The Sexes in Science and History / An inquiry into the dogma of woman's inferiority to man

Chapter 3: PREFACE TO NEW EDITION

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About This Book

A sustained challenge to the dogma of female inferiority that applies evolutionary theory, comparative biology, and cross-cultural evidence to argue that the female organism often represents an advanced line of development. The work critiques scientific prejudices, surveys observed sexual dimorphism and purported male defects, and analyzes how social instincts and moral sensibilities evolved alongside sex differentiation. Drawing on ethnography and historical reconstruction, it traces prehistoric and early historic institutions, including gens, mother-right, marriage origins, and theories of wife capture, to show how male ascendancy emerged. The prose combines theoretical discussion with case studies to reassess assumptions about sex capacity and social consequences.

PREFACE TO NEW EDITION

This volume is a revised edition of The Evolution of Woman published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons in 1894.

In this later work much added evidence appears going to prove the correctness of the theory advanced in the former work. In it the subject of sex-development has been brought down to the present time and in this later investigation it is found that each and every fact connected with the biological and sociological development of the last twenty years is in strict accord not only with the facts set forth in The Evolution of Woman but with the conclusions therein arrived at.

In the concluding chapters of this volume the results of the separate development of the two diverging lines of sex demarcation are set forth. I have endeavoured to show that present conditions are the legitimate outcome of the ascendency gained during the later ages of human history by the egoistic or destructive agencies over the higher or constructive forces developed in human nature.

E. B. G.