The Sexes in Science and History / An inquiry into the dogma of woman's inferiority to man

by Eliza Burt Gamble

According to scientists, among the lower orders of life, males are considerably in the excess of females, and among less developed races men are more numerous than women. It has been shown in a former portion of this work that the advancement of civilization is characterized by a corresponding increase in the number of women among the adult population; hence their evident lack of numbers among primitive peoples, to say nothing of their probable aversion to war and bloodshed, would at once preclude the idea that their dominion was achieved through armed resistance to a foe so superior in numbers and in fighting qualities. By a natural law governing propagation— a law which determines the numerical proportion of the sexes, and which creates an excess in the number of that sex best suited to its environment, primitive women, had they relied on physical force, would have had little chance to maintain their independence.

In a former portion of this work it has been observed that it was neither to lack of numbers nor to their want of physical force that women were divested of their power; that it was not through their weakness, but through the peculiar course which the development or growth of males had taken, that under certain conditions women became enslaved.

Not merely from the facts laid down by naturalists regarding the peculiar development of the male, but from later researches into the conditions and causes which have influenced progress, it is plain that no restrictions on the range of sexual liberties could have originated in males. Hence the demand for a more refined state of society must have begun with females. This fact seems to have been perceived by Bachofen, but, as according to his reasoning, at an early period of human existence, women were slaves, exercising none of the powers necessary to personal control, it is difficult to conceive of any manner in which it was possible for them to rise to the social position and moral dignity ascribed to them in Das Mutter-recht.

According to the theory set forth by this writer, however, religion was the cause of the important change which at this time took place in the positions of the sexes. Although, according to him, the religion which prevailed during the ages of “lawlessness” was of a low “telluric chthonic” type, it was nevertheless the cause, or at least one of the causes which led to the abandonment of promiscuity and the establishment of the monogamic family. It will doubtless be remembered, however, that this age of lawlessness or hetairism which Bachofen has described, represents a very early stage of human existence, in which, according to his reasoning, the baser instincts ruled supreme; nevertheless, within it, he would have us believe that a religious system had been evolved capable of lifting women from a state of degradation to which they had been consigned by nature, or at least to which they had always been committed, to a position of influence and womanly dignity in which they were able to assume supreme control over the forces by which they had been enslaved. With sexual desire as the controlling influence in human affairs, and with women in bondage to this power, it is difficult to conceive of any manner in which such a religion could have arisen.

As all religious systems are believed to represent growths, and to indicate a result of the degree of progress attained, it is evident that had a religion appeared at this early age which was capable of elevating women from a condition of degradation, as indicated by the early state described by Bachofen it could not have been the result of natural development, but, on the contrary, must have proceeded directly from a divine source; in which event it would doubtless have remained upon the earth still further to aid development and bless the race. Such, however, was not the outcome of this remarkable but premature religion; for it is asserted by this writer that what women gained by religion they afterward lost through the same source—that in Greece, the loss first came through the oracle of Apollo, which declared the father to be the real parent of the child.

Bachofen assures us, also, that through the Bacchanalian excesses which followed the dominion of males in Greece, hetairism was again restored, and through this means gynecocracy reappeared. From this it would seem that although under the earliest stage of hetairism women were without power and wholly under the control of men, with the return, at a later age, of a like state of society, the basis was at once laid for female supremacy.

It is evident that Herr Bachofen’s confusion arises from a misconception of the early importance of women. Although perhaps more than any other writer upon this subject he has been able to recognize the true bias of the female constitution, yet, as he has mistaken the relative positions of women and men at the outset of the human career, and as he has been unable to perceive the previously developed influences which governed these relations, he has failed to furnish a satisfactory solution of the problem of the early supremacy of women, which from the evidence adduced, not only by the traditions and mythologies of past ages, but by later developments in ethnology, may not be doubted.

Prior to the appearance of mankind on the earth, had there been developed within the female no higher element than that which characterized the male, and had she appeared on the scene of human action as the willing and natural tool of her less-developed male mate, it is plain that she would have been unable to elevate herself to the position of dignity which Bachofen assigns her, and which, until a comparatively recent period in the human career, she had occupied.

As among the orders of creation below mankind the structural organism of the male has been materially changed through his efforts to please the female and secure her favours, it is evident that under earlier and more natural conditions of human life, the appetites developed within him were still largely controlled by her will. From logical conclusions to be drawn from the hypotheses of naturalists, it is not likely that at the outset of human life those restrictions on the nature of the male imposed by the female throughout the animal kingdom were suddenly withdrawn, or that the destructive elements which all along the line of progress had been in abeyance to the higher powers developed in organized matter, were immediately and without good cause put in absolute command over the constructive forces of life.

With a better knowledge of the past history of mankind, comes the assurance that such was not the case, but, on the contrary, that for thousands of years women were the ruling spirits in human society; that the cohesive quality—sympathy, which is the result of the maternal instinct, and which conserves the highest interests of offspring, was the underlying principle which governed human groups—in fact, that it was the principle which made organization possible and progress attainable.