Almost all races have a "golden age" myth; faint traditions of a period when things were better; which seems to coincide with this background of matriarchal rule. The farther back we go in our civilization the more traces we find of woman's power and freedom, with goddesses, empresses, and woman-favoring laws.
Again in our present Age, the most progressive and dominant races are those whose women have most power and liberty; and in the feeblest and most backward races we find women most ill-treated and enslaved.
The Teutons and Scandinavian stocks seem never to have had that period of enslaved womanhood, that polygamous harem culture; their women never went through that debasement; and their men have succeeded in preserving the spirit of freedom which is inevitably lost by a race which has servile women. Thus while it is admitted that roughly speaking the period of Androcentric Culture corresponds with the period of progress, these considerations show that the coincidence is not perfect. Even if it were, there remains this satisfying rejoinder:
The lit space in our long life-story begins but a short time ago compared with the real existence of human life on earth. On the conditions preceding history we know little save that they were matriarchal as to culture and of an industrious, peaceful and friendly nature. Of the conditions brought about by the androcentric culture we know much, however.
We have developed some degree of peace and prosperity; marked progress in intelligence, learning, and specialized skill; immense material and scientific development and increased wealth.
But we have also developed an array of diseases, follies, vices, and crimes, which distinguish us from the other animals as markedly as does our androcentric culture.
Not all of these disadvantages con be clearly traced to its door; but these three are plainly due to it; prostitution, with all its devastation of its ensuing diseases; drug habits of all sorts, as alcohol, tobacco, opium—which are preponderantly masculine; and warfare; with its loss of life and wealth; its cruelty and waste; its foolish interference with true social processes.
If the matriarchal period can be shown to have produced worse evils than these then it was a blessing to lose it. If at all the splendid gains we have made under man's rule can be traced to his separate influence then we might say even these world injuries may be borne for the sake of the benefits not otherwise obtainable. But if it can be shown that real progress is always paralleled by improvement in the conditions of women; that the most valuable human qualities are found in women as well as men; that these three worst evils of our present day are clearly of a masculine nature and removable by the extension of feminine influence—then our inquirer's last question is easily answered; the existence of our androcentric culture during our period of modern progress distinctly does not prove that it is a necessary condition of that Progress.
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A number of most interesting Personal Problems have come in this month, but the length of the above, postponed from June, prevents due answers in this issue. This one had to be long, its questions were so general.