Probably no one will deny that the accumulation of wealth by individuals, and the subsequent change in the relative positions of the sexes, were necessary steps toward the establishment of society on a political or territorial basis, or toward the breaking up of kindred groups and the acknowledgment of the idea of the unity of the entire human family. Neither will the proposition be contradicted that the evils attending these changes namely, monarchy, slavery, and the inordinate love of gain have been unavoidable adjuncts to the development of the race; yet, who will doubt that under higher conditions, as the animal recedes in the distance, these blots on the records of human history will be regarded not as regular steps in the advancement of mankind, but as by-paths which, owing to the peculiar bias which had been given to the male organism among the lower forms of life, the human race has been obliged to take in order to reach civilization? CHAPTER V THE MOTHER-RIGHT Among the most conspicuous of the writers who have dealt with the subject of primitive society are Herr Bachofen, Mr. J. F. McLennan, Sir John Lubbock, and Mr. L. H. Morgan. In 1861, the first-named of these writers, a Swiss jurist, published an extensive work on the early condition of society, entitled _Das Mutter-recht_ (The Motherright), in which was first given to the world the fact that prior to the establishment of a system of kinship through males, there everywhere existed a system based on female supremacy, under which descent was reckoned through women. Bachofen was first led to a belief in a former state of society in which women were the recognized leaders through the evidence which everywhere underlies the traditions and mythologies of extant nations. Upon investigation he found indisputable evidence going to prove that every family of the human race had undergone the same processes of development or growth, and that among all peoples female influence was once supreme. According to Bachofen’s theory, as there were at this early stage of human existence no “laws” regulating the intercourse between the sexes, human beings lived in a state of lawlessness, or hetairism. Recognizing the difference in the reproductive instinct as manifested in the two sexes, he says that becoming disgusted with their manner of living women rebelled, and rising in arms, conquered their male persecutors by sheer superiority in military skill; and that after they had overthrown the degrading practices of communal or lawless marriage, they established monogamy in its stead, under which system woman became the recognized head of the family.