[1] For reasons which I give later, I follow Westermarck, against most sociologists, in thinking that the family expanded into the clan, rather than that the family emerged out of the clan. The uncertainty does not affect my argument.
[2] Frau Lily Braun’s Die Frauenfrage (1901) avoids the pitfall, but Eliza B. Gamble’s Evolution of Woman (1894) stumbles at it. Dr. Moscatelli (La Conditione Della Donna Nelle Società Primitive, 1886) seems to have been one of the last authorities to hold the theory.
[3] Many writers believe that it was the outcome of polyandry among the earlier ancestors. So Maspéro and others.
[4] I do not enlarge upon what is called “sacred prostitution” in the temples, as there is ample proof that this was not regarded as an onerous imposition on woman. It probably had its roots in some ancient superstition. The normal life of Babylon and Nineveh compares favourably enough even with modern times.
[5] Republic, Book V. Nearly the whole book is taken up with the most advanced claims for woman.
[6] Cato is so often the villain of the chapter in works of this kind that I am tempted to quote a saying of his: “The man who beats his wife and children lays impious hands on that which is most sacred,” and he “would deem it higher praise to be a good husband than a good senator” (Plutarch, c. xx.). I know, of course, how Cato obliged Hortensius; but we are not aware that Mme. Cato objected to the eugenic arrangement.
[7] Dr. Reich also speaks of the “Voltairean atheism” of advanced women. Voltaire was not only an ardent theist, but wrote world-known works on the point.
[8] But admirers of Dr. Reich as an historian need not go beyond their favourite author. I know no defence of the Romans of the early Empire so ardent and so flattering as that made by Dr. Reich in his History of Civilisation (p. 371). But this was written before he took up the cause of the anti-feminists.
[9] Ancient Law, p. 154. This section of Sir Henry’s fine study should be read by every feminist.
[10] I leave chivalry and the early romanticism out of account deliberately. The whole movement was a cult of pretty faces and rounded limbs, leading to general laxity of morals. It essentially implied the subordination of woman in all but beauty and dress.