The Position of Woman in Primitive Society: A Study of the Matriarchy. C. Gasquoine Hartley
one for women—but is it true? The insuperable difficulty to its acceptance arises, in the first place, from the fact that we can know nothing at all of the spiritual condition of the human beings among whom mother-kin was held first to have been practised. But we must go further than this in our doubt. Can we accept for any period a spiritual superiority in the character of woman over man? To me, at least, it is clear that a knowledge of the two sexes among all races both primitive and civilised—yes, and among ourselves, is sufficient to discredit such a supposition.
Bachofen would have us believe that[12] the mother-right of the ancient world, was due to a revolt of women against the degraded condition of promiscuity, which previously had been universal among mankind, a condition in which men had a community of wives, and openly lived together like gregarious animals.
“Women, by their nature nobler and more spiritual than men, became disgusted with this lawless hetaïrism, and, under the influence of a powerful religious impulse, combined in a revolt (the first Amazonian movement) to put an end to promiscuity and established marriage.”
Over and over again Bachofen affirms this spiritual quality in women.
“The woman’s religious attitude, in particular, the tendency of her mind towards the supernatural and the divine, influenced the man and robbed him of the position which nature disposed him to take in virtue of his physical superiority. In this way women’s position was transformed by religious considerations, until they became in civil life what religion had caused them to be.”[13] And again: “We cannot fail to see that of the two forms of gynæcocracy in question—religious and civil—the former was the basis of the latter. Ideas connected with worship came first, and the civil forms of life were then the result and expression.”[14]
We may note in passing, the greater affectability of woman’s nature, which would seem always to have had a tendency to expression in religio-erotic manifestations. But to build up a theory of matriarchy on this foundation is strangely wide of the facts. Bachofen adduces the spirituality of women as the cause of their power. But on what grounds can such a claim be supported?
It is on the evidence of licentious customs of all kinds and on polyandry, that he bases his belief in a period of promiscuity. He regards this early condition of hetaïrism as a law of nature, and believes that after its infraction by the introduction of individual marriage, expiation was required to be made to the Earth Goddess, Demeter, in temporary prostitution. Hence he explains the widespread custom of religious prostitution. This fanciful idea may be taken to represent Bachofen’s method of interpretation. There is an intermediate stage between hetaïrism and marriage, such as the group-marriage, held by him to have been practised among barbarous peoples. “Each man has a wife, but they are all permitted to have intercourse with the wives of others.”[15]
Great stress is laid on the acquisition by women of the benefits of a marriage law. In the families founded upon individual marriage, which grew up after the Amazonian revolt, the women, and not the men, held the first place. Bachofen does not tell us whether they assigned this place to themselves, or had it conceded to them. Women were the heads of the families, the children were named after the mother, and not the father, and all the relations to which rights of succession attached were traced through women only. All property was held by women. Moreover, from this headship, women assigned to themselves, or had conceded to them, the social and political power as well as the domestic supremacy.[16]
The authority for this remarkable theory is sought, with great ingenuity and patience, in the fragmentary accounts of barbarous people, and in an exhaustive study of heroic stories and religious myths. Bachofen argues powerfully for the acceptance of these myths.
“Every age unconsciously obeys, even in its poetry, the laws of its individual life. A patriarchal age could not, therefore, have invented the matriarchate, and the myths which describe the latter may be regarded as trustworthy witnesses of its historical existence. It may be taken for granted that the myths did not refer to special persons and occurrences, but only tell us of the social customs and ideas which prevailed, or were endeavouring to prevail, in several communities.”[17]
This is true. It is the interpretation given to many of these myths that one is compelled to question. Bachofen’s way of applying mythical tales has no scientific method; for one thing, abstract ideas are added to primitive legends which could only arise from the thought of civilised peoples. For instance, he accepts, without any doubt, the existence of the Amazons; and believes that the myths which refer to them record “a revolt for the elevation of the feminine sex, and through them of mankind.” It is on such insecure foundations he builds up his matriarchal theory.
There is, however, an aspect of truth in Bachofen’s position, which becomes plain on a closer examination. To prove this, I must quote a passage from Das Mutterrecht, as representing, or at least suggesting, the opinions of those who have argued most strongly against his theory. When recapitulating the facts and arguments in favour of accepting the supremacy of women, he makes this suggestive statement—
“The first state in all cases was that of hetaïrism. The rule is based upon the right of procreation: since there is no individual fatherhood, all have only one father—the tyrant whose sons and daughters they all are, and to whom all the property belongs. From this condition in which the man rules by means of his rude sexual needs, we rise to that of gynæcocracy, in which there is the dawn of marriage, of which the strict observance is at first observed by the woman, not by the man. Weary of always ministering to the lusts of man, the woman raises herself by the recognition of her motherhood. Just as a child is first disciplined by its mother, so are people by their women. It is only the wife who can control the man’s essentially unbridled desires, and lead him into the paths of well-doing. … While man went abroad on distant forays, the woman stayed at home, and was undisputed mistress of the household. She took arms against her foe, and was gradually transformed into an Amazon.”[18]
The italics in the passage are mine, for they bear directly on what I shall afterwards have to prove: (1) that mother-right was not the first stage in the history of the human family; (2) that its existence is not inconsistent with the patriarchal theory. Bachofen here suggests a pre-matriarchal period in which the elementary family-group was founded on and held together by a common subjection to the oldest and strongest male. This is the primordial patriarchal family.
Then come the questions: Can we accept mother-right? Are there any reasonable causes to explain the rise of female dominance? Westermarck, in criticising the matriarchal theory, has said: “The inference that ‘kinship through females only’ has everywhere preceded the rise of ‘kinship through males,’ would be warranted only on condition that the cause, or the causes, to which the maternal system is owing, could be proved to have operated universally in the past life of mankind.”[19] Now, this is what I believe I am able to do. Hence it has been necessary first to clear the way of the old errors. Bachofen’s interpretation is too fanciful to find acceptance. Will any one hold it as true that the change came because women willed it? Surely it is a pure dream of the imagination to credit women, at this supposed early stage of society, with rising up to establish marriage, in a revolt of purity against sexual licence, and moreover effecting the change by force of arms! Bachofen would seem to have been touched with the Puritan spirit. I am convinced also that he understood very little of the nature of woman. Conventional morality has always acted on the side of the man, not the woman. The clue is, indeed, given in the woman’s closer connection with the home, and in the idea