Sex and Society: Studies in the Social Psychology of Sex — John Shaqi
Sex and Society: Studies in the Social Psychology of SexThomas, William Isaac
Science
Sex and Society: Studies in the Social Psychology of Sex
Thomas, William Isaac
Sex; Women -- Social and moral questions; Women -- Social conditions
First of all, the house was identified with woman. The home was, in
its simplest terms, the place where the wandering male rejoined the
female. It was a cave, or a hollow tree, or a frail structure. It was
sought or made with reference to safety and comfort, particularly
with reference to the comfort of the young. Recognizing the greater
interest of the woman in the child, it is evident that shelter was
a more important consideration to her than to the man. The house is,
indeed, a very fit accompaniment of the stationary habit of woman,
and usually we find the most primitive tribes recognizing her greater
interest in it. Even when the houses are built by men, they are
generally owned by the women. Man as a solitary animal might, of
course, make himself a shelter, but he had a particular interest in
being about the shelter of woman, and it was under her shelter, after
all, that children were born and that society accumulated numbers.
This resulted in the maternal system and the recognition of woman as
the head of the household, and the owner of the house. So, when the
Indian squaw carries the wigwam on the march, she is carrying her
private property and one of her own particular appurtenances. Contrary
to the phrase which I quoted above, man is rather, in the sense in
which I am now speaking, the domesticated animal. He has been inducted
into the family. The estufas of the Pueblo Indians and the men's
clubhouses in Africa represent the failure of men to assimilate
completely in a society which was essentially female in its genius,
and the club still stands for a difference in interest between the
male and the female.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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