The Position of Woman in Primitive Society: A Study of the MatriarchyHartley, C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine)
History
The Position of Woman in Primitive Society: A Study of the Matriarchy
Hartley, C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine)
Matriarchy; Women -- History
10. And a further result would follow in the treatment by
the male of this new order. The women by obtaining and
preparing food would gain an economic value. Wives would
become to the patriarch a source of riches, indispensable to
him, not only on account of his sex needs, but on account of
the more persistent need of food. Thus the more women he
possessed the greater would be his own comfort, and the
physical prosperity of the group. The women would become of
ever greater importance, and the economic power that they
thus acquired would more and more favourably influence their
position.
11. There is one other matter in this connection. The
greater number of women in the group the stronger would
become their power of combination. I attach great importance
to this. Working together for the welfare of all, the social
motive would grow stronger in women, so that necessarily
they would come to consider the collective interests of the
group. Can it be credited that such conditions could have
acted upon the patriarch, whose conduct would still be
inspired by individual appetite and selfish inclinations? I
maintain such a view to be impossible.
12. Another advantage, I think, would arise for women out of
the male’s jealous tyranny in the sexual relationship. Such
an idea may appear strange, if we think only of the
subjection of the females to the brute-appetite of the
patriarch. Yet there is another side. The women must have
gained freedom by being less occupied with sex passions, and
also from being less jealously interested in the man than he
was in them. It may be urged that the women would be jealous
of each other. I do not think this could have been. Jealousy
has its roots in the consciousness of possession, and is
only aroused through fear of loss. This could not have acted
with any great power among the women in the patriarchal
group. Their interest of possession in sex must have been
less acute in consciousness than the interest of the male.
Doubtless the woman would be attracted by the male’s
courageous action in fighting his rivals for possession of
her, but when the rival was the woman’s son such attraction
would come into strong conflict with the deeper maternal
instinct.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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