to those they enjoyed in Egypt. There are even indications that the earliest customs may have gone beyond those of the Egyptians in exalting women. All the available evidence points to the conclusion that at the opening of Babylonian history women had complete independence and equal rights with their husbands and brothers. It is significant that the most archaic texts in the primitive language are remarkable for the precedence given to the female sex in all formulas of address: “Goddesses and gods;” “Women and men,” are mentioned always in that order; this is in itself a decisive indication of the high status of women in this early period. And there are other traces all pointing to the conclusion that in the civilisation of primitive Babylon mother-right was still in active force. Later (as is shown by the Code of Hammurabi) a woman’s rights, though not her duties, were more circumscribed; in the still later Neo-Babylonian periods, she again acquired, through the favourable conditions with regard to property, full liberty of action and equal rights with her husband.[184]

Let us now turn our attention to the Græco-Roman civilisation. It is convenient to take first a brief glance at Rome. I may note that the family here would certainly appear to have developed from the primitive clan, or gens. At the dawn of history the patriarchal system was already firmly established, with individual property, and an unusually strong subjection of woman to her father first and afterwards to her husband. There are, however, numerous indications of a prehistoric phase of communism. I can mention only the right of the gens to the heritage, and in certain cases the possession of an ager publicus, which certainly bears witness in favour of an antique community of property.[185] Can we, then, accept that there was once a period of the maternal family, when descent and inheritance were traced through the mother? Frazer[186] has brought forward facts which point to the view that the Roman kingship was transmitted in the female line; and, if this can be accepted, we may fairly conclude that at one time the maternal customs were in force. The plebeian marriage ceremonies of Rome should be noted. The funeral inscriptions in Etruria in the Latin language make much greater insistence on the maternal than the paternal descent; giving usually the name of the mother alone, or indicating the father’s name by a simple initial, whilst that of the mother is written in full.[187] This is very significant. Very little trustworthy evidence, however, is forthcoming, and of the position of women in Rome in the earliest periods we know little or nothing. And for this reason I shall refer my readers to what I have written elsewhere[188] on this matter; merely saying that there are indications and traditions pointing to the view that here, as in so many great civilisations, women’s actions were once unfettered, and this, as I believe, can be explained only on the hypothesis of the existence of a maternal stage, before the establishment of the individual male authority under the patriarchal system.

The evidence with regard to prehistoric Greece is much more complete. The Greek γένος resembled the Roman gens. Its members had a common sepulture, common property, the mutual obligation of the vendetta and archon.[189] In the prehistoric clans maternal descent would seem to have been established. Plutarch relates that the Cretans spoke of Crete as their motherland, and not fatherland. In primitive Athens, the women had the right of voting, and their children bore their name—privileges that were taken from them, says the legend, to appease the wrath of Poseidon, after his inundation of the city, owing to the quarrel with Athene. Tradition also relates that at Athens, until the time of Cecrops, children bore the name of their mother.[190] Among the Lycians, whose affinity to the Greeks was so pronounced, a matriarchate prevailed down to the time of Herodotus. Not the name only, but the inheritance and status of the children depended on the mother. The Lycians “honoured women rather than men;” they are represented “as being accustomed from of old to be ruled by their women.”[191]