The earliest form of organized society was that into classes founded on the basis of sex,80 under which the right of individuals to intermarry was restricted to one-fourth of the group. This division of the early race, and the regulations prohibiting conjugal relations with three-fourths the members of the related community, is thought to represent the first coercive abridgment or formal restriction of the then existing conjugal rights, and was inaugurated for the purpose of averting the evil effects arising from intercourse between near relations. Of this early form of society, however, and of the ages during which no organized form existed, little may be known except that which is suggested by the instincts and habits of the highest animals, and that which may be inferred from an investigation of the next higher organization, that into gentes on the basis of kin. Although untold ages intervened between the ancient division of society into classes founded on the basis of sex, and the higher and more important organization into gentes on the basis of kin, this last-named plan for the further development of mankind became universal at a comparatively early stage of human history.
By an investigation of the fundamental principles of the gens, we shall be enabled to observe the similarity existing between the instincts which governed early human action and those which controlled the highest orders of life below mankind. All facts bearing on the primitive conditions of the human race, which in these later times have been brought to light through the investigations directed toward peoples in the various stages of development, only serve to emphasize the importance of the altruistic principle in the formation of organized society and in the establishment of human institutions. Although the gens is the earliest form of organized society of which we have any accurate knowledge, still as within it were encysted the germs of all the principles of justice and equality which our better human nature is beginning again to recognize, and which must characterize a higher stage of progress, a knowledge of its underlying principles is necessary to a correct understanding, not only of the past development of the race and all the existing human institutions, but of the course to be pursued toward the future advancement of mankind. Of the gens, Mr. Morgan says:
The gentile organization opens to us one of the oldest and most widely prevalent institutions of mankind. It furnished the nearly universal plan of government of ancient society, Asiatic, European, African, American, and Australian. It was the instrumentality by means of which society was organized and held together. Commencing in savagery, and continuing through the three sub-periods of barbarism, it remained until the establishment of political society, which did not occur until after civilization had commenced. The Grecian gens, phratry, and tribe, the Roman gens, curia, and tribe find their analogues in the gens, phratry, and tribe of the American aborigines. In like manner, the Irish sept, the Scottish clan, the phrara of the Albanians, and the Sanskrit ganas, without extending the comparison further are the same as the American-Indian gens, which has usually been called a clan. As far as our knowledge extends, this organization runs through the entire ancient world upon all the continents, and it was brought down to the historical period by such tribes as attained to civilization.... Gentile society wherever found is the same in structural organization and in principles of action; but changing from lower to higher forms with the progressive advancement of the people. These changes give the history of the development of the same original conceptions.81
Early society, as observed under gentile institutions, was established on purely personal and social relations, or, on the basis of the relations of the individual to the rest of the community, a community in which each member could trace her or his origin back to the head of the gens who was a woman. Under gentile institutions, or until the latter stage of barbarism was reached, each individual, female and male, constituted a unit in an aggregation or community whose interests were identical, and as such, to a certain extent, was held responsible for the safety and general welfare of every member composing the group.
Extreme egoism, as it is the outgrowth of a later age, was unknown; and sympathy, the chief promoter of the well-being of mankind, a sprout from the well-established root, maternal affection, was the predominant characteristic of these primitive groups and the bond which held society together. Although the manner of reckoning descent had been changed from the female to the male line, the purely social organization of the gens, on the basis of kin, was, as has been observed, in operation at the beginning of our present civilization, at which time political society supervened, and individuals were no longer recognized through their relations to a gens or tribe, but through their relations to the state, county, township, or deme, to which institutions they must henceforward look for protection and for the redress of injuries done either to person or property.
Although, until a comparatively recent time, the writers who have dealt with the subject of primitive society have been of the opinion that the tribe constituted the earliest organization of society, and that the gens and the family followed, later investigations show conclusively that the gens, next to the remote and obscure division into classes, represents the oldest and most widely spread form of organized society, and that it was through segmentation or division of this archaic group that the tribe was formed.
The natural way in which a tribe is formed is from a family or group, which in time increases and divides into many households, still recognizing one another as kindred, and this kinship is so thoroughly felt to be the tie of the whole tribe, that even when there has been a mixture of tribes, a common ancestor is often invented to make an imaginary bond of union.82
The gens, until a comparatively recent time in the history of the human race, was composed of a female ancestor, all her children and all the children of her daughters, but not of her sons. The sons’ children and their descendants belonged to the gens of their respective mothers. The family, as it appears at the present time, was unknown. The gens was founded on thoroughly democratic principles, each individual composing the group, both female and male, having a voice in the regulation and management of all matters pertaining to the general government of the community. Any injury done to a gentilis was a wrong committed against the entire gens of which she or he was a member, hence to her or his kinsmen each individual looked for protection and for redress of personal wrongs.
The fundamental doctrine of tribal life is unity of blood. Although the early groups, under the system of female descent, were united by the actual bond of kinship as traced through mothers, later, when descent came to be traced through fathers, kinship was to a considerable extent feigned. Kinship, under the system of male descent, meant not that the blood of the great father actually flowed in the veins of all the members of the group, but that under a pretence of unity of blood, they were bound together by common duties and responsibilities from which no one of them could escape. By the terms of the compact, every member must stand by her or his own clan. In fact, in all their movements, they must act as one individual; their interests were identical and the quarrel of any member of the group became the quarrel of all counted within the bond of kinship. If homicide were committed, they judged and punished the culprit, but if one of their number was slain by an outsider, the law of blood-feud, which demanded blood in return, was immediately put into execution. Of the gens Mr. Morgan says:
Within its membership the bond of kin was a powerful element for mutual support. To wrong a person was to wrong his gens; and to support a person was to stand behind him with the entire array of this gentile kindred.83
Although in the later ages of gentile government, all the members of a group were not necessarily bound by blood, from the nature of the rights conferred, and the obligations imposed, the bond uniting them was doubtless stronger than that which now unites mere kindred. Of this tie uniting early groups J. G. Frazer says:
All the members of a totem clan regard each other as kinsmen or brothers and sisters, and are bound to help and protect each other. The totem bond is stronger than the bond of blood or family in the modern sense.84
As Arabia, at the time of Mohammed, was still under gentile organization, there is perhaps at the present day no country which affords a better opportunity for the study of several of the successive stages of human development. At the time indicated, the entire Arabian peninsula was composed of a multitude of groups varying in civilization, which were bound together by common privileges, obligations, and responsibilities and by a real or pretended bond of kinship traced through males.
In early Arabia a group bound together by a real or feigned unity of blood was the type or unit of society. Sometimes a confederation of these smaller groups was formed, but so strong was the bond between the more closely related groups that they soon broke up into their original units. The genealogists assert that these groups which were patriarchal tribes founded on male descent are subdivisions of an original stock.
At the time of the Prophet the Arabians claimed to trace their descent from two brothers the sons of Wâil. Prof. W. Robertson Smith informs us, however, that the name of one of these “brothers” is a feminine appellation and that it is the designation of a tribe and not of a person. He says: “The gender shows that the tribal name existed before the mythical ancestor was invented,” and adds: “The older facts down to the time of Al-Farazdac personify Taghlib as the daughter not the son of Wâil. It is not unlikely that the mythical legend of Taghlib and Bakr originated at a time when the female principle in human affairs and in the Deity was beginning to give place to the male.”85
Within the traditions of the oldest races of which we have any account, are evidences of a desperate struggle between two races or between the followers of two opposing principles. In all parts of Arabia “these two races maintained their ancestral traditions of bitter and persistent feud.”
Although in Arabia, in the time of the Prophet, descent was traced in the male line, the evidence is almost unlimited, going to show that it was not always so, but, on the contrary, that at an earlier age, relationships were reckoned through women, mothers being the recognized heads of families and tribal groups. In his work on Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, Prof. W. R. Smith says:
If a kinship tribe derives its origin from a great father, we may argue with confidence that it had the rule that children were of their father’s tribe and kin; while on the other hand if we find, in a nation organized on the principle of unity of tribal blood, tribes which trace their origin to a great mother instead of a great father, we can feel sure that at some time the tribe followed the rule that the children belong to the mother and are of her kin. Now among the Arabs the doctrine of the unity of tribal blood is universal, as appears from the universal prevalence of the blood-feud. And yet among the Arab tribes we find no small number that refer their origin to a female eponym. Hence it follows that in many parts of Arabia kinship was once reckoned not in the male but in the female line.
In reply to the suggestion that the several families of polygamous fathers might be designated by the names of their several mothers, Professor Smith observes:
The point before us, however, is not the use of the mother’s name by individuals for purposes of distinction, but the existence of kindred groups whose members conceive that the tie of blood which unites them into a tribe is derived from and limited by descent from a common ancestress. That the existence of such a group proves kinship through women to have been once the rule is as certain as that the existence of patronymic groups is evidence of male kinship. In most cases of the kind the female eponym is mythical, no doubt, and the belief in her existence is a mere inference from the rule of female kinship within the tribe, just as mythical male ancestors are inferred from a rule of male kinship. But even if we suppose the ancestress to be historical, the argument is much the same, for where the bond of maternity is so strong that it binds together the children of the same mother as a distinct kindred group against the other children of their father, there also we may be sure that the children of one mother by different fathers will hold together and not follow their father. And this is the principle of female kinship.86
It is stated that the designation of tribal unity by a feminine appellation “is not an arbitrary fiction of later facts,” but that it is “one of the old standing figures of Semitic speech.” In Hebrew, em, which means mother, means also stock, race, or community.
The name for a tribal group in Arabia was hayy, a term which indicates life. It is observed that in Hebrew and Arabic hayy is used in the same sense. “Hawwa is simply a phonetic variation of hayy with a feminine termination,” and “Eve, or Hawwa, is so called because she is the mother of all living, or, more literally, of every hayy.” We are given to understand that, originally, there was no rule of reckoning kinship in Arabia except by the female line, and that the change in descent from the female to the male line affected society to its very roots.
There seems to be little, if any, doubt that a system of reckoning descent through women once prevailed throughout all the tribes and races of mankind. In Greece, as late as the beginning of the historic period, traces of this early custom are to be observed, and, indeed, at the present time, among many peoples, evidences of it are still extant. The fact that throughout an earlier age of human existence descent and all the rights of succession were traced through women, is at the present time so well established as to require no detailed proofs to substantiate it. Noting this custom among early races, and observing also the natural conclusions to be drawn from such a state of society, a few writers who have dealt with the subject of primitive races have taken much pains to show that it does not naturally follow that under these usages the influence of women was supreme; and their theories to explain this (to them) no doubt singular phenomenon show the extent to which prejudice and long-established habits of thought have influenced their investigations. On this subject C. Staniland Wake remarks:
There is strong reason for believing that the practice of tracing kinship in the female line was very widely observed from a very early period, but this is very different from the establishment of the supremacy of women. Where this was found it was due to the development of the gentile institution and the female kinship which accompanied it, on which, indeed, that institution was founded.87
If, however, during the earlier ages of human existence a system of kinship through women had been established which was able to produce the gentile institution, or, if this institution, which was “founded” on female kinship and dependent upon it, was able through untold ages to direct all the processes of evolution, even though no other evidence were at hand to prove it, then women’s influence must have been well-nigh supreme.
So deeply intrenched has become the idea of woman’s subjection that it is impossible for many male writers to contemplate a state of society in which women are not dominated and controlled by men.
Mr. Herbert Spencer’s theory to explain the universal system of kinship traced through woman involves the same idea of woman’s subserviency to man, especially in the sexual relation, and is an illustration of the reasoning usually employed in dealing with this subject.
Although “the very lowest races now existing, Fuegians, Australians, and Andamanese, show us that, however informally they have originated, sexual relations of a more or less enduring kind exist,” he is certain that among the earliest races a state of “lawlessness” must have prevailed and that “promiscuity” must have been the rule among them; and this too notwithstanding the fact that among the lower orders of life from which man has descended, and among the earliest races of mankind the female chooses her mate and refuses to pair with any individual except the one of her choice. To account for the universal system of reckoning descent through the female, Mr. Spencer says that as the connection between mother and child is more “obvious” than that existing between the father and his offspring the custom arose of reckoning descent through females.88 The fact is observed that maternal affection without which organized society would have been impossible, and which alone can explain the system of kinship traced through women, is entirely ignored by Mr. Spencer.
Noting the reasoning employed by many writers to prove that in the earliest ages of human existence, the maternal bond was ignored, and that the child was accounted as being related only to the group, Mr. Darwin remarks:
But it seems almost incredible that the relationship of the child to its mother should ever be completely ignored, especially as the women in most savage tribes nurse their infants for a long time, and as the lines of descent are traced through the mother alone, to the exclusion of the father.89
We must bear in mind that under archaic usages not only did mothers nurse their infants two, three, and even four years, but that maternity was the bond which held together related groups and the source whence proceeded all property rights and tribal honours; also, that under the system of female kinship, male parentage was known but habitually disregarded. Notwithstanding all this, Mr. Spencer can see no reason for concluding that in the most primitive groups there were no “individual possessions of women by men.”90
The late Sir A. Smith, who had travelled widely in South Africa and was acquainted with the habits of savages there and elsewhere, expressed the strongest opinion that “no race exists in which woman is considered as the property of the community.”91 The reasoning employed by Mr. Spencer to disprove the early supremacy of women seems scarcely to justify his lofty pretensions to intellectual greatness.
In a state of society in which women were the recognized heads of families and eponymous groups where children took the mother’s name, and in which all rights of succession were traced through them, it is reasonable to suppose that female influence was in the ascendency over that of the male, and especially so as primitive human beings were largely controlled by instincts inherited from the orders of life in which the female chooses her mate and controls the sex-functions.
A knowledge of the customs and tribal usages of the Iroquois Indians throws much light on the early position of women. When this tribe first came under the observation of Europeans it was in the first stage of barbarism, and as the manner and order of development of the various races of mankind are said to be substantially the same, and as many of the facts connected with the history of this truly interesting people through nearly three ethnical periods are accessible, it is thought that by it, as well as by the Arabians, is afforded an excellent opportunity for the study of the general history of mankind during these periods. To Mr. Morgan we are indebted for the results of a thorough research into the customs, manners, and laws of this people.
Through a knowledge of the rights, privileges, and obligations which were conferred and imposed on the members of the Iroquois gens while in the second state of barbarism, we are enabled to perceive the principles of true democracy upon which gentile institutions are based; and this is important, for the reason that later in this work I intend to trace the decline of those principles of liberty and equality established under female influence and to show the reasons for the subsequent rise of monarchy, aristocracy, and slavery.
The rights, privileges, and obligations of the Iroquois tribe of Indians, as enunciated by Mr. Morgan, are as follows:
The right of electing its sachem and chiefs. The right of deposing its sachem and chiefs. The obligation not to marry in the gens. Mutual rights of inheritance of the property of deceased members. Reciprocal obligations of help, defence, and redress of injuries. The right of bestowing names upon its members. The right of adopting strangers into the gens. Common religious rites. A common burial place. A council of the gens.92
As this writer truly remarks: “These functions and attributes gave vitality as well as individuality to the organization, and protected the personal rights of its members.”
Eligibility to the office of chief was based on personal merit, and continuance in office depended on the acknowledged fitness of the individual occupying it. The qualifications required for this office were personal bravery, ability to lead, and eloquence in council. The chief exercised no kingly authority over the tribe by which he was appointed; on the contrary, his personality was respected and his counsels heeded, not because of his official prerogatives, but on account of the qualities by which his character was dignified; therefore so soon as he proved himself unworthy of the trust confided to him he was deposed by the same agency which had elected him. Hence may be observed the truly democratic character of the gens.
Concerning the position occupied by women, and the influence which they exerted in the management of the clan, Ashur Wright, who was for many years missionary to the Senecas, in 1873, wrote to Mr. Morgan the following:
As to their family system when occupying the old long houses, it is probable that some one clan predominated, the women taking in husbands, however, from the other clans; and sometimes, for a novelty, some of their sons bringing in their young wives until they felt brave enough to leave their mothers. Usually the female portion ruled the house, and were doubtless clannish enough about it. The stores were in common; but woe to the luckless husband or lover who was too shiftless to do his share of the providing. No matter how many children or whatever goods he might have in the house, he might at any time be ordered to pick up his blanket and budge; and after such orders it would not be healthful for him to attempt to disobey. The house would be too hot for him; and, unless saved by intercession of some aunt or grandmother, he must retreat to his own clan; or, as was often done, go and start a new matrimonial alliance in some other. The women were the great power among the clans, as everywhere else. They did not hesitate, when occasion required, “to knock off the horns,” as it was technically called, from the head of a chief, and send him back to the ranks of the warriors. The original nomination of the chiefs also always rested with them.93
In the Lower Status of barbarism we find intermarriage within the gens prohibited, and the obligation not to marry those accounted as kin as strong as a religious duty.
Although during the latter ages of savagery the idea of property was slightly developed, it is thought that it lay nascent until the latter part of the first period of barbarism. Indeed, until the first stage of barbarism was reached, the idea of personal possession had gained only a slight foothold in the mental constitution of mankind. Egoism, selfishness, or the desire to better one’s individual condition at the expense of the rest of the gens was unknown. All lands were controlled by the group, and as the property of early society consisted for the most part of personal effects and proprietary rights in communal houses and gardens, one of the most fruitful causes for dissensions in more advanced stages of society was avoided. Under primitive conditions, quarrels arising over disputed ownership within the gens were unknown, and liberty, equality, and fraternity, the cardinal virtues and principles of early society were able to flourish undisturbed by the as yet unheard of vices inherent in the excessive desire for property.
In reference to some of the small uncivilized communities which he visited, Mr. Wallace says that each man respects the rights of his fellow,
and any infraction of these rights rarely or never takes place. In such a community all are nearly equal. There are none of those wide distinctions of education and ignorance, wealth and poverty, master and servant, which are the product of our civilization; there is none of that widespread division of labour, which, while it increases wealth, produces also conflicting interests; there is not that severe competition and struggle for existence or for wealth which the dense population of civilized countries inevitably creates.94
Under the archaic rule of the gens, at the death of a male, whether married or single, his possessions descended to his sister’s children; while at the death of a female, her property, including her personal effects, was distributed among her sisters and her children and the children of her daughters, but the children of her sons were not included among her heirs. The sons’ children belonged to the gentes of their respective mothers, and as descent and all the relationships to which rights of succession were attached were traced only in the female line, and as property until the middle of the Second Status of barbarism was strictly confined to the gens in which it originated, children could receive nothing from their fathers. Wives and husbands, as they belonged to separate gentes, received nothing from one another. In later times, when tribal honours were confined within certain families or groups, as descent and property rights were all traced in the female line, each male was dependent upon his female blood relations, not only for his common inherited privileges in the gens, but for any civil or military distinction to which he might attain.
Where female kinship prevails, a Rajah’s son may become a hodman, taking the state of his mother—while the son of the Rajah’s sister mounts the throne.95
Among the Rocch tribe, a people among which descent is traced in the female line, a man goes on marriage to live with his wife and her mother, of whose family he is a subordinate member.96
A Rocch man goes, on his marriage, like the beena husband of Ceylon, to live with his wife and her mother; on his marriage, all his property is made over to his wife, and on her death her heirs are her daughters.97
For the same reason that wives and husbands were debarred from sharing in each other’s property, their bodies, or more properly speaking, their bones, were separated at death, as were also the bones of father and child. The bones of the children always rested beside those of the mother. It was impious to mix the bones of unrelated persons. To such an extent was the Motherright recognized under archaic usages that the child belonged exclusively to the mother and her relations, the father having no recognized proprietary right to his offspring. Indeed, so lightly was the paternal relation regarded that the father was supposed to have little if any interest in his own children.
Although the bond between a man and his offspring was weak, toward his sister’s children, as they belonged to the same gens with himself, a considerable degree of manly interest was manifested; indeed, it has been stated that about the same solicitude was evinced by him for their welfare, as was shown at a later time by fathers for the members of their own household.
Observing the care manifested for a sister’s children among various tribes, certain writers have declared that the relationship existing between a child and its mother’s brother is more important than any other—that the brother is practically the head of his sister’s family. However, if we bear in mind the relative positions of the sexes in primitive groups, that women controlled their homes, and that all the rights of succession were traced through them, we shall doubtless be led to the conclusion that mothers themselves were the real heads of their own families, and that although they may have delegated to their brothers, who until marriage were permitted to reside with them, certain manly offices, they nevertheless reserved to themselves the exclusive right to the control and management of their own households. As the land belonged to the gens, and as the gentes were controlled by women, mothers were absolutely independent.
Each child received a name soon after birth, but at the age of sixteen or eighteen this name was discarded and another adopted. Special rights were thus conferred and specified obligations were imposed. On receipt of this name, the incumbent took upon himself all the duties and responsibilities devolving upon a member of the group and by it was entitled to all its rights and privileges. The greatest precautions were taken with respect to the adoption of names. The office of naming the different members belonged to the female relations and the chiefs. We are informed that the mother might, if she chose, transfer her child to another gens. This was accomplished by simply giving it the name of the gens in which she desired its adoption. It is claimed that among the Shawnees and Delawares the mother claimed the right to transfer her child to another gens than her own.98 It would seem from this, that among certain tribes, the mother, if she desires, may transfer her child to the gens of its father. It is observed, however, that the transference of a child from its mother’s gens is a “wide departure from archaic usages, and exceptional in practice.”
It has been shown that under early usages wealth was never transferred from the gens in which it originated; but later, when property began to be claimed by individuals, and wealth was amassed in the hands of males, it is not unlikely that mothers, considering only the future welfare of their children, in case the father was rich and powerful, would occasionally take advantage of their established privileges to remove their children to his gens, in order that they might share in his possessions.
Something of the humanity practised in early groups may be observed in the custom of adoption, which, at a certain stage in their development, prevailed among them. In the earlier ages of gentile institutions, women and children taken prisoners in war, were usually adopted into some gens. Adoption not only conferred gentile rights, but also the nationality of the tribe. A person adopted into a gens was treated ever afterwards as though born within the group. “Slavery which in the Upper Status of barbarism became the fate of the captive, was unknown among tribes in the Lower Status in the aboriginal period.”99
According to Mariner:
It is customary in the Tonga Islands for women to be what they call mothers to children or grown-up young persons who are not their own, for the purpose of providing them, or seeing that they are provided, with all the conveniences of life.100
According to Mr. E. J. Wood, among the Kaffirs, although the men inherit the property, their influences being in the ascendency, every woman has someone who acts as her father whether her own father be living or not. Kaffir law provides for the protection of all women, and so long as a male relation lives a girl has a protector. It goes even farther than this, and protects women who have been bereft of all their male relations. For such as these provision is made for their adoption into other groups, in which case, although they are received as dependents, they are protected as daughters.101
This practice of adoption is observed among various peoples. Among certain tribes in which descent is traced through women, a woman offers her breast to the person she is adopting, this being the strongest symbol of the unity of blood. Thus may be noted the fact that the fundamental idea, or principle, of tribal life is maternity, or the maternal instinct—that the uniting force which binds a child to its mother is the one which is supposed to unite the various members of a primitive group. So strongly has the maternal instinct as a binding principle taken root, that among certain peoples even where the manner of reckoning descent and the rights of succession have been changed from the female to the male line, whenever an individual wishes to be adopted into a gens he takes the hand of the leader of the group and sucking one of his fingers, declares himself to be his child by adoption; henceforth the new father is bound to assist him as far as he can.102 Adoption “by the imitation of nature” was practised by the Romans down to the time of Augustus.
It has been observed that under the matriarchal system the mother was the only recognized parent, hence, when the father began to assume the rights and prerogatives which had hitherto belonged only to her, in order to make valid his claim, it was thought proper for him to go through various of the preliminaries attendant on childbirth.
Of all the forms practised among lower races there is none, perhaps, which is more singular than is that of putting the father instead of the mother to bed in the event of the birth of a child. Concerning this custom, Mr. Tylor quotes from Klemm the following:
Among the Arawaks of Surinam, for some time after the birth of his child the father must fell no tree, fire no gun, hunt no large game; he may stay near home, shoot little birds with a bow and arrow, and angle for little fish; but his time hanging heavy on his hands, the most comfortable thing he can do is to lounge in his hammock.103
Mr. Tylor quotes also from the Jesuit missionary, Dobrizhoffer, who gives the following account of the Abipones:
No sooner do you hear that the wife has borne a child, than you will see the Abipone husband lying in bed, huddled up with mats and skins, lest some ruder breath of air should touch him, fasting, kept in private, and for a number of days abstaining religiously from certain viands; you would swear it was he who had had the child.
The custom of putting the father to bed when a child is born is called la couvade, and traces of it are yet to be found in France. It is also practised among the Basques, and according to C. Staniland Wake, was anciently observed in Corsica, among the Iberians of Spain, and in the country south of the Black Sea. It is still practised in Southern India, in Yunnan, in Borneo, in Kamchatka, and in Greenland. It is said also to be in use among the various tribes in South America.104 The persistency of this practice shows the importance formerly attached to the maternal functions, and, as has been suggested, was doubtless inaugurated at a time when descent was being changed from the female to the male line.
It was perhaps in the latter part of the Middle Status of barbarism that descent and the rights of succession began to be traced through males. When, through causes which will be noticed later in this work, property began to accumulate in the hands of men, children became the recognized heirs of their fathers and the foundation for the present form of the family was laid. However, long after descent began to be reckoned through males, absolute paternity was not necessary to fatherhood. During the earlier ages of male supremacy, fatherhood, like brotherhood, was a loose term and signified simply the head of a house, or the “lord” or owner of the mother. It mattered little whether a man had previously lent his wife to a friend, or whether he had shared her favours with several brothers, all the children “born on his bed” belonged to him and were of his family.
Later in these pages will be observed the fact that the change in reckoning descent, which occurred at a comparatively late period in the history of the human race, is directly connected with the means of subsistence. So long as land was held in common by the members of the gens, and so long as women were able to manage the means of support, their independence was secure, and they were able to exercise absolute control over their own persons, their homes, and their offspring. Under these conditions men were obliged to please the women if they would win their favours.
From facts which have been demonstrated by various writers on the subject of the early conditions of the human race, it is more than probable that women were the original tillers of the soil, and that, during the first period of barbarism, while the hunters and warriors were engaged in war and the chase, occupations best suited to their taste, women first discovered the art of producing farinaceous food through cultivation, and through this discovery a hitherto exclusive diet of fish and game was changed for a subsistence in part vegetable.
It is conjectured also that the first domestication of animals was brought about through a probable “freak of fancy.” That individuals among these animals were first caught by hunters, conveyed by them to their homes, and there tamed through the tenderness and sympathy of women, is considered more than likely. There are, however, so far as I know, no actual facts upon which to base such a conclusion.
The increase of subsistence through horticulture and the domestication of animals marks an important era in the history of mankind. By this means the human race was enabled to spread itself over distant areas, and through the improved condition of nutrition alone, by which the physical conditions were improved and the mental energies strengthened, the arts of life were multiplied and the course of human activities directed into higher and more important channels. Indeed, through the numerous benefits derived from the one source of increased and improved subsistence, the entire mode of life was changed or materially modified.
The religious idea, which subsequently comprehended a complicated system of mythology based on phallic worship, at this early age, consisted simply of a recognition of the bounties of earth. The principal office connected with the religious ceremonies of the Iroquois tribe of Indians, at the stage of development in which it was first known to Europeans, seems to have been “Keeper of the Faith,” a position occupied alike by both sexes. The Keepers of the Faith were chosen by the wise members of the group; they were censors of the people, with power to report the evil deeds of persons to the council. “With no official head, and none of the marks of a priesthood, their functions were equal.”105 For the most part, their religious services consisted of festivals held at stated seasons to celebrate the return of the bounties of Nature. A notable fact in connection with this subject is, that during the earlier ages of barbarism the religious idea was thoroughly monotheistic, and idolatry was unknown, religious worship, for the most part, consisting of a ceremony of thanksgiving, with invocations to the Great Mother-Nature to continue to them the blessings of life. As altruism waned and egoism advanced, however, supernaturalism, or a belief in unseen forces, became more and more pronounced, until, in the Latter Status of barbarism, when the supremacy of man had become complete, the gens became merely the “centre of religious influence and the source of religious development.”
The earlier governmental functions were administered through a council of chiefs elected by the gentes. The thoroughly democratic character of the gens may be observed in the fact that any member, female or male, who desired to communicate with the council on matters of public interest, might express her or his opinion either in person or through an orator of her or his own selection.106 Hence, we observe that government originated in the gens, which was a pure democracy.
Regarding the council of the gens, Mr. Morgan remarks:
It was a democratic assembly because every adult male and female member had a voice upon all questions brought before it. It elected and deposed its sachem and chiefs, it elected Keepers of the Faith, it condoned or avenged the murder of a gentilis, and it adopted persons into the gens. It was the germ of the higher council of the tribe, and of that still higher of the confederacy, each of which was composed exclusively of chiefs as representatives of the gentes....
All the members of an Iroquois gens were personally free, and they were bound to defend each other’s freedom; they were equal in privileges and in personal rights, the sachem and chiefs claiming no superiority; and they were a brotherhood bound together by the ties of kin. Liberty, equality, and fraternity, though never formulated, were cardinal principles of the gens. These facts are material because the gens was the unit of a social and governmental system, the foundation upon which Indian society was organized.... At the epoch of European discovery the American Indian tribes generally were organized in gentes with descent in the female line. The gens was the basis of the phratry, of the tribe, and of the confederacy of tribes.107
From the foregoing it would seem that the gens—the earliest organization of society of which we have any accurate knowledge—was founded on the “mother-right” or on the supremacy of women. We are assured that the gentile organization is not confined to the Latin, Grecian, and Sanskrit-speaking tribes, but that it has been found “in other branches of the Aryan family of nations, in the Semitic, Uralian, and Turanian families, among the tribes of Africa and Australia, and of the American aborigines.”108
A tribe was composed of several gentes, the chiefs of which formed the council. This council was invested with the power to declare war and to regulate terms of peace, to receive embassies and make alliances; it was in fact authorized to perform all the governmental functions of the tribe. The duties performed by the council of chiefs may be regarded as the first attempt at representative government. In process of time, as the affairs of the tribe became more complicated, a need arose for a recognized head, one who when the council was not in session could lead in the adjustment of matters pertaining to the general interest of the group. In response to this demand, one of the sachems was invested with a slight degree of authority over the other chiefs. Hence arose the military chieftain of the Latter Status of barbarism. That the powers delegated to the incumbent of this office differed widely from those of a modern monarch, is shown in the fact that as he had been elected by the members of the group he could by them be deposed. We have seen that the powers exercised by sachem and chief were alike transmitted through women. The mother is the natural guardian of the family; so soon therefore as the actions of the leaders of the group were not in accord with those principles of equality and justice which had characterized society since its organization, they were deposed, or, as in the case of the Senecas described by Ashur Wright, they had their “horns knocked off” through the influence of women.
At the head of the family, or gens, producing and controlling the principal means of subsistence, and forming the line of descent and inheritance, women, until the closing ages of the Middle Status of barbarism, were without doubt the leading spirits, and thus far the progress of mankind had been in strict accord with those principles which since the separation of the sexes had governed development.
In process of time, however, the simple form of government which has been described was found inadequate to meet the demands arising from the more complicated requirements of increasing numbers and the general growth of society; therefore, during the opening ages of the Latter Status of barbarism, a form of government was evolved which was better suited to their changed conditions. When the idea of a coalescence of tribes, or of a combination of forces for common defence had taken root, and when under such confederation the council of chiefs had become co-ordinated with a military leader for the general management and defence of the community, it was thought that an important step had been taken in progressive governmental functions. Yet, along with the higher development of the governmental idea is to be observed also a growing tendency toward the usurpation of power. Scarcely was the office of military chieftain created, than we find the people inaugurating measures with which to protect themselves against encroachments upon their liberties, and devising means whereby they might be enabled to check the personal ambition of their leaders.
The extreme egoism developed within the male constitution was already manifesting itself in the excessive greed for gain, and in the inordinate thirst for military glory; hence, as a safeguard against usurpation, in the earliest stages of the Latter Status of barbarism, we find the tribe electing two military chieftains instead of one, two leaders invested with equal powers and responsibilities and subjected to the same restrictions and limitations in the exercise of authority. The Spartan government upon its first appearance in history is characterized by the existence of two war-chieftains, who, by historians of later ages, have been designated as kings; a closer investigation, however, of the functions performed by them shows that they were lacking in nearly all the prerogatives which characterize a modern sovereign.
So jealously had the rights of the people been guarded that the basileus or war-chief of the Latter Status of barbarism, who is said to represent the germ of our present king, emperor, and president, had not succeeded in drawing to himself the powers exercised by a monarch of modern times. The selection of a military leader, during the Latter Status of barbarism, doubtless represents the first differentiation of the civil from the military functions of government, and indicates a virtual acknowledgment of the fact that society had outgrown the primary and more simple form of government administered by the council of chiefs.
The third stage in the development of the idea of government was represented by a council of chiefs, a military commander, and an assembly of the people. In this further growth of the administrative functions may be discovered the same solicitude for individual liberty and the rights of the community which had characterized the former stage of development, and also the fact that still greater precautions were deemed necessary to insure the people against tyranny and the usurpation of their established rights. The council of chiefs, although representing a pure democracy, and co-ordinated with two military chieftains, between whom was an equal division of power and responsibility, was found to be an insufficient safeguard against despotism; hence the measures devised for the management of the confederacy must henceforth be subjected to an Assembly of the People, which, although of itself unable to originate or propound any plan of government, was invested with the power to accept or reject any measures offered for adoption by the council.
The gens was able to carry mankind through to the opening ages of civilization, at which time the council of chiefs was transformed into a senate, and the Assembly of the People assumed the form of the popular assembly, from which have been derived our present Congress and the two houses of the English Parliament.
By a careful study of the growth of government, it is discerned that liberty, fraternity, and equality were the original and natural inheritance of the human family, and that tyranny, injustice, and oppression are excrescences which subsequently fastened themselves upon human institutions through the gradual rise of the egoistic principle developed in human nature. We have seen that until the beginning of the Latter Status of barbarism, the gens constituted a sovereign power in the tribe; women controlled the gens, and sachem and chief were alike invested with the authority necessary for leadership because they could trace their descent to some female ancestor who was the acknowledged head of the people, and whose influence and patronage must have extended over all the individuals included within the recognized bond of kinship.
With the deposing power in the hands of women, and with the precautions which were taken by them against injustice or usurpation of rights, it is plain that unless some unusual or unprecedented circumstances had come into play, they never could have lost that supremacy which, as the natural result of their development, had been maintained by females since the separation of the sexes.