I have referred in an earlier chapter to a letter from Mr. H. G. Wells, sent to me after the publication of my book, _The Truth about Woman_. Now, there is one sentence in this letter that I wish to quote here, because it brings home just what it is my purpose in this chapter to show--that the mother-age was a civilisation owing its institutions, and its early victories over nature, rather to the genius of woman than to that of man. Mr. Wells does not, indeed, say this. He rejects the mother-age, and in questioning my acceptance of it as a stage in the past histories of societies, he writes: “The primitive matriarchate never was anything more than mother at the washing-tub and father looking miserable.” It seems to me that here, in his own inimitable way, Mr. Wells (though I think quite unconsciously) sums up the past labour-history of woman and man. His statement has very far-reaching considerations. It forces us to accept the active utility of primitive woman in the community--a utility more developed and practical than that of man. This was really the basis of women’s position of power. The constructive quality of the female mind, at a time when the male attention and energy were fixed chiefly on the destructive activities of warfare, was liberated for use and invention. Women were the seekers, slowly increasing their efficiency. Very much the same account of the primitive sexual division in work was given by an Australian Kurnai to Messrs. Fison and Howitt, in a sentence that has been quoted very frequently: “A man hunts, spears fish, fights and sits about, all the rest is woman’s work.” This may be accepted as a fair statement of how work is divided between the two sexes among primitive peoples. Now, what I wish to make plain is that it was an arrangement in which the advantage was really on the side of the woman rather than on that of the man. I would refer the reader back to what has been said on this subject in Chapter III, where I summed up the conditions acting on the women in the hypothetical first stage of the primordial family. We saw that the males were chiefly concerned with the absorbing duties of sex and fighting rivals, and also hunting for game. The women’s interest, on the other hand, was bent on domestic activities--in caring for their children and developing the food supplies immediately around them. From the hearth-home, or shelter, as the start of settled life, and with their intelligence sharpened by the keen chisel of necessity, women carried on their work as the organisers and directors of industrial occupations. Very slowly did they make each far-reaching discovery; seeds cast into the ground sprouted and gave the first start of agriculture. The plant world gave women the best returns for the efforts they made, and they began to store up food. Contrivance followed contrivance, each one making it possible for women to do more. Certain animals, possibly brought back by the hunters from the