V COURTSHIP, MARRIAGE, AND THE FAMILY 85 I Among the Birds and Mammals. II Further Examples of Courtship, Marriage, and the Family among Birds. PART II--HISTORICAL SECTION VI THE MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION 117 I Progress from Lower to Higher Forms of the Family Relationship. II The Matriarchal Family in America. III Further Examples of the Matriarchal Family in Australia, India, and other Countries. IV The Transition in Father-right. VII WOMAN'S POSITION IN THE GREAT CIVILISATIONS OF ANTIQUITY 177 I In Egypt. II In Babylon. III In Greece. IV In Rome. PART III--MODERN SECTION: PRESENT-DAY ASPECTS OF THE WOMAN PROBLEM VIII SEX DIFFERENCES 245 IX APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTER WITH SOME FURTHER REMARKS ON SEX DIFFERENCE 271 I Women and Labour. II Sexual Differences in Mind and the Artistic Impulse in Women. III The Affectability of Woman--Its Connection with the Religious Impulse. X THE SOCIAL FORMS OF THE SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP 329 I Marriage. II Divorce. III Prostitution. XI THE END OF THE INQUIRY 375 CONTENTS OF CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION--THE STARTING-POINT OF THE INQUIRY The twentieth century the age of hurrying progress--The change in the position of women--Reasons for the revolution--First efforts towards emancipation--Outlook of the Woman Movement--Its fundamental error--Possibilities of future development--Motherhood and the Woman Movement--Schopenhauer's view of woman--He asserts an absurdity--The predominance of man over woman not to be regarded as a natural and inviolable law--An examination of the mastery of the male--Can we look forward to a remedy?--Our own time a turning-point in the history of women--Assumed inferiority of the female sex--Necessity for biological knowledge in forming an estimate of the present sex-relationship--Two kinds of influences to be considered--Nature and Nurture--The different play of the environmental forces, or Nurture, upon women and upon men--The importance of Nature--Galton's _Law of Inheritance_--Woman's responsibility as race-bearer--Sexual differences between the female and the male--Primitive woman and her position in early civilisations--Remarks and conclusion--The immense importance of motherhood. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION--THE STARTING-POINT OF THE INQUIRY "The method of investigating truth commonly pursued at this time, therefore, is to be held erroneous and almost foolish, in which so many inquire what others have said, and omit to ask whether the things themselves be actually so or not."--WILLIAM HARVEY.