The Position of Woman in Primitive Society: A Study of the Matriarchy. C. Gasquoine Hartley
and the inheritance of all property would still be in the female line.[25]
We have here what appears to be a much more reasonable explanation of mother-kin and mother-right than that of Bachofen. Yet many have argued powerfully against it. Westermarck especially, has shown that belief in an early stage of promiscuous relationship is altogether untenable.[26] It is needless here to enter into proof of this.[27] What matters now is that with the giving up of promiscuity the whole structure of McLennan’s theory falls to pieces. He takes it for granted that at one period paternity was unrecognised; but this is very far from being true. The idea of the father’s relationship to the child is certainly known among the peoples who trace descent through the mother; the system is found frequently where strict monogamy is practised. Again, Mr. McLennan connects polyandry with mother-descent, regarding the custom of plurality of husbands as a development from promiscuity. Here, too, he has been proved to be in error. Whatever the causes of the origin of polyandry, it has no direct connection with mother-kin, although it is sometimes practised by peoples who observe that system.
For myself, I incline to the opinion that the system by which inheritance passes through the mother needs no explanation. It was necessarily (and, as I believe, is still) the natural method of tracing descent. Moreover, it was adopted as a matter of course by primitive peoples among whom property considerations had not arisen. Afterwards what had started as a habit was retained as a system. The reasons for naming children after the mother did not rest on relationship, the earliest question was not one of kinship, but of association. Those were counted as related to one another who dwelt together.[28] The children lived with the mother, and therefore, as a matter of course, were called after her, and not the father, who did not live in the same home.
All these questions will be understood better as we proceed with our inquiry. The important thing to fix in our minds is that mother-kin and mother-right (contrary to the opinion of McLennan and others) may very well have arisen quite independently of dubious fatherhood. It thus becomes evident that the maternal system offers no evidence for the hypothesis of promiscuity; we shall find, in point of fact, that it arose out of the regulation of the sexual relations, and had no connection with licence. It is necessary to understand this clearly.
Bachofen is much nearer to what is likely to have happened in the first stage of the family than Mr. McLennan, though he also mistakenly connects the maternal system with unregulated hetaïrism. Still he suggests (though it would seem quite unconsciously) the patriarchal hypothesis, which founds the family first on the brute-force of the male. Mother-right has been discredited chiefly, as far as I have been able to find, because it is impossible to accept, at this early period, sexual conditions of the friendly ownership of women, entirely opposed to what was the probable nature of brute man. At this stage the eldest male in the family would be the ruler, and he would claim sexual rights over all the women in the group. Bachofen postulates a revolt of women to establish marriage. We have seen that such a supposition, in the form in which he puts it, is without any credible foundation. Yet, it is part of my theory that there was a revolt of women, or rather a combination of the mothers of the group, which led to a change in the direction of sexual regulation and order. But the causes of such revolt, and the way in which it was accomplished, were, in my opinion, entirely different from those which Bachofen supposes. The arguments in support of my view will be given in the next two chapters.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Das Mutterrecht was published in Stuttgart in 1861.
[7] Primitive Marriage, published 1865. Studies in Ancient History, which includes a reprint of Primitive Marriage; 1st ed. 1876, 2nd ed. 1886. The Patriarchal Theory, a criticism of this theory is based on the papers of Mr. McLennan and edited by his brother.
[8] Prof. Giraud-Teulon’s La Mère chez certains Peuples de l’Antiquité is founded on the introduction to Das Mutterrecht. This little book of fascinating reading is the best and easiest way of studying Bachofen’s theory.
[9] Das Mutterrecht, Intro., p. xiii.
[10] Das Mutterrecht, Intro., p. vii.
[11] Ibid., Intro., p. xv.
[12] Das Mutterrecht, Intro., p. xxiv. and p. 10.
[13] Ibid., Intro., p. xiv.
[14] Ibid., Intro., p. xv.
[15] Das Mutterrecht, p. 18.
[16] I have taken much of this passage from Mr. McLennan’s criticism of Bachofen’s theory, Studies in Ancient History, pp. 319–325.
[17] Das Mutterrecht, Intro., pp. vii.-viii.
[18] Das Mutterrecht, pp. 18–19.
[19] The History of Human Marriage, p. 105.
[20] Das Mutterrecht, p. 85.
[21] Das Mutterrecht, pp. 73, 85. Compare also McLennan, Studies, p. 322, and Starcke, The Primitive Family in its Origin and Development.
[22] Ibid., p. 85.
[23] Das Mutterrecht, Intro., p. xxvii.
[24] Ibid., Intro., p. xxix.
[25] Studies in Ancient History, pp. 83, et seq.
[26] History of Human Marriage, pp. 51–133. It is on this question that my own opinion has been changed, compare The Truth about Woman, p. 120.
[27] See next chapter on the Patriarchal Theory.