The freedom of the women of ancient Spain is sufficiently indicated by the fact that they took part in the activities usually considered as belonging to men. It was these women who played their part in driving back the Roman legions from the mountainous districts of northern Spain; we read of them fighting side by side with men, where they used their weapons with courage and determination. They received their wounds with silent fortitude, and no cry of pain ever escaped their lips, even when the wounds which laid them low were mortal. To women as well as men liberty was a possession more valued than life, and, when taken prisoners, they fell upon their own swords, and dashed their little ones to death rather than suffer them to live to be slaves. Nor were the activities of women confined to warfare. Justin speaks of women as not only having the care of all domestic matters, but also cultivating the fields. And Strabo, writing of these Amazons, tells us that they would often step aside out of the furrows “to be brought to bed,” and then, having borne a child, would return to their work “just as if they had only laid an egg.” He notes, too, as being practised among them the _couvade_, whereby the husband, in assertion of his legal fatherhood, retired to bed when a child was born.[214] [214] See in this connection my book, _Spain Revisited_, pp. 291-304. Spain is a land that I know well, and for this reason I have chosen to write of it in fuller detail. Persistent relics of the early maternal period even yet may be traced in the customs of this strongly conservative people. Women are held in honour. There is a proverb common all over Spain to the effect that “he who is unfortunate and needs assistance should seek his mother.” Many primitive customs survive, and one of the most interesting is that by which the eldest daughter in some cases takes precedence over the sons in inheritance. Among the Basques, until quite recently, the administration of the family property passed to the eldest child, whether a boy or a girl; and in the case of a daughter, her husband was obliged to take the name of the family and to live in the wife’s home. Spanish women always retain their own names after marriage, and as far back as the fourth century we find them at the Synod of Elvira resisting an attempt to limit this freedom. The practice is still common for children to use the name of the mother coupled with that of the father, and even, in some cases, alone, showing a quite unusual absence of preference for paternal descent. This is very significant. It explains the recognition given in old Spain to the unmarried mother; even to-day in no country, that I know, does less social stigma fall on a child born out of wedlock. The profound Spanish veneration of the Virgin Mary, as well as the number of female saints, is another indication of the honour paid to women, which must, I am certain, be connected with a far back time when goddesses were worshipped.