The name for a tribal group in Arabia was hayy, a term which indicates life. It is observed that in Hebrew and Arabic hayy is used in the same sense. “Hawwa is simply a phonetic variation of hayy with a feminine termination,” and “Eve, or Hawwa, is so called because she is the mother of all living, or, more literally, of every hayy.” We are given to understand that, originally, there was no rule of reckoning kinship in Arabia except by the female line, and that the change in descent from the female to the male line affected society to its very roots.
There seems to be little, if any, doubt that a system of reckoning descent through women once prevailed throughout all the tribes and races of mankind. In Greece, as late as the beginning of the historic period, traces of this early custom are to be observed, and, indeed, at the present time, among many peoples, evidences of it are still extant. The fact that throughout an earlier age of human existence descent and all the rights of succession were traced through women, is at the present time so well established as to require no detailed proofs to substantiate it. Noting this custom among early races, and observing also the natural conclusions to be drawn from such a state of society, a few writers who have dealt with the subject of primitive races have taken much pains to show that it does not naturally follow that under these usages the influence of women was supreme; and their theories to explain this (to them) no doubt singular phenomenon show the extent to which prejudice and long-established habits of thought have influenced their investigations. On this subject C. Staniland Wake remarks:
There is strong reason for believing that the practice of tracing kinship in the female line was very widely observed from a very early period, but this is very different from the establishment of the supremacy of women. Where this was found it was due to the development of the gentile institution and the female kinship which accompanied it, on which, indeed, that institution was founded.[87]
If, however, during the earlier ages of human existence a system of kinship through women had been established which was able to produce the gentile institution, or, if this institution, which was “founded” on female kinship and dependent upon it, was able through untold ages to direct all the processes of evolution, even though no other evidence were at hand to prove it, then women’s influence must have been well-nigh supreme.
So deeply intrenched has become the idea of woman’s subjection that it is impossible for many male writers to contemplate a state of society in which women are not dominated and controlled by men.
Mr. Herbert Spencer’s theory to explain the universal system of kinship traced through woman involves the same idea of woman’s subserviency to man, especially in the sexual relation, and is an illustration of the reasoning usually employed in dealing with this subject.
Although “the very lowest races now existing, Fuegians, Australians, and Andamanese, show us that, however informally they have originated, sexual relations of a more or less enduring kind exist,” he is certain that among the earliest races a state of “lawlessness” must have prevailed and that “promiscuity” must have been the rule among them; and this too notwithstanding the fact that among the lower orders of life from which man has descended, and among the earliest races of mankind the female chooses her mate and refuses to pair with any individual except the one of her choice. To account for the universal system of reckoning descent through the female, Mr. Spencer says that as the connection between mother and child is more “obvious” than that existing between the father and his offspring the custom arose of reckoning descent through females.[88] The fact is observed that maternal affection without which organized society would have been impossible, and which alone can explain the system of kinship traced through women, is entirely ignored by Mr. Spencer.
Noting the reasoning employed by many writers to prove that in the earliest ages of human existence, the maternal bond was ignored, and that the child was accounted as being related only to the group, Mr. Darwin remarks:
But it seems almost incredible that the relationship of the child to its mother should ever be completely ignored, especially as the women in most savage tribes nurse their infants for a long time, and as the lines of descent are traced through the mother alone, to the exclusion of the father.[89]
We must bear in mind that under archaic usages not only did mothers nurse their infants two, three, and even four years, but that maternity was the bond which held together related groups and the source whence proceeded all property rights and tribal honours; also, that under the system of female kinship, male parentage was known but habitually disregarded. Notwithstanding all this, Mr. Spencer can see no reason for concluding that in the most primitive groups there were no “individual possessions of women by men.”[90]