“Perpati Sabatang built a magnificent vessel, which he loaded with gold and precious stones so heavily that it got aground on the sands at the foot of the fiery mountains, and resisted the efforts of all the men to get it off. The sages were consulted, and declared that all attempts would be in vain until the vessel had passed over the body of a pregnant woman. It happened that the Rajah’s own daughter was in the condition desired; she was called upon to immolate herself for the sake of her country, but refused. At this juncture the pregnant sister of the Rajah boldly stepped forward, and cast herself beneath the prow of the vessel, which instantly put itself in motion, and again floated on the waves without injury to the princess. Whereupon the Rajah disinherited the offspring of his disobedient daughter in favour of the child of his sister, and caused this to be enrolled in the records of the empire as the law of succession in time to come.”[240]
The second illustration is taken from the quarrel between Pallas Athene and Poseidon to which already I have referred. The myth tells us—
“A double wonder sprang out of the earth at the same time—at one place the olive tree and at another water. The people in terror sent to Delphi to ask what should be done. The god answered that the olive tree signified the power of Athene, and the water that of Poseidon; and that it remained with the burgesses to choose after which of the two they would name their town. An assembly was called of the burgesses, both men and women, for it was then the custom to let the women take part in the public councils. The men voted for Poseidon, the women for Athene; and as there were more women than men by one, Athene conquered. Thereupon Poseidon was enraged, and immediately the sea flowed over all the lands of Athens. To appease the sea-god, the burgesses found it necessary to impose a threefold punishment on their wives. They were to lose their votes; the children were to receive no more the mother’s name, and they themselves were no longer to be called after the goddess.”[241]
The origin of these myths is perfectly clear. There is no reason to force their interpretation by regarding them as historical evidence of a struggle taking place between the maternal and the paternal custom of tracing descent;[242] rather they are poetical explanations, plainly invented to account for women’s predominance at a time when such power had come to be considered as unusual. The same may be said of many of these old myths. Man’s fancy begins to weave poetic inventions around anything he considers abnormal or is not able to understand. The idea or custom for which an explanation is being sought must, however, have been present for long in the common life and thought of the people. Without realising this, all these old stories become unintelligible. I believe they have been greatly misinterpreted in the thought of writers bound by patriarchal ideas.
The limitation of my space does not allow me to enter into the great amount of evidence provided by these mythical stories of the privileged position of women. One instance, however, may be referred to as an illustration. We find a wide range of stories connected with the mythical Amazons. Now, if I am right, the frequency of these legends among so many races points to the acceptance of the Amazon heroines as an historical fact. Fancy, without doubt, wove the details of their stories, occurrences would be chosen or imagined to give colour to the narratives, but such poetic inventions, with all their repetitions, all their reproductions of what is practically one situation, would take only definite form from conditions so impressed on the popular mind by facts that must have had a real existence. Bearing this in mind, special significance attaches to a discovery recently made by Prof. d’Allosso. In the ancient necropolis of Belmonte, dating from the iron age, are two very rich tombs of women warriors with war chariots over their remains. Prof. d’Allosso states that several details given by Virgil of the Amazon Camilla, who fought and died on the field of battle, coincide with the details on these tombs. The importance of this discovery is thus very great, as it certainly seems to indicate what I am claiming—that the existence of the Amazon heroines, leaders of armies and sung by the ancient poets, is not a poetic fancy, but an historic reality.[243]
I must turn now to the last group of evidence that I am able to bring forward; to find this we must enter that realm of fancy—the world of fairyland. We shall see that this land has its own customs, and its own laws, entirely at variance with all those to which we are accustomed. How is this to be explained? These stories are founded really on the life of the common people, and they have come down from generation to generation, handed on by the storytellers, from a time long before the day when they were ever collected and written in books. It is the popular and social character of these stories that is so important; they are records of customs and habits long forgotten, but once common in the daily life of the people. In them the past is potent with life, and for this reason they claim the most careful and patient study. I speak of the most familiar stories that we have regarded as foolish fables. Nowhere else can we gain so clear and vivid a picture of the childhood of civilisation, when women were the transmitters of inheritance and the guardians of property.
Let me try to prove this. I have before me a collection of these folk-stories, gathered from many countries. Now, the most popular story (whose theme occurs again and again, the details varied in the different renderings) is concerned with the gaining of a princess as a bride by a wooer, usually of humble birth. This lover to obtain his wife achieves some mighty deed of valour, or performs tasks set for him by the parents of the bride; he thus inherits the kingdom through the daughter of the king. Hans, faring forth to seek his luck; the Dummling in the Golden Goose story; the miller’s son, who gained his bride by the wit of his cat, and Aladdin with his magic lamp are well-known examples of this story. The Scottish and Irish legends are particularly rich in examples of these hero lovers. Assipattle, the dirty ash-lad, who wins the fair Gemdelovely and then reigns with her as queen and king, is one of the most interesting. Similar stories may be found in the folk-lore of every country. Ash-lad figures in many of the Norwegian tales. There is a charming version in the Lapp story of the “Silk Weaver and her husband,” where we read, “Once upon a time a poor lad wooed a princess and the girl wanted to marry him, but the Emperor was against the match. Nevertheless she took him at last and they were wed together.”[244]
This “fairy theory” of marriage is really the maternal or beenah form: such a marriage as was made by Jacob and is still common among all maternal peoples. The inheritance passes through the daughters; the suitors gain their position by some deed of valour or by service done for the bride’s family; sometimes it is the mother who sets the task, more often it is the father, while, in some cases, the girl herself imposes the conditions of marriage. It is possible to trace a development in these stories. We can see the growth of purchase-marriage in the service demanded by the parents of the bride, this taking the place of the earlier custom of the bridegroom proving his fitness by some test of strength. Again, those stories in which the arrangement of the marriage remains with the mother or with the girl, and not with the father, must be regarded as the older versions. This change appears also in the conditions of inheritance; in some cases the kingdom passes at once with the bride, in others the half of the kingdom is the marriage portion, while in the later stories the full authority to rule comes only after the death of the king. But always sooner or later the daughter of the king conveys the kingdom to her husband. The sons of the king do not inherit; they are of much less importance than the daughters; they are sent forth to seek their own fortunes. This is the law where the inheritance passes through the daughter.
This law of female inheritance must at one time have been universal. We are brought, indeed, constantly back to that opinion—so amply evidenced by these folk-relics. In the old West country ballad “The Golden Vanity” or “The Lowland’s Low,” the boy who saves the ship from the Spanish pirate galleon is promised as a reward “silver and gold, with the skipper’s pretty little daughter who lives upon the shore.” Similarly in the well-known folksong “The Farmer’s Boy,” the lad who comes weary and lame to the farmer’s door, seeking work, eventually marries the farmer’s daughter and inherits the farm. Again, Dick Whittington, the poor country lad, who faithfully serves his master in London, marries his employer’s daughter. This theme is very frequently found in ballads, romances, and dramas; in all cases the way to fortune for the lover is through marriage—the daughter carries the inheritance.
Let us take Assipattle of the Scottish legend as a type of these hero wooers. He is represented always as the youngest son, held in contempt by his brothers, and merely tolerated by his parents. He lies in the ashes, from which he gains his name. Some emergency arises; a great danger threatens the land or, more often, a princess has to be delivered from a position of peril. Assipattle executes the deed, when his brothers and all others have failed; he frees the land or rescues the king’s daughter, and is covered with honour. He marries the princess and inherits the kingdom. Assipattle always begins in the deepest degradation, and ends on the highest summit of glory. There is a special interest in this story. The reader will not have failed to notice the similarity of Assipattle with Cinderella. In both stories the circumstances are the same, only the Ash-lad has been replaced by the Cinder-girl. There is no doubt which version is the older:[245] the one is the maternal form, the other the patriarchal.