With possession always goes authority. It meant a great deal to the race for women to be protected during pregnancy and the period of lactation, but in this early protection of the female lay the roots of their later subordinate status. They were free in a measure from the tyranny of the hostile environmental force, but instead subjected to the tyranny of their masters. The latter was the lesser of two evils. Primitive man was not necessarily brutal to his mate; there exists in all animals a natural deference on the part of the male toward the female--when he showed consideration for his fellow men. It was only when cruelty was a characteristic of man toward all his fellow men, or a distinctive quality of the members of the group in question, men and women alike, that women suffered from brutality. When prehistoric man showed a tendency to establish a permanent dwelling place, two factors determined the occupation of women. Their offspring looked to them for food which the chase did not always supply; and secondly, they possessed, thanks to the men, leisure and sense of security which made possible the concentration of attention on the industrial arts. Necessity stimulated them to effort, but the security from enemies, at least in a measure, made possible peaceable pursuits that were significant of the beginning of the home. Women were not averse to this arrangement of occupations, for to them it was the most convenient. To take part in war and the chase would have worked great hardships on the small children who needed much of the mother’s care. The association of women with the hearth is the outgrowth of a natural development having its basis in the convenience of both sexes. Thus were established habits which in a later day became recognized as sex distinctions. The primitive mother handed down to her daughters the precepts she herself had followed--perhaps on her own initiative, and what was a habit with her became custom and tradition to her children. In early historical times women occupied a sphere industrially, legally, and socially distinct from that of man, differing with different peoples, but sufficiently alike to establish the fact that woman’s position is invariably inferior. In militant types of society the contrast between the status of men and women is most marked, whereas these differences grow less as the occupations of both men and women incline toward industrialism. Strength or weakness in combat determined the status of the individual, class or sex when combat was the chief occupation of men. Although in general women were physically weaker, and out of their weakness arose, possibly, sex tyranny, family ties were close, and by virtue of relationship individual women often exercised authority. This shows sex alone was not always sufficient to deprive women of all power.