While the origin of the distinctions between the property rights of men and the property rights of women may have their roots in the preservation of the large interests of the clan, tribe or state, the custom thus established would tend to be followed in later times irrespective of the applicability to existing conditions. As with many other practices, the fact that it had its roots in the distant past would seem sufficient to justify it. The political power of women has been a negligible factor in the history of political rights. It is true, as we have seen, that political rights were synonymous with property rights, and that very few men exercised political rights since they were propertyless, but nevertheless where property was a family possession the “spear and spindle distinction” was apparent. “Compare the remarkable customs in regard to the division of property in the ancient Germanic laws. The proper inheritance of the woman is her _gerade_ (gerath), the household furniture. Norse law puts women back in regard to land inheritance, and points to ‘loose money,’ _losa ore_, as a natural outfit for them.”[103] Women’s attitude toward political power differed from that of men where it did exist. When a class of men possess no political rights, it means that such rights inhere in a superior class which assumes a political and often an economic mastery over them. Such has not been true of women in the past. When women possessed no political rights their relationship to the state was consciously or unconsciously involved in the relationships of their husbands to the state. History offers us an excellent example of this attitude toward the political rights of women in the old Roman patriarchal system which recognized the family as a complete unit, with one common interest, and that interest represented by a recognized head of the household. We must remember that in the early development of society, political power has rested in the hands of a few individuals who by virtue of individual power, were able to wrest from the many, an authority carrying with it privileges enjoyed primarily by an exclusive governing class. These governmental privileges tend to increase at the expense of the governed until there is a recognition on the part of the people of the injustices practiced. It is then, and only then, that the ruling class defers to the wishes of the ruled. It is the way to preserve their most cherished rights and privileges. We see this state of affairs with the development of towns, and the decline of warfare as the only occupation through which one was enabled to accumulate wealth. The development of industries created a class of people who very soon controlled sufficient wealth to demand a voice in their government. The nobility was in need of the financial aid of the merchant class, and the latter by virtue of their economic strength were able to wrest political privileges from the ruling class.