In the Society Islands a woman was forbidden to touch whatever was presented as an offering to the gods, so as not to pollute it.248 In Melanesia women are generally excluded from religious rites.249 Among the Shamanists of Siberia women “are interdicted the worship of the deities, and dare not pass round the common hearth of their habitations, because fire is sacred to the gods.”250 The women of the Voguls are generally prohibited from approaching idols or holy places.251 A Votyak woman may not be present at the sacrifices made to the lud, or evil spirit.252 Among the Lapps a woman was not allowed to touch a noaid’s, or wizard’s, drum; nor, as a rule, to take part in sacrificial rites; nor even to look in the direction of a place where sacrifices were offered.253 Among the Ainos of Japan, “though a woman may prepare a divine offering, she may not offer it…. Accordingly, women are never allowed to pray, or to take any part in any religious exercise.”254 In China women are not allowed to go and worship in the temples.255

In ancient Nicaragua women were held unworthy to perform any duty in connection with the temples, and were immolated outside the temple ground of the large sanctuaries, and even their flesh was unclean food for the high priest, who accordingly ate only the flesh of males.256 In Mexico, although some women were employed in the immediate service of the temples, they were entirely excluded from the office of sacrificing, and the higher dignities of the priesthood.257

According to the sacred books of India, “women are considered to have no business with the sacred texts”;258 and, being destitute of the knowledge of Vedic texts, they “are as impure as falsehood itself, that is a fixed rule.”259 Although, according to a Vedic ordinance mentioned in the Laws of Manu, husband and wife ought to perform religious rites together,260 they have, among the present Hindus, no religious life in common; the women are not allowed to repeat the Veda, or to go through the morning and evening Sandhyā services.261 If a woman, a dog, or a Sûdra, touch a consecrated image, its godship is destroyed; the ceremonies of deification must therefore be performed afresh, whilst a clay image, if thus defiled, must be thrown away. If women should worship before a consecrated image, they must keep at a respectful distance from the idol.262

Islam is chiefly a religion for men. Though Muhammed did not forbid women to attend public prayers in a mosque, he pronounced it better for them to pray in private, as the presence of females might inspire in the men a different kind of devotion from that which is requisite in a place dedicated to the worship of God.263 Women are absolutely excluded from many Muhammedan places of worship, and are frowned upon if they venture to appear in others, at any rate while men are there.264

In Christian Europe, as ascetic ideas advanced, the women sat or stood in the church apart from the men, and entered by a separate door.265 They were excluded from sacred functions. In the early Church, it is true, there were “deaconesses” and clerical “widows,” but their offices were merely to perform some inferior services of the church;266 and even these very modest posts were open only to virgins or widows of a considerable age.267 Whilst a layman could in case of necessity administer baptism, a woman could never, as it seems, perform such an act.268 Nor was a woman allowed to preach publicly in the church, either by the Apostle’s rules or those of succeeding ages;269 and it was a serious complaint against certain heretics that they allowed such a practice. “The heretic women,” Tertullian exclaims, “how wanton are they! they who dare to teach, to dispute, to practise exorcisms, to promise cures, perchance, also, to baptise!”270 A Council held at Auxerre at the end of the sixth century forbade women to receive the Eucharist into their naked hands;271 and in various Canons women were enjoined not to come near to the altar while mass was celebrating.272 To such an extent was this opposition against women carried that the Church of the Middle Ages did not hesitate to provide itself with eunuchs in order to supply cathedral choirs with the soprano tones inhering by nature in women alone.273

But the notion that woman is either temporarily or permanently unclean, that she is a mysterious being charged with supernatural energy, is not only a cause of her degradation; it also gives her a secret power over her husband, which may be very considerable. During my stay among the country people of Morocco, Arabs and Berbers alike, I was often struck by the superstitious fear with which the women imbued the men. They are supposed to be much better versed in magic, and have also splendid opportunities to practise it to the detriment of their husbands, as they may easily bewitch the food they prepare for them. For instance, the wife only needs to cut off a little piece of a donkey’s ear and put it into the husband’s food. What happens? By eating that little piece the husband will, in his relations to his wife, become just like a donkey; he will always listen to what she says, and the wife will become the ruler of the house. I also believe that the men on purpose abstain from teaching the women prayers, so as not to increase their supernatural power.274 In the Arabian Desert men are likewise afraid of their women “with their sly philters and maleficent drinks.”275 In Dahomey “the husband may not chastise or interfere with his wife whilst the fetish is ‘upon’ her, and even at other times the use of the rod might be dangerous.”276 Women, and especially old ones, are very frequently regarded as experts in magic. 277 Among the ancient Arabs,278 Babylonians,279 and Peruvians,280 as in Europe during the Middle Ages and later, the witch appeared more frequently than the male sorcerer. So, also, in the Government of Tomsk in Southern Siberia, native sorceresses are much more numerous than wizards;281 and among the Californian Shastika all, or nearly all, of the shamans are women.282 The curses of women are greatly feared. In Morocco it is considered even a greater calamity to be cursed by a Shereefa, or female descendant of the Prophet, than to be cursed by a Shereef. According to the Talmud, the anger of a wife destroys the house;283 but, on the other hand, it is also through woman that God’s blessings are vouchsafed to it.284 We read in the Laws of Manu:—“Women must be honoured and adorned by their fathers, brothers, husbands, and brothers-in-law, who desire their own welfare. Where women are honoured, there the gods are pleased; but where they are not honoured, no sacred rite yields rewards. Where the female relations live in grief, the family soon wholly perishes; but that family where they are not unhappy ever prospers. The houses on which female relations, not being duly honoured, pronounce a curse, perish completely as if destroyed by magic. Hence men who seek their own welfare should always honour women on holidays and festivals with gifts of ornaments, clothes, and dainty food.”285 A Gaelic proverb says, “A wicked woman will get her wish, though her soul may not see salvation.”286 Closely connected with the belief in the magic power of women, and especially, I think, in the great efficacy of their curses, is the custom according to which a woman may serve as an asylum.287 In various tribes of Morocco, especially among the Berbers and Jbâla, a person who takes refuge with a woman by touching her is safe from his persecutor. Among the Arabs of the plains this custom is dying out, probably owing to their subjection under the Sultan’s government; but amongst certain Asiatic Bedouins, the tribe of Shammar, “a woman can protect any number of persons, or even of tents.”288 Among the Circassians “a stranger who intrusts himself to the patronage of a woman, or is able to touch with his mouth the breast of a wife, is spared and protected as a relation of the blood, though he were the enemy, nay even the murderer of a similar relative.”289 The inhabitants of Bareges in Bigorre have, up to recent times, preserved the old custom of pardoning a criminal who has sought refuge with a woman.290

Yet another factor remains to be mentioned as a cause of the subjection in which married women are held by many peoples of culture. We have noticed that in archaic civilisation the father’s power over his children is extreme, that the State whilst weakening or destroying the clan-tie strengthened the family-tie, and that the father was invested with some part of the power which formerly belonged to the clan.291 This process must also have affected the status of married women. The husband’s power over his wife is closely connected with the father’s power over his daughter; for, by giving her in marriage, he generally transfers to the husband the authority which he himself previously possessed over her as a paternal right.

In modern civilisation, on the other hand, we find, hand in hand with the decrease of the father’s power, a decrease of the husband’s authority over his wife. But the causes of the gradual emancipation of married women are manifold. Life has become more complicated; the occupations of women have become much more extensive; their influence has expanded correspondingly, from the home and household to public life. Their widened interests have interfered with that submissiveness which is an original characteristic of their sex. Their greater education has made them more respected, and has increased their independence. Finally, the decline of the influence exercised by antiquated religious ideas is removing what has probably been the most persistent cause of the wife’s subjection to her husband’s rule.

CHAPTER XXVII

SLAVERY

SLAVERY is essentially an industrial institution, which implies compulsory labour beyond the limits of family relations. The master has a right to avail himself of the working power of his slave, without previous agreement on the part of the latter. This I take to be the essence of slavery; but connected with such a right there are others which hardly admit of a strict definition, or which belong to the master in some cases though not in all. He is entitled to claim obedience and to enforce this claim with more or less severity, but his authority is not necessarily absolute, and the restrictions imposed on it are not everywhere the same. According to a common definition of slavery, the slave is the property of his master,1 but this definition is hardly accurate. It is true that even in the case of inanimate property the notion of ownership does not involve that the owner of a thing is always entitled to do with it whatever he likes; a person may own a thing and yet be prohibited by law from destroying it. But it seems that the owner’s right over his property, even when not absolute, is at all events exclusive, that is, that nobody but the owner has a right to the disposal of it. Now the master’s right of disposing of his slave is not necessarily exclusive; custom or law may grant the latter a certain amount of liberty, and in such a case his condition differs essentially from that of a piece of property. The chief characteristic of slavery is the compulsory nature of the slave’s relation to his master. Voluntary slavery, as when a person sells himself as a slave, is only an imitation of slavery true and proper; the person who gives up his liberty confers upon another, by contract, either for a limited period or for ever, the same rights over himself as a master possesses over his slave. If slavery proper could be based upon a contract between the parties concerned, I fail to see how to distinguish between a servant and a slave.

Dr. Nieboer has recently with much minuteness examined the distribution of slavery and its causes among savage races. It appears from his work that slavery is unknown in Australia, and in Oceania restricted to certain islands. In the Malay Archipelago, on the other hand, it prevails very extensively. Among the aboriginal tribes of India and the Indo-Chinese Peninsula it is fairly common, whereas no certain traces of it are found among the lower races of Central Asia and Siberia, with the exception of the Kamchadales. In North America it exists along the Pacific Coast from Behring Strait to the northern boundary of California, but beyond this district it seems to be unknown. In Central and South America there are at any rate several scattered cases of it, and if our knowledge of the South American Indians were less fragmentary, many other instances might perhaps be added. In savage Africa there are only one or two districts where no certain cases of slavery are encountered, whilst large agglomerations of slave-keeping tribes occur on the Coast of Guinea and in the district formed by Lower Guinea and the territories bordering the Congo.2

Slaves are kept only where there is employment for them, and where the circumstances are otherwise favourable to the growth of slavery. Its existence or non-existence in a tribe largely depends on the manner in which that tribe lives. Among hunters it hardly occurs at all. Mr. Spencer justly observes that, “in the absence of industrial activity, slaves are almost useless; and, indeed, where game is scarce, are not worth their food.”3 Moreover, they would have to be procured from foreign tribes, and to prevent such slaves from running away would be almost impossible for hunters who roam over vast tracts of land in pursuit of game, especially if the slaves also were engaged in hunting. For a small community of hunters—and their communities generally are small4—it might even be dangerous to keep foreign slaves in their midst.5 Among fishing tribes, on the other hand, slavery is much more common, attaining a special importance among those who live on or near the Pacific Coast of North-Western America. These tribes have an abundance of food, they have fixed habitations, they live in comparatively large groups, and trade and industry, property and wealth, are well developed among them. In consequence, they find the services of slaves useful, and, at the same time, the slaves have little chance of making their escape.6

Of the pastoral tribes referred to in Dr. Nieboer’s list only one half keep slaves, and among some of these slave-keeping is said to be a mere luxury. To pastoral peoples, as such, slave labour is of little moment. Among them subsistence depends much more on capital than on labour, and for the small amount of work which is required free labourers are easily procured. As Dr. Nieboer observes, “among people who live upon the produce of their cattle, a man who owns no cattle, i.e. no capital, has no means of subsistence. Accordingly, among pastoral tribes we find rich and poor men; and the poor often offer themselves as labourers to the rich.”7 Pastoral peoples have thus no strong motives for making slaves, but at the same time “there are no causes preventing them from keeping slaves. These tribes are, so to speak, in a state of equilibrium; a small additional cause on either side turns the balance. One such additional cause is the slave-trade; another is the neighbourhood of inferior races.” All those pastoral peoples who keep slaves live in districts where an extensive slave-trade has for a long time been carried on. The slaves are often purchased from slave-traders, and in several cases they belong to an inferior race.8

Among agricultural peoples slavery prevails more extensively; further, it is more common among such tribes as subsist chiefly by agriculture than among incipient agriculturists, who still depend on hunting or fishing for a large portion of their food. In primitive agricultural communities nobody voluntarily serves another, because subsistence is independent of capital and easy to procure. “All freemen in new countries,” says Mr. Bagehot, “must be pretty equal; every one has labour, and every one has land; capital, at least in agricultural countries (for pastoral countries are very different), is of little use; it cannot hire labour; the labourers go and work for themselves.”9 Hence in such countries, if a man wants another to work for him, he must compel him to do it—that is, he must make him his slave. This holds true of most savage countries, namely, of all those in which there is much more fertile land than is required to be cultivated for the support of the actual population; but it does not hold true of all. Where every piece of land fit for cultivation has been appropriated, a man who owns no land cannot earn his subsistence independently of a landlord; hence free labourers are available, slaves are not wanted, and slavery is not likely to exist. And even where there are no poor persons, but everybody has a share in the resources of the country, the use of slaves cannot be great, since a man who owns a limited capital, or a limited quantity of land, can only employ a limited number of labourers. For instance, the absence of slavery in many Oceanic islands may be accounted for by the fact that all land had been appropriated, which led to a state of things inconsistent with slavery as a social system.10

These are the main conclusions at which Dr. Nieboer has arrived by means of much admirable and painstaking research. Most of them, I think, are undoubtedly correct; yet it seems to me that the influence of economic conditions upon the institution of slavery has perhaps been emphasised too much at the cost of other factors. The prevalence of slavery in a savage tribe and the extent to which it is practised must also depend upon the ability of the tribe to procure slaves from foreign communities and upon its willingness to allow its own members to be kept as slaves within the tribe. It may be very useful for a group of savages to have a certain number of slaves, and yet they may not have them, for the reason that no slaves are to be had. It is only in extraordinary cases that a person is allowed to enslave a member of his own community. Intra-tribal slavery is a question not only of economic but of moral concern, whilst extra-tribal slavery originally depends upon success in war.

We have reason to believe that the earliest source of slavery was war or conquest, and that slavery in many cases was a substitution for putting prisoners of war to death.11 Savages, who have little mercy on their enemies, naturally make no scruple in reducing them to slavery whenever they find their advantage in doing so. Among existing savages, in fact, prisoners of war are very frequently enslaved.12 They and their descendants, together with persons kidnapped or purchased from foreign tribes, seem generally to form by far the majority of the slave population in uncivilised countries.