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Woman and the workingman have, since old, had this in common—oppression. The forms of oppression have suffered changes in the course of time, and in various countries. But the oppression always remained. Many a time and oft, in the course of the ages, did the oppressed become conscious of their oppression; and such conscious knowledge of their condition did bring on changes and reliefs. Nevertheless, a knowledge, that grasped the actual feature of the oppression by grasping its causes, is, with woman as with the workingman, the fruit of our own days. The actual feature of society, and of the laws that lie at the bottom of its development, had first to be known, before a general movement could take place for the removal of conditions, recognized as oppressive and unjust. The breadth and intensity of such a movement depends, however, upon the measure of the understanding prevalent among the suffering social layers and circles, and upon the measure of freedom of motion that they enjoy. In both respects, woman stands, through custom and education, as well as the freedom allowed her by law, behind the workingman. To this, another circumstance is added. Conditions, lasting through a long series of generations, finally grow into custom; heredity and education then cause such conditions to appear on both sides as "natural." Hence it comes that, even to-day, woman in particular, accepts her subordinate position as a matter of course. It is no easy matter to make her understand that that position is unworthy, and that it is her duty to endeavor to become a member of society, equal-righted with, and in every sense a peer of man.

However much in common woman may be shown to have with the workingman, she leads him in one thing:—Woman was the first human being to come into bondage: she was a slave before the male slave existed.

All social dependence and oppression has its roots in the economic dependence of the oppressed upon the oppressor. In this condition woman finds herself, from an early day down to our own. The history of the development of human society proves the fact everywhere.

The knowledge of the history of this development is, however, comparatively new. As little as the myth of the Creation of the World—as taught us by the Bible—can be upheld in sight of the investigations of geographers and, scientists, grounded as these investigations are upon unquestionable and innumerable facts, just so untenable has its myth proved concerning the creation and evolution of man. True enough, as yet the veil is far from being lifted from all the sub-departments of this historical development of mankind; over many, on which already light has been shed, differences of opinion still exist among the investigators on the meaning and connection of this or that fact; nevertheless, on the whole, there is agreement and clearness. It is established that man did not, like the first human couple of the Bible, make his first appearance on earth in an advanced stage of civilization. He reached that plane only in the course of endlessly long lapses of time, after he had gradually freed himself from purely animal conditions, and had experienced long terms of development, in the course of which his social as well as his sexual relations—the relations between man and woman—had undergone a great variety of changes.

The favorite phrase—a phrase that the ignorant or impostors daily smite our ears with on the subject of the relations between man and woman, and between the poor and the rich—"it always has been so," and the conclusion drawn therefrom—"it will always be so," is in every sense of the word false, superficial and trumped-up.

For the purposes of this work a cursory presentation of the relations between the sexes, since primitive society, is of special importance. It is so because it can thereby be proved that, seeing that these relations have materially changed in the previous course of human development, and that the changes have taken place in even step with the existing systems of production, on the one hand, and of the distribution of the product of labor, on the other, it is natural and goes without saying that, along with further changes and revolutions in the system of production and distribution, the relations between the sexes are bound to change again. Nothing is "eternal," either in nature or in human life; eternal only is change and interchange.

As far back as one may go in the development of human society, the horde is found as the first human community. True enough, Honeger mentions in his "General History of Civilization" that even to-day in the little explored interior of the island of Borneo, there are wild people, living separately; and Huegel likewise maintains that, in the wild mountain regions of India, human couples have been discovered living alone, and who, ape-like, fled to the trees as soon as they were met; but there is no further knowledge on the subject. If verified, these claims would only confirm the previous superstition and hypothesis concerning the development of the human race. The probability is that, wherever human beings sprang up, there were, at first, single couples. Certain it is, however, that so soon as a larger number of beings existed, descended from a common parent stock, they held together in hordes in order that, by their joint efforts, they might, first of all, gain their still very primitive conditions of life and support, as well as to protect themselves against their common enemies, wild animals. Growing numbers and increased difficulties in securing subsistence, which originally consisted in roots, berries and fruit, first led to the splitting up or segmentation of the hordes, and to the search for new habitats.

This almost animal-like state, of which we have no further credible antiquarian proofs, undoubtedly once existed, judging from all that we have learned concerning the several grades of civilization of wild peoples still living, or known to have lived within historic times. Man did not, upon the call of a Creator, step ready-made into existence as a higher product of civilization. It was otherwise. He has had to pass through the most varied stages in an endlessly long and slow process of development. Only via ebbing and flowing periods of civilization, and in constant differentiation with his fellows in all parts of the world, and in all zones, did he gradually climb up to his present height.

Indeed, while in one section of the earth's surface great peoples and nations belong to the most advanced stages of civilization, other peoples are found in different sections standing on the greatest variety of gradations in development. They thus present to us a picture of our own past history; and they point to the road which mankind traversed in the course of its development. If but certain common and generally accepted data are established, that may serve everywhere as sign-posts to guide investigation, a mass of facts will follow, throwing a wholly new light upon the relations of man in the past and the present. A number of social phenomena—unintelligible to us to-day, and attacked by superficial judges as nonsensical, not infrequently even as "immoral"—will become clear and natural. A material lifting of the veil, formerly spread over the history of the development of our race, has been effected through the investigations made, since Bachofen, by a considerable number of scientists, like Tylor, MacLennan, Lubbock and others. Prominently among the men who joined these was Morgan, with his fundamental work, that Frederick Engels further substantiated and supplemented with a series of historical facts, economic and political in their nature, and that, more recently, has been partly confirmed and partly rectified by Cunow.[1]

By means of these expositions—especially as clearly and lucidly presented by Frederick Engels, in his support of Morgan's excellent and fundamental work,—a mass of light is shed upon hitherto unintelligible, partly seemingly contradictory phenomena in the life of the races and tribes of both high and low degree of culture. Only now do we gain an insight into the structure that human society raised in the course of time. According thereto, our former views of marriage, the family, the community, the State, rested upon notions that were wholly false; so false that they turn out to be no better than a fancy-picture, wholly devoid of foundation in fact.

All that is said and proved about marriage, the family, the community and the State holds good especially with regard to woman, who, in the various periods of development did likewise fill a place, that differs materially from the "eternal," imputed to her.

Morgan, whom Engels agrees with in this, divides the history of mankind into three main epochs:—savagery, barbarism and civilization. Each of the two first ones he again divides into an under, a middle and an upper period, each distinguishing itself from the other by certain innovations and improvements, predicated in each instance upon the control over subsistence. Morgan, accordingly, exactly in the sense of the materialist conception of history, as established by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,—perceives the leading characteristics in the development of society to be the changes that, in given epochs, the conditions of life are molded into; and he perceives the changes to be due to the progress made in the process of production, that is to say, in the procurement of subsistence. Summed up in a few words, the lower period of savagery constitutes the infancy of the human race, during which the race, partly living in trees, is mainly nourished by fruits and roots, and during which articulate language takes its inception. The middle period of savagery commences with the acquisition of a fish subsistence, and the use of fire. The construction of weapons begins; at first the club and spear, fashioned out of wood and stone. Thereby also begins the chase, and probably also war with contiguous hordes for the sources of food, for domiciles and hunting grounds. At this stage appears also cannibalism, still practiced to-day by some tribes and peoples of Africa, Australia and Polynesia. The upper period of savagery is characterized by the perfection of weapons to the point of the bow and arrow; finger weaving, the making of baskets out of filaments of bark, the fashioning of sharpened stone tools have here their start, and thereby begins also the preparation of wood for the building of boats and huts. The form of life has accordingly, become many-sided. The existing tools and implements, needed for the control of a plentiful food supply, make possible the subsistance of larger communities.

The lower period of barbarism Morgan starts with the invention of the art of pottery. The taming and domestication of animals, and, along with that, the production of meat and milk, and the preparation of hides, horns and hair for various purposes of use, have here their start. Hand in hand therewith begins the cultivation of plants,—in the West of maize, in the East of almost all known cereals, maize excepted. The middle period of barbarism shows us, in the East, the ever more extensive domestication of animals; in the West, the cultivation of maize and plants by irrigation. Here also begins the use of adobe-bricks and of stone for house-building. The domestication of animals promotes the rearing of herds, and leads to the pastoral life. The necessity of larger quantities of food for men and beasts leads to field agriculture. Along therewith, the people begin to be localized; food increases in quantity and diversity, and gradually cannibalism disappears.

The upper period of barbarism begins finally with the smelting of iron ore, and the discovery of the phonetic alphabet. The iron plow-share is invented, making possible agriculture on a larger scale; the iron axe and spade are brought into requisition, making easy the clearing of the forests. With the preparation of iron, a number of fields are opened to activity, imparting to life a new form. Iron utensils help the building of houses, vessels and weapons; with the preparation of metals arises skilled handwork, a more perfect knowledge of weapons, and the building of walled cities. Architecture, as an art, then rises; mythology, poetry and history find support and expansion in the discovery of the phonetic alphabet.

The Orient and the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, particularly Egypt, Greece and Italy, are those in which the last sketched stage of life principally unfolded; and it laid the foundation for the social transformation that in the course of time exercised a determining influence on the social development of Europe and of the whole earth.

As a matter of course, the social development of the human race through the periods of savagery and barbarism had also its peculiar sexual and social relations, differing materially from those of later days.

Bachofen and Morgan have traced these relations by means of thorough investigations. Bachofen, by studying closely all ancient and modern writings, so as to arrive at the nature of phenomena that appear singular to us in mythology, folk-lore and historic tradition, and that, nevertheless, seem to be re-echoed in incidents and events of later days, occasionally even of our own. Morgan, by spending decades of his life among the Iroquois Indians, located in the State of New York, and thereby making observations, through which he gained new and unexpected insight into the system of life, the family and the relationships of the said Indian tribe, and, based upon which, observations made elsewhere, first received their correct interpretation and explanation.

Both of them, Bachofen and Morgan, discovered, each along his own line of research, the latter, however, far more clearly than the former, that the relations of the sexes during primitive times of human development were substantially different from the relations existing in historic days, and among the modern civilized peoples. Especially did Morgan discover—thanks to his many years' sojourn among the Iroquois of North America, and grounded upon comparative studies, which he was moved to by that which he there observed,—that all the existing races, that are still materially backward, possess systems of family and consanguinity that are totally different from ours, but must be similar to those once prevalent among all races during the previous stages of civilization.

Morgan found, at the time that he lived among the Iroquois, that among them there existed a system of monogamy, easily dissolvable by both parties, and which he designated as the "pairing family." He also found that the terms for the degrees of consanguinity—father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister—although, according to our conception, there can be no doubt as to their application, were there, nevertheless, applied in quite different sense. The Iroquois calls not only his own children "sons" and "daughters," but also the children of all his brothers; and their children call him "father." Conversely, the female Iroquois calls not only her own children "sons" and "daughters," but all those of her sisters, and likewise do their children call her "mother." On the other hand, she calls the children of her brothers "nephews" and "nieces," and these call her "aunt." The children of brothers call one another "brothers" and "sisters;" likewise the children of sisters. Finally, the children of a woman and those of her brother call one another "cousins." Accordingly, the singular spectacle is seen of the terms of relationship going, not as in our sense, by the degree of consanguinity, but by the sex of the relative.

This system of relationship is in full force, not only among all the American Indians, as well as among the aborigines of India, the tribes of Dekan and the Gaura tribes of Hindostan, but, according to the investigations that have taken place since Bachofen, similar conditions must have existed everywhere in primitive times, as they still exist to-day among many peoples of Upper and Further Asia, Africa and Australia. When, in connection with these investigations and established facts, the investigation will be everywhere taken up on the sex and family relations of wild and barbarous nations still living, then will the fact transpire that, what Bachofen still confusedly found among numerous peoples of antiquity, and rather surmised than otherwise; what Morgan found among the Iroquois; what Cunow found among the Austral-Negros, are but social and sexual formations, that constitute the groundwork of human development for all the peoples of the earth.

The investigations of Morgan bring, moreover, other interesting facts to light. Although the "pairing family" of the Iroquois starts in insolvable contradiction with the terms of consanguinity in use among them, it turns out that, as late as the first half of the 19th Century, there existed on the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) a family-form that actually tallied with that which, among the Iroquois, existed in name only. But the system of consanguinity, in force in Hawaii, failed, in turn, to tally with the family-form actually in existence there. It referred to an older family-form, one still more primitive, but no longer extant. There, all the children of brothers and sisters, without exception, were "brothers" and "sisters." Accordingly, they were not considered the common children of their mothers and of the sisters of these, or of their fathers and of the brothers of these, but of all the brothers and sisters of their parents, without distinction. The Hawaiian system of consanguinity corresponded, accordingly, with a stage of development that was lower than the family-form still actually in existence. Hence transpires the curious fact that, in Hawaii, as with the Indians of North America, two distinct systems of consanguinity are, or rather, at a time, were in vogue, which no longer tallied with actual conditions, but were both overtaken by a higher state. On this head Morgan says: "The family represents an active principle. It is never stationary, but advances from a lower to a higher form as society advances from a lower to a higher condition, and finally passes out of one form into another of higher grade. Systems of consanguinity, on the contrary, are passive; recording the progress made by the family at long intervals apart, and only changing radically when the family has radically changed."

The theory,—even to-day generally considered conclusive, and which is stubbornly upheld as irrefutable by the representatives of the status quo—to the effect that the existing family-form has existed since time immemorial, and, lest the whole social fabric be put in jeopardy, must continue to exist forever, turned out, accordingly, after these discoveries of the investigators, to be wholly false and untenable. The form, under which the relations of the sexes appear and the situation of the family is raised, depends rather upon the social conditions, upon the manner in which man controls his subsistence. The form changes with the changed degree of culture at each given period.

The study of primitive history leaves now no room for doubt that, at the lowest grades of human development, the relation of the sexes is totally different from that of latter times, and that a state of things resulted therefrom, which, looked at with modern eyes, appears as monstrous, and as a sink of immorality. Nevertheless, as each social stage of human development has its own conditions of production, so likewise has each its own code of morals, which is but the reflection of the social condition. That is moral which is usage; and that, in turn, is usage which corresponds with the innermost being, i. e., the needs of a given period.

Morgan reaches the conclusion that, at the lower period of savagery, there was sexual intercourse between the several grades or generations, every woman belonging to every man, and every man to every woman,—in other words, promiscuity. All men live in polygamy and all women in polyandry. There is a general community of women and of men, but also a community of children, Strábo reports (sixty-six years before our reckoning) that, among the Arabians, brothers cohabited with sisters and with their own mother. On any route other than that of incest, the increase of population is nowhere possible, if, as alleged in the Bible also, descent from one couple is granted. The Bible itself contradicts itself on this delicate point. It is stated there that Cain, after he had murdered his brother Abel, took a wife of another people. Whence came that other people? The theory of promiscuity in primitive times, that is to say, that the horde was endogamous, that sexual intercourse was indiscriminate, is furthermore supported by the Hindoo myth, according to which Brahma married his own daughter Saravasti. The same myth turns up again among the Egyptians and the northern Edda. The Egyptian god Ammon was the spouse of his own mother, and boasted of it. Odin, according to the Edda, was the mate of his own daughter Frigga.[2] Morgan proceeds from the principle that, from the state of promiscuity, soon a higher form of sexual intercourse took shape. He designates this the consanguine family. Here the groups, that stand in sexual relation, are separated by grades or generations, so that grandfathers and grandmothers, within an age group, are husbands and wives. Their children, likewise, constitute a group of common couples; likewise the children of these, so soon as they have reached the requisite age. Accordingly, in contrast with the sex relations of the rawest period, in which promiscuity of sexes exists without distinction of age, now one generation is excluded from sexual intercourse with another. Sexual intercourse, however, exists between brothers and sisters, male and female cousins of the first, second and third remove. All of these together are brothers and sisters, but towards one another, they are all husbands and wives. This family-form corresponds with the system of consanguinity that still existed in Hawaii during the first part of the 19th Century, in name only, but no longer in fact. On the other hand, according to the American Indian system of consanguinity, a brother and sister can never be the father and mother of the same child—a thing, however, permissible in the Hawaiian family system. Probably the consanguine family was the state that, at the time of Herodotus, existed among the Massagetae, on the subject of which he reports: "Each man received a wife, but all were allowed to use her." And he continues: "At any time a man desires a woman, he hangs his quiver in front of his wagon, and cohabits, unconcerned, with her.... He at the same time sticks his staff into the ground, a symbol of his own act.... Cohabitation is exercised in public."[3] Similar conditions Bachofen shows have existed among the Lycians, Etruscans, Cretans, Athenians, Lesbians and Egyptians.

According to Morgan, the consanguine family is supervened by a third and higher form of family relationship, which he designates as the Punaluan family. Punalua, "dear friend," "intimate companion."

Cunow, in his above named book, takes exception to Morgan's views that the consanguine family, which rests on the organization of marriage classes by generations, preceded the punaluan family as an original organization. Cunow does not see in the consanguine family the most primitive of all social forms, until now discovered. He sees in it merely a middle form, that takes its origin in the generation groups; a transition stage toward the pure gentile organization, on which, as a graft, the division in age classes, belonging to the consanguine family system, still continues for a time in altered form, along with the division in totem-groups.[4] Cunow explains further: The division in classes—every individual, man or woman, carries the name of his or her class and generation group totem—does not serve to exclude sexual intercourse between collateral, but to prevent cohabitation between relatives in the ascending and descending line, between parents and children, aunts and nephews, uncles and nieces. Terms such as "aunt," "uncle," etc., he designates as grade-names.

Cunow furnishes the proofs for the correctness of the views in which he differs from Morgan on some points. But, however he may differ from Morgan in single instances, he emphatically defends him against the attacks of Westermann and others. He says:

"Although here and there a hypothesis of Morgan may have proved itself false, and some others may be allowed only a qualified approval, that merit none can gainsay him that he has been the first to establish the identity of the North American totem-group with the gentile organization of the Romans; and, secondly, to demonstrate that our modern systems of consanguinity and family-forms are the result of a long process of development. In a measure he has thereby first made recent investigations possible; he has first built the foundation on which we may build further." In the introduction also to his book he says expressly that his own work is partly a supplement to Morgan's book on primitive man.

The Westermanns, the Starckes, the Zieglers—the latter of whom, in his book, criticized in the introduction to the twenty-fifth edition of this work, refers mainly to the first named, in order to attack our statements with theirs—will have to submit, with good grace or bad, to the fact that the rise and development of the family has not taken the course that fits in with their bourgeois prejudices. The refutation that, in the last part of his work, Cunow bestows upon Westermann and Starcke, Ziegler's authorities, are calculated to enlighten their most fanatic followers upon the value of their caviling criticisms of, and arguments against, Morgan.

According to Morgan, the punaluan family has its start with the exclusion of consanguineous brothers and sisters, on the mother's side. Where a woman has several husbands, the evidence of paternity is impossible. Paternity becomes a fiction. Even to-day, under the rule of strict monogamous marriage, paternity, as Goethe, in his "Apprenticeship," lets Frederick say, "rests only upon faith." If with monogamy, paternity is often doubtful, it is impossible of proof in polygamy: only descent from the mother is certain and unquestionable. Accordingly, descent from the mother afforded the only criterion. As all deep-reaching transformations in the social relations of primitive man are accomplished only slowly, the change of the so-called consanguine into the punaluan family must unquestionably have engaged vast periods of time, and been broken through by many relapses, still noticeable in much later days. The proximate external inducement for the development of the punaluan family was, possibly, the necessity of splitting up the strongly swollen membership of the family, to the end that new grounds could be occupied for cattle ranges and agriculture. Probably, also, with the reaching of a higher grade of civilization, a sense gradually asserted itself of the harmfulness and indecorousness of sexual intercourse between brothers and sisters, and close relatives. In favor of this theory stands a pretty tradition, that, as related by Cunow, Gaston found among the Dieyeries, one of the South Australian tribes, on the rise of the "Mordu" consanguine group. He says:

"After creation, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and other near relatives married promiscuously among one another, until the evil effects of such connections showed themselves clearly. A conference of leaders was held, and it was considered in what way this could be avoided. The outcome of the conference was a request to the Muramura (Great Spirit); and he ordered in his answer that the tribe be divided into several branches, and that, in order to distinguish them, they be called by different names, after animate or inanimate objects. For instance: after the dingo, the mouse, the emu, the rain, the iguana-lizard, etc. The members of one and the same group could not marry another. The son of a Dingo could not, for instance, marry the daughter of a Dingo; each of the two could, however, enter into connections with the Mouse, the Emu, the Rat, or any other family."

This tradition is more sensible and natural, by a good deal, than the Christian tradition, taught by the Bible. It shows plainly the rise of the consanguine groups. Moreover, Paul Lafargue, makes in the "Neue Zeit" the sagacious, and, we think, felicitous point, that names, such as Adam and Eve, are not names of individual persons, but the names of gentes, in which, at the time, the Jews were joined. Lafargue solves by his argument a series of otherwise obscure and contradictory passages in the first Book of Moses. Again, M. Beer calls attention, likewise in the "Neue Zeit," that, to this day, it is a conjugal custom among Jews that the bride and the bridegroom's mother may not carry the same name, otherwise—thus runs this belief—a misfortune will befall the family: sickness and death will pursue them. In our opinion, this is a further proof for the correctness of Lafargue's theory. The gentile organization forbids marriage between persons that descend from the same gens stock. Such a common descent must be considered to exist, according to gentile principles, between the bride, that carries the name of "Eve," and the bridegroom's mother of the same name. Modern Jews, of course, have no longer the remotest suspicion of the real connection between their prejudice and their old gentile constitution, which forbade such marriages of relatives. The old gentile order had for its object to avoid the degenerating consequences of in-breeding. Although this gentile constitution has for thousands of years been destroyed among the Jews, tradition, as we see, has continued to live in superstition.

Quite possible, the experience, made at an early day with the breeding of animals, revealed the harmfulness of in-breeding. How far this experience went transpires from the manner in which, according to the first Book of Moses, chap. 30, verse 32 and sequel, Jacob understood how to outwit his father-in-law Laban, by knowing how to encompass the birth of eanlings that were streaked and pied, and which, according to Laban's promises, were to be Jacob's. The old Israelites had, accordingly, long before Darwin, studied Darwinism.

Once upon the subject of the conditions existing among the old Jews, a few other facts are in order, clearly proving that, among them, descent in the female line was actually in force of old. True enough, on the subject of woman, I Moses, 3, 16, runs this wise: "And thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee;" and the verse also undergoes the variation: "the woman shall leave father and mother, and cleave to her husband." In point of fact, however, I Moses, 2, 24, has it this way: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh." The same language recurs in Matthew 19, 15; Mark 10, 7, and in the Epistle to the Ephesians 5, 31. The command sprang, accordingly, from the system of descent in the female line, and the exegetists, at a loss what to do with it, allowed it to appear in a light that is utterly false.

Descent in female line appears clearly also in IV Moses, 32, 41. It is there said that Jair had a father, who was of the tribe of Judah, but his mother was of the tribe of Manasseh, and Jair is expressly called the son of Manasseh, and he inherited in that tribe. Another instance of descent in the female line among the Jews is met in Nehemiah 7, 63. There the children of a priest, who took to wife one of the daughters of Barzillai—a Jewish clan—are called children of Barzillai; they are, accordingly, not called after the father, who, moreover, as a priest occupied a privileged position, but after the mother. For the rest, already in the days of the Old Testament, accordingly, in historic times, the father-right prevailed among the Jews, and the clan and tribe organization rested on descent in the male line. Accordingly, the daughters were shut off as heirs, as may be seen in I Moses 31, 14-15, where even Leah and Rachel, the daughters of Laban, complain: "Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father's house? Are we not counted of him strangers? for he has sold us, and hath quite devoured also our money."

As happened with all peoples where descent in male replaced descent in female line, woman among the Jews stood wholly bereft of rights. Wedlock was marriage by purchase. On woman the obligation was laid of the strictest chastity; on the other hand, man was not bound by the same ordinance; he, moreover, was privileged to possess several wives. Did the husband, after the bridal night, believe to have found that his wife had, before marriage, lost her maidenhood, not only had he the right to cast her off, she was stoned to death. The same punishment fell upon the adultress; upon the husband, however, only in case he committed adultery with a married Jewish woman. According to V Moses 24, 1-4, the husband had also the right to cast off his newly-married wife, if she found no favor in his eyes, even if only out of dislike. He was then to write her a bill of divorcement, give it in her hand, and let her out of the house. An expression of the low position that woman took later among the Jews is furthermore found in the circumstances that, even to this day, woman attends divine service in the synagogue, in a space strictly separated from the men, and they are not included in the prayers.[5]

The relations of the sexes in the punaluan family consisted, according to Morgan, in one or more sisters, belonging to one family group, marrying jointly one or more brothers of another group. The consanguine sisters, or the first, second and more remote cousins were wives in common with their husbands in common, who could not be their brothers. These consanguine brothers, or cousins of several degrees, were the husbands in common of their wives in common, who could not be their sisters. With the stopping of in-breeding, the new family-form undoubtedly contributed towards the rapid and vigorous development of the tribes, and imparted to the tribes, that had turned to this form of family connection, an advantage over those that still retained the old form of connections.

In general, the physical and intellectual differences between man and woman were vastly less in primitive days than in our society. Among all the peoples, living in the state of savagery or barbarism, the differences in the weight and size of the brain are slighter than among the peoples in civilization. Likewise, in strength of body and agility, the women among these peoples are but little behind the men. This is attested not only by the testimony of the ancient writers on the peoples who clung to the mother-right. Further testimony is furnished by the armies of women among the Ashantees and of the King of Dahomey in West Africa, who distinguished themselves by special bravery and ferocity. Likewise does the opinion of Tacitus on the women of the old Germans, and Caesar's accounts of the women of the Iberians and Scots confirm the fact. Columbus had to sustain a fight before Santa Cruz with an Indian skiff in which the women fought as bravely as the men; and we find this theory further confirmed in the passages from Havelock Ellis's work, "Man and Woman," which Dr. Hope B. Adams-Walther deals upon in Nos. 39 and 40 of the "Neue Zeit." He says:

"About the Andombis of the Congo, Johnson relates that the women work hard as carriers and in other occupations. All the same, they lead a perfectly happy life. They are often stronger and more handsomely built than the men; not a few of them have positively magnificent figures. Parke styles the Manynema of the same neighborhood 'fine animals,' and he finds the women very stately. They carry burdens as heavy as the men and with equal ease. A North American Indian chief said to Hearne: 'Women are created for labor; a woman can carry or drag as much as two men.' Schellong, who published a painstaking study on the Papuans of New Guinea in the Ethnologic Journal, issued in 1891, is of the opinion that the women are more strongly built than the men. In the interior of Australia, women are sometimes beaten by men out of jealousy; but it happens not infrequently that it is the man, who, on such occasions, receives the stronger dose. In Cuba the women fought shoulder to shoulder with the men. Among some tribes in India, as well as the Pueblos of North and the Patagonians of South America, the women are as tall as the men. Even among the Arabians and Druses the difference in size is slight; and yet nearer home, among the Russians, the sexes are more alike than is the case among the western Europeans. Accordingly, in all parts of the earth there are instances of equal or approximately equal physical development."

The family relations that flow from the Punaluan family were these: The children of my mother's sisters are her children, and the children of my father's brothers are his children, and all together are my brothers and sisters. Conversely, the children of my mother's brothers are her nephews and nieces, and the children of my father's sisters are his nephews and nieces, and they, all together, are my cousins. Again, the husbands of my mother's sisters are her husbands also, and the wives of my father's brothers are also his wives; but my father's sisters and my mother's brothers are excluded from family relationship, and their children are my cousins.[6]

Along with arising civilization, sexual intercourse is proscribed between brothers and sisters, and the proscription gradually extends to the remotest collateral relatives on the mother's side. A new group of consanguinity arises, the gens, which, in its first form, is made up of a series of consanguine and more remote sisters, together with their children and their consanguine and more remote brothers on their mother's side. The gens has a common female ancestor, from whom the female successors descend in generations. The husbands of these women are not of the consanguine group, the gens, of their wives; they are of the gens of their sisters. Conversely, the children of these men belong to the family group of their, the children's mother, descent being in the female line. The mother is the head of the family; and thus arises the "mother-right," which for a long time constitutes the basis of the family and of inheritance. In keeping therewith—so long as descent was recognized in the female line—woman had a seat and voice in the councils of the gens; they voted in the election of the sachems and of the military chiefs, and deposed them.

About the Lycians, who abided by the mother-right, Herodotus says; "Their customs are partly Cretan, partly Carian. They have, however, a custom that distinguishes them from all other nations in the world. Ask a Lycian who he is, and he answers by giving you his own name, the name of his mother, and so on in the female line. Aye, if a free-born woman marries a slave, her children are citizens, but if a free man marries a stranger, or takes a concubine, even if he be the highest person in the State, his children forfeit all citizen rights."

In those days, "matrimonium" and not "patrimonium," "mater familias" and not "pater familias" were the terms used; and the native land is called the "dear motherland." As with the previous family-forms, so did the gens rest upon the community of property, and had a communistic system of household. The woman is the real guide and leader of this family community; hence she enjoys a high degree of respect, in the house as well as in the affairs of the family community concerning the tribe. She is judge and adjuster of disputes, and frequently performs the ceremonies of religion as priestess. The frequent appearance of Queens and Princesses in antiquity, their controlling influence, even there where their sons reigned, for instance, in the history of old Egypt, are results of the mother-right. Mythology, at that epoch, assumes predominantly female characters: Astarte, Ceres, Demeter, Latona, Isis, Frigga, Freia, Gerdha, etc. Woman is considered inviolable; matricide is the blackest of all crimes: it summons all men to retribution. The blood-feud is the common concern of all the men of the tribe; each is obliged to avenge the wrong done to a member of the family community by the members of another tribe. In defence of the women the men are spurred to highest valor. Thus did the effects of the mother-right, gyneocracy, manifest themselves in all the relations of life among the peoples of antiquity—among the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, before the time of the Heroes; among the peoples of Italy, before the founding of Rome; among the Scythians, the Gauls, the Iberians and Cantabrians, the Germans of Tacitus, etc. Woman, at that time, takes in the family and in public life a position such as she has never since taken. Along these lines, says Tacitus in his "Germania": "They (the Germans) even suppose somewhat of sanctity and prescience to be inherent in the female sex; and, therefore, neither despise their counsels, nor disregard their responses;" and Diodorus, who lived at the time of Caesar, feels highly indignant over the position of women in Egypt, having learned that there, not the sons, but the daughters, supported their aging parents. He contemptuously shrugs his shoulders at the poltroons of the Nile, who relinquish household and public rights to the members of the weaker sex, and allow them privileges that must sound unheard-of to a Greek or a Roman.