Religion has its root in sex. As we have already seen the creative force has ever been regarded as masculine or feminine according to the relative importance of the two sexes in human society and in the reproductive processes. So long as woman’s influence and power were in the ascendency the mother was the only recognized parent. She was the creator of offspring. Later, the abstract idea of female reproductive power was manifested in the female deities. It required thousands upon thousands of years to subdue women. It also required millenniums to dethrone the female deities. When, with the rise of male power, man began to assume the rôle of parent, he assumed also all the functions which had formerly belonged to woman. As has been noted in another portion of this work he even went to bed when a child was born. With this change in the physical relations of the sexes, the creative principle soon began to assume a masculine aspect. Male deities began to appear associated with the goddesses. In process of time, as male power increased, the god-idea became wholly masculine. The Jewish god is a personified idea of male power and reproductive energy. This subject will be referred to later in these pages. Thus the ancient plan of government which was the outgrowth of the free maternal instinct, and which had guided humanity on its course for thousands of years, finally succumbed to a system based on physical force. When we remember the conditions surrounding early society we may well believe that civilization was gained, not because of the fact that male power succeeded in gaining the ascendency over female influence, but in spite of it. Given a combination of circumstances involving the supremacy of the lower instincts in mankind, and the individual ownership of land, the subjection of women, monarchy, and slavery, with all their attendant evils, namely, poverty, disease, crime, and misery were sure to follow. When we consider the fundamental bias of the two diverging lines of sexual demarcation, it is not perhaps singular that the strong sexual nature which has prompted males to vigorous physical action should for a time have gained the ascendency over the higher qualities peculiar to females; yet the material progress achieved under the inspiration and direction of agencies like this will not, in a more enlightened stage of existence, be regarded as embodying the results of the best efforts of human activity, or as representing the highest capabilities of the race.