Читать книгу Woman and Socialism - August Bebel - Страница 11

Certain customs are closely linked with the vanished matriarchate that modern writers have erroneously termed “prostitution.” In Babylon, for instance, it was a religious duty for young girls upon reaching maturity to go to the temple of Mylitta and there yield to some man, making a sacrifice of their virginity. Similar customs were observed in the Serapis of Memphis, in honor of the goddess Anaitis in Armenia, in Tyrus and Sydon in honor of Astarte or Venus. The Egyptian festivals of Isis were accompanied by the same religious rites. This sacrifice of virginity was deemed an atonement to the goddess for the exclusiveness of surrender to one man in marriage. “For woman is not endowed with all the beauties nature has bestowed upon her, to fade in the arms of a single man. The law of substance condemns all restrictions, hates all fetters, and considers exclusiveness a crime against its divinity.”[17] The continued good will of the goddess must be purchased by this sacrifice of virginity to a stranger. In conformity with this conception the Libyan maidens earned their dowery by their surrender. According to the matriarchate they enjoyed sexual liberty before marriage, and the men, far from taking offense at this pursuit, in choosing a wife gave preference to the girl who had been most desired. The same condition existed among the Thracians at the time of Herodotus. “They do not guard the maidens, but give them complete freedom to have relations with whomever they choose. But the married women are closely guarded. They buy them from their parents for a large portion.” The Hierodules in the temple of Venus in Corynth were far famed. There more than a thousand girls were assembled, constituting the chief attraction for Greek men. Of the daughter of King Cheops of Egypt the legend relates, that she had a pyramid built from the proceeds obtained by the abandonment of her charms.

We still find similar conditions in existence in the Marquesas Islands, in the Philippines and Polynesia, and, according to Waitz, among various African tribes. Another custom, which was maintained on the Balearic Islands up to recent times and that expressed the right of all men to every woman, was that in the bridal night all the men related to the bride, were admitted to her successively in accordance with their ages. The groom came last. Among other peoples this custom has been changed to that effect, that one man representing the others, the high priest or chieftain of the tribe, exercises this privilege with the bride. The Claimars in Malabar engage putamares (priests) to deflour their wives. It is the duty of the chief priest (namburi) to render this service to the king (zamorin) upon his marriage, and the king pays for it with fifty pieces of gold.[18] In India and on various islands of the Pacific either the priests or the tribal chiefs (kings) perform this office.[19] It is the same in Senegambia, where the tribal chief practices the defloration of virgins as one of his official duties and receives presents in return. Among other peoples the defloration of the virgin—sometimes even of female babies—is accomplished by idols constructed for this purpose. We may assume that the “jus primae noctis” (right of the first night), which was in practice in Europe until far into the middle ages, derived its origin from the same tradition. The landlord, considering himself master over his serfs, practiced the right of the tribal chief that had come down to him. We will return to this subject later on.

Remnants of the matriarchate are also seen in a peculiar custom of South American tribes, that has likewise been met with among the Basques, a people that have preserved many ancient customs and practices. Here the father takes to his bed, instead of the mother, after the birth of a child, feigns being in labor-pain, and lets the woman care for him. The custom designates that the father recognizes the newly born child as his own. The same custom is said to exist among several tribes of mountaineers in China, and it existed until a recent date in Corsica.

In the records of German colonies submitted to parliament (during its session 1904–05) there is a report of the South-West-African region that contains the following passage: “The tribal chief in a Herero village cannot decide upon the slightest matter without the advice of his council, and not only the men but generally the women also give their advice.” In the report of the Marshall Islands it says: “Rulership over all the islands of the Marshall groups was never concentrated upon a single chief.... but as there is no female member of this class (The Irody) living, and the child inherits nobility and station from the mother only, The Irodies will become extinct with the death of their chiefs.” The manner of expression and description used by the informants shows how utterly foreign the conditions they describe are to them and that they fail to understand them.[20]

Dr. Henry Weislocky, who for many years lived among the Gypsies of Transylvania and finally was adopted into one of their tribes, reports,[21] that two of the four tribes in whose midst he lived, the Ashani and the Ishale, observed maternal law. If the migratory Gipsy marries, he enters the clan of his wife, and to her belong all the furnishings of the Gipsy household. Whatever wealth she has belongs to her and to her clan, the man is a stranger. In accordance with maternal law the children also remain in their mother’s clan. Even in modern Germany remnants of the matriarchate survive. The “Westdeutsche Rundschau” (published in Westphalia) reports in the issue of June 10, 1902, that in the parish of Haltern the laws of inheritance were still subject to the old maternal law of the gentes. The children inherit from their mother. Until now all attempts at reforming this antiquated custom had failed.

How little the present family form and monogamic marriage can be regarded as eternal or exceedingly ancient, can furthermore be gathered from the wide-spread existence of marriage by purchase, marriage by rape, polygamy and polyandry. In Greece, too, woman became an article of purchase. As soon as she entered the house of her lord and master she ceased to exist for her family. This was symbolically expressed by burning before her husband’s house the gaily decorated carriage that had brought her there. Among the Ostiaks in Siberia the father still sells his daughter and bargains with the envoys of the groom over the sum that is to be paid. Among several African tribes the custom still exists—as in Jacob’s day—that a man wooing a maiden enters the service of his prospective mother-in-law. Marriage by purchase still exists in our very midst, in fact, in bourgeois society it is more generally established than at any other time. The money marriages, so prevalent among our propertied classes, are nothing more than marriage by purchase. As a symbol of the purchase whereby the woman becomes the man’s property, the bridal gift, which it is customary for the man to give his fiancee, may also be regarded.

Beside marriage by purchase we find marriage by rape. Robbery of women was practiced not only by the ancient Jews, but practically by all nations of antiquity. The best-known historical example is the rape of the Sabines, by the Romans. Robbery of women became the custom quite naturally wherever women were scarce or where polygamy existed, as everywhere in the Orient. There especially this custom was wide-spread during the duration of the Arabian realm from the seventh to the twelfth century before Christ.

In a symbolical way marriage by rape is still practised among the Araucanians in the southern part of Chile. While the would-be bridegroom’s friends bargain with the girl’s father, the man himself slinks about the house and tries to catch the girl. As soon as he has grasped her he lifts her on his horse and carries her away toward the forest. Thereupon men, women and children set up a loud clamor and try to prevent the flight. But as soon as the man has succeeded in reaching the shelter of the forest the woman is considered his wife. This is the case even if the robbery was perpetrated against the parents’ will. Similar customs are met with among Australian tribes.

Among civilized nations the custom of wedding journeys still serves as a reminder of the ancient rape of women; the bride is abducted from her paternal hearth. In the same way the exchange of wedding rings is a symbol of the old submissiveness of woman and her being chained to the man. This custom originated in Rome. The bride received an iron ring from her husband to signify that she was chained to him. Later on this ring was made of gold, and much later still the exchange of rings was introduced to signify the mutual bond.

Polygamy has existed and still exists among the Orientals; but owing to the limited number of women that are at a man’s disposal, and owing to the expense of their maintenance, it is at present practised only by the privileged and propertied classes. The counter-part of polygamy is polyandry. This is found especially among the mountaineers of Thibet, the Garras living at the boundary of India and China, the Baigas in Godwana, the Nairs in the southernmost part of India, and also among the Eskimos and Aleuts. Descent is determined on the mother’s side—as must needs be the case—and the children belong to her. The woman’s husbands usually are brothers. If an oldest brother marries, the other brothers thereby become husbands to his wife. But she has the right to take other husbands beside these. The men also are entitled to several wives. From what conditions polyandry sprang is as yet unexplained. As the tribes practising polyandry without exception live either in mountainous regions of a high altitude or in the frigid zone, polyandry may perhaps be explained by a phenomenon that Tarnowsky has pointed out.[22] Tarnowsky was told by reliable travelers that a lengthy sojourn on high altitudes greatly diminishes sexual desire, which reawakens with renewed vigor upon descending. This diminution of sexual desire, so Tarnowsky believes, might explain the slow increase in population in mountainous regions, and by becoming hereditary might be one of the symptoms of degeneration leading to perversity.

Continuous living in high altitudes or in frigid zones might in the same manner signify that polyandry did not make extraordinary demands on women. Women themselves are influenced accordingly by their nature, since among Eskimo girls menstruation, as a rule, does not set in until the nineteenth year, while in the torrid zone it sets in with the ninth or tenth year, and in the temperate zone between the fourteenth and sixteenth year. It is generally known that hot countries have a stimulating effect upon sexual desire; that is why polygamy is especially prevalent in hot countries. In the same way cold lands, and high altitudes having a similar climate, may have a restrictive influence. It is also a matter of experience that conception is less frequent when a woman has cohabitation with several men. The increase in population is, therefore, weak where polyandry exists, and is adapted to the difficulty of obtaining food in cold climes and high altitudes. This goes to show that even in regard to this strange custom of polyandry, the relations of the sexes are in the last instance determined by the methods of production. It still remains to be investigated whether the frequent killing of female infants is practised among the tribes living in mountainous regions or in the frigid zone, as has been reported of Mongolian tribes living in the mountainous regions of China.

[17] Backofen: “The Matriarchate.”

[18] K. Kautsky: “Origin of Marriage and the Family.” Kosmos, 1883.

[19] Mantagazza: “Love in Human Society.”

[20] Similar conditions are still met with in Camerun and in other parts of Western Africa. A German naval surgeon who studied the land and people from his own observations sends us the following information: “Among a great many tribes the right of inheritance is founded on maternity. Paternity is a matter of indifference, only children of the same mother consider one another brothers and sisters. A man does not will his property to his own children, but to his sisters’ children, his nephews and nieces, who can be shown to be his nearest blood relations. A chief of the Way tribe explained to me in broken English: ‘My sister and I surely are blood relations, for we are children of the same mother. My sister again surely is the blood relation of her son. So her son is my heir, and when I die he will be king of my town.’ ‘And your father?’ I asked. ‘I do not know what that is, my father,’ he replied. When I then went on to ask him whether he had no children of his own, he was convulsed with laughter and replied that with them not men but only women had children. I can assure you,” our informant goes on to say, “that even the heir of King Bell in Camerun is not his son, but his nephew. The children of Bell, many of whom are being trained in German cities, are but the children of his wives, while their fathers are unknown. One of them I might lay claim to myself.”—How are the people who deny the existence of maternal law impressed by this description of present-day conditions?! Our informant is a keen observer who goes to the bottom of things. But few who live among these savages do so. Therefore we are given such false descriptions of the alleged “immorality” of the natives.

[21] H. v. Weislocky: “Sketches of the Life of the Transylvanian Gypsies.”

[22] Tarnowsky: “Pathological Phenomena of Sexual Desire.”