The Truth About Woman Part 12

[167] Robertson Smith, _op. cit._, p. 65.

[168] This kind of union for a term is said to have been recognised by Mahommed, though it is irregular by Moslem law. The cases of _beena_ marriage are very frequent among widely different peoples. (See Hartland, _Primitive Paternity_, Vol. II. pp. 11, 13, 14, 19, 20, 24, 27, 30-36, 38, 41-43, 51, 53, 55, 60-63, 67-72, 76, 77.) Frazer (_Academy_, March 27, 1886) cites an interesting example among the tribes on the north frontier of Abyssinia, partially Semitic peoples, not yet under the influence of Islam, who preserve a system of marriage closely resembling the _beena_ marriage, but have as well a purchase marriage, by which a wife is acquired by payment of a bride-price and becomes the property of her husband. (Quoted by Ellis, _op. cit._, p. 392 _note_.)

[169] Thomas, _s.e.x and Society_, pp. 73-74. Quoting Waitz-Gerland, _Anthropologie der Naturvolker_, Vol. V. p. 107.

[170] McLennan, _The Patriarchal Theory_, p. 235.

[171] Thomas, _op. cit._, p. 75, points out that this survival of woman's power after the rise of father-right is similar to the a.s.sertion of male-power under mother-right in the person of the woman's brother or male relative.

[172] Letourneau, _op. cit._, p. 323, who quotes Lubbock, _Orig.

Civil._, p. 177.

[173] Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. II, p. 14, citing Morgan, _Systems of Consanguinity_.

[174] Letourneau, _op. cit._, p. 323.

[175] Morgan, _Systems of Consanguinity_ ("Smithsonian Contributions"), Vol. XVII. pp. 416-417.

[176] Hartland, Vol. II. p. 45, quoting Gray, _China_, Vol. II. p.

304.

[177] This is the opinion of Hartland. He quotes Ellis, _History of Madagascar_, and Sibree, _The Great African Island_. I am able to speak as to the truths of the facts given in their books from my knowledge of the Malagasy before the French occupation of the island.

Madagascar is my birth-place, and my father was a missionary in the country at the same time as Mr. Ellis and Mr. Sibree.

[178] As an instance of the importance attached to children, I may mention the fact that, after my birth my father was not announced to preach under his own name, but as "the father of Keteka," the Malagasy equivalent of my name.

[179] Frazer, _Golden Bough_, Pt. I. _The Magical Art_, Vol. II. p.

277.

[180] Father Guilleme, Missiones Catholiques, x.x.xIV. (1902), p. 16.

[181] Lubbock, _Origin of Civilisation_, p. 151.

[182] Frazer, _Ibid._, p. 276.

[183] "Birth," we are told by a keen observer, who has lived for many years in intimate converse with the natives, "sanctifies the child; birth alone gives him status as a member of his mother's family"

(Dennett, _Jour. Afr. Soc._, I. p. 265).

[184] _Travels_, p. 109.

[185] Hartland, quoting Mr. Sarbah, a native barrister, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 286.

[186] Lippert, _Kulturgeschichte_, Vol. II. p. 57.

[187] This is done among the Beni Amer on the sh.o.r.es of the Red Sea and in the Barka valley, which is the more remarkable as mother-descent has fallen into desuetude under the influence of Islamism. (Hartland, Vol. I. p. 274, quoting Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische studien_.)

[188] Bastian, _Loango-Kuste_, I. p. 166.

[189] Dennett, _Jour. Afr. Soc._, I. p. 266.

[190] _Jour. Afr. Soc._, I. p. 412. See Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. I, pp. 275-288.

[191] A similar custom prevails among Maori people of New Zealand.

When a child dies, or even meets with an accident, the mother's relations, headed by her brother, turn out in force against the father. He must defend himself until wounded. Blood once drawn the combat ceases; but the attacking party plunders his house and appropriates the husband's property, and finally sits down to a feast provided by him (_Old New Zealand_, p. 110). This case is the more extraordinary as the Maori reckon descent through the father; it is doubtless a custom persisting from an earlier time.

[192] Macdonald, _Africana_, Vol. I. p. 136.

[193] _Jour. Afr. Soc._, VIII. pp. 15-17. This tribe now traces descent through the father.

[194] Torday and Joyce, _J.A.I._, x.x.xV. p. 410.

[195] Arnot, _Garenganze_, p. 242.

[196] Spencer, _Descriptive Sociology_, Vol. V. p. 8, citing Petherick, _Egypt, the Soudan, and Central Africa_, pp. 140-144. This case is quoted by Thomas, _op, cit._, pp. 85, 86.

[197] For fuller information on this important subject the reader is referred to Professor Otis Mason, who gives a picturesque summary of the work done by women among the primitive tribes of America (_American Antiquarian_, January 1889, "The Ulu, or Woman's Knife of the Eskimo," _Report of the United States National Museum_, 1890). H.

Ellis, _Man and Woman_, pp. 1-17, and Thomas, _s.e.x and Society_, pp.

123-146, give interesting accounts of the division of labour among primitive people, showing the important part women took in the start of industrialism. For direct examples from primitive peoples, the works of Fison and Howit, James Macdonald, Professor Haddow, Hearn, Morgan, Bancroft, Lubbock, Ratzel, Schoolcroft and other anthropologists should be consulted.

[198] It is an entirely mistaken view, founded on insufficient knowledge, that in early civilisations women were a source of weakness to the men of the tribe or group, and, thus, liable to oppression. The very reverse is the truth. Fison and Howit, who discuss the question, say of the Australian women, "In time of peace they are the hardest workers and the most useful members of the community." In time of war, "they are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves at all times, and so far from being an enc.u.mbrance on the warriors, they will fight, if need be, as bravely as the men, and with even greater ferocity"

(_Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, pp. 133-147, 358). This is no exceptional case, and is confirmed by the reports of investigators of widely different peoples. I may mention the ancient Iberian women of Northern Spain, whose bravery in battle is testified to by Strabo: the descendants of these women still carry on the greater part of the active labour connected with agriculture (_Spain Revisited_, pp.

191-292). In our own day we have the witness to the same truth in the heroic part taken by women in the Balkan army.

CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VII

WOMAN'S POSITION IN THE GREAT CIVILISATIONS OF ANTIQUITY

I.--_In Egypt_

The importance of estimating woman's position in the great civilisations of the ancient world--The Egyptian civilisation--Women more free and more honoured than in any country to-day--The account given by Herodotus--The Egyptian woman never confined to the home--No restraint upon her actions--She entered into commerce in her own right and made contracts for her own benefit--Abundant material in proof of the high status of Egyptian women--Marriage contracts--Their importance and interest--Numerous examples--The proprietary rights of the wife--An early period of mother-rule--Property originally in the hands of women--The marriage contracts a development of the early system--The Egyptians solved the difficult problem of the fusion of mother-right with father-right--The statement of Dioderus that among the Egyptians the woman rules over the man--The conditions of marriage dependent on the birth of children--M. Paturet's view the Egyptian woman the equal of man--The high status of woman proved by the fact that her child was never illegitimate--The position of the mother secure in every relations.h.i.+p between the s.e.xes--This made possible by the free conditions of the marriage contracts--Polygamy allowed--This practice in Egypt very different from polygamy in a patriarchal society--The husband a privileged guest in the home of the wife--The high ideal of the domestic relations.h.i.+p--Ill.u.s.trations from the inscriptions of the monuments--Reasons which explain this civilised and human organisation--The Egyptians an agricultural and a conservative people--They were also a pacific race--The significance of the Maxims of the Moralists--Honour to the wife and the mother strongly insisted on--The health and character of the Egyptian mother--Some reflections in the Egyptian Galleries of the British Museum.

II.--_In Babylon_

Traces of mother-right in primitive Babylon--The honour paid to women--The position of women in later Babylonian history, though still at an early period--Their rights more circ.u.mscribed--The marriage code of Hammurabi--Polygamy permitted, though restricted, by the code--The exacting conditions of divorce--The position of the wife as subject to her husband--The later Neo-Babylonian periods--The position of women continuously improving--They obtain a position equal in law with their husbands--Their freedom in all social relations--They conduct business transactions in their own right--Ill.u.s.trations from the contract tablets--Remarks and conclusion.

III.--_In Greece_

Traces of mother-right traditions in Greek literature and history--The women of the Homeric period--Dangers arising from the patriarchal subjection of women--Ill.u.s.trations and various reflections--Historic Greece--The social organisation of Sparta--Their marriage system--The laws of Lycurgus--The freedom of the Spartan girls--The wise care for the health of the race--Plato's criticism of the Spartan system--He accuses the women of ruling their husbands--The Athenian women--Their subjection under the strict patriarchal rule--The insistence on chast.i.ty--Reasons for this--The degraded position of the wife--The _hetairae_--They the only educated women in Athens--Aspasia--She leads the movement to raise the position of the Athenian women--Plato's estimate of women--Remarks on the s.e.xual penalties for women that are always found under a strict patriarchal regime--The ideal relations.h.i.+p between the wife and the husband--Euripides voices the sorrows of women--He foreshadows their coming triumph.

IV.--_In Rome_

Little known of the position of women in Rome in prehistoric times--Indications of an early period of mother-rule--The patriarchal system formerly established when Roman history opens--The Roman marriage law--The woman regarded as the property first of her father and afterwards of her husband--The patrician marriage of _confarreatio_--The form known as _coemptio_--Marriage by _usus_--The inequality of divorce--The subjection of the woman--The terrible right of the husband's _ma.n.u.s_--The way of escape--The development of the early marriage by _usus_--The new free marriage by consent--Free divorce--A revolution in the position of women--The patriarchal rule of women dwindled to a mere thread--They gained increasingly greater liberty until at last they gained complete freedom--The public entry of women into the affairs of State--Ill.u.s.trations to show the fine use made by the Roman matrons of their freedom--An examination into the supposed licentiousness of Roman women--This opinion cannot be accepted--The effect of Christianity--The view of Sir Henry Maine--Some concluding remarks on the position of women in the four great civilisations examined in this chapter.