The Truth About Woman Part 9

Even tribes that have adopted paternal descent preserve numerous customs of the earlier system. The husband still remains in the wife's home for a probationary period, working for her family.[147] Women retain rights which are inconsistent with father-rule. The choice of her lover often remains with the girl. If a girl fancies a young man, all she has to do is to give him a kick on the leg at the tribal dance of the _Karama_, and then the parents think it well to hasten on a wedding. Among Ghasiyas in United Provinces a wife is permitted to leave her husband if he intrigues with another woman, or if he become insane, impotent, blind or leprous, while these bodily evils do not allow him to put her away.[148] We find relics of the early freedom enjoyed by women in the licence frequently permitted to girls before marriage. Even after marriage adultery within the tribal rules is not regarded as a serious offence. Divorce is often easy, at the wish of either the woman or the man.[149] This is the case among the Santal tribes, which are found in Western Bengal, Northern Orissa, Bhagulpur and the Santal Parganas.[150] It seems probable that fraternal polyandry must formerly have been practised.

Polyandry must have been common at one time in southern India. It will be sufficient to give a few examples. The interesting Todas tribe of the Nil'giri Hills practise fraternal polyandry. The husbands of the women are usually real brothers, but sometimes they are clan brothers.

The children belong to the eldest brother, who performs the ceremony of giving the mother a miniature bow and arrow; all offspring, even if born after his death, are counted as his until one of the other brothers performs this ceremony. It is also allowed sometimes for the wife to be mistress to another man besides her husbands, and any children born of such unions are counted as the children of the regular marriage. There is little restriction in love of any kind. In the Toda language there is no word for adultery. It would even seem that "immorality attaches rather to him who grudges his wife to another man."[151]

Similarly among a fine tribe of Hindu mountaineers at the source of the Djemmah fraternal polyandry has been proved to have existed. A woman of this tribe, when asked how many husbands she had, answered, "Only four!" "And all living?" "Why not?" This tribe had a high standard of social conduct; they held lying in horror, and to deviate from the truth even quite innocently was almost a sacrilege.[152]

To-day the Kammalaus (artisans) of Malabar practise fraternal polyandry. The wives are said to greatly appreciate the custom; the more husbands they have the greater will be their happiness.[153]

At another extremity of India, in Ceylon, the polyandric rule is still common,[154] but it is particularly in lamaic Thibet that fraternal polyandry is in full vigour, for in this country religion sanctions the custom, and it is practised by the ruling cla.s.ses.[155] Its customs are too well known to need description. "The tyranny of man is hardly known among the happy women of Thibet; the boot is perhaps upon the other leg," writes Hartland.[156]

Polyandry is a survival of the group-marriage of the mother-age.[157]

It is not really dependent on, though in many cases it occurs in connection with, the economic causes of poverty and a scarcity of women, due to the practice of female infanticide. This form of s.e.xual a.s.sociation has evident advantages for women when compared with polygamy. That freedom in love carried with it domestic and social rights and privileges to women I have no longer to prove.[158]

The case of the Nayars of Malabar, where polyandry exists with the early system of maternal filiation, is specially instructive. It is impossible to give the details of their curious customs. The young girls are married when children by a rite known as tying the _tali_; but this marriage serves only the purpose of initiation, and is often performed by a stranger. On the fourth day the fict.i.tious husband is required to divorce the girl. Afterwards any number of marriages may be entered upon[159] without any other restrictions than the prohibitions relative to cast and tribe. These later unions, unlike the solemn initial rite, have no ceremony connected with them, and are entered into freely at the will of the women and their families. As a husband the man of the Nayars cannot be said to exist; he does not as a rule live with his wife.[160] It is said that he has not the right to sit down by her side or that of her children, he is merely a pa.s.sing guest, almost a stranger. He is, in fact, reduced to the primitive role of the male, and is simply progenitor. "No Nayar knows his father, and every man looks upon his sister's children as his heirs. A man's mother manages his family; and after her death his eldest sister a.s.sumes the direction." The property belongs to the family and is enjoyed by all in common (though personal division is coming into practice under modern influences). It is directed and administered by the maternal uncle or the eldest brother.[161]

The Malays of the Pedang Highlands of Sumatra have inst.i.tutions bearing many points of similarity with the Nayars. On marriage neither husband nor wife changes abode, the husband merely visits the wife, coming at first by day to help her work in the rice-fields. Later the visits are paid by night to the wife's house. The husband has no rights over his children, who belong wholly to the wife's _suku_, or clan. Her eldest brother is the head of the family and exercises the rights and duties of a father to her children.[162] The marriage, based on the _ambel-anak_, in which the husband lives with the wife, paying nothing, and occupying a subordinate position, may be taken as typical of the former conditions.[163]

But among other tribes who have come in contact with outside influences this custom of the husband visiting the wife, or residing in her house, is modified.

From a private correspondent, a resident in the Malay States, I have received some interesting notes about the present condition of the native tribes and the position of the women. In most of the Malay States exogamous matriarchy has in comparatively modern times been superseded by feudalism (_i.e._ father-right). But where the old custom survives the women are still to a large extent in control. The husband goes to live in the wife's village; thus the women in each group are a compact unity, while the men are strangers to each other and enter as unorganised individuals. This is the real basis of the woman's power. In other tribes where the old custom has changed women occupy a distinctly inferior position, and under the influence of Islam the idea of secluding adult women has been for centuries spreading and increasing in force.

Male kinship prevails among the Arabs, but the late Professor Robertson Smith discovered abundant evidence that mother-right was practised in ancient Arabia.[164] We find a decisive example of its favourable influence on the position of women in the custom of _beena_[165] marriage. Under such a system the wife was not only freed from any subjection involved by the payment of a bride-price (which always places her more or less under the authority of her husband), but she was the owner of the tent and household property, and thus enjoyed the liberty which ownership always entails. This explains how she was able to free herself at pleasure from her husband, who was really nothing but a temporary lover.[166] Ibn Batua in the fourteenth century found that the women of Zebid were perfectly ready to marry strangers. The husband might depart when he pleased, but his wife in that case could never be induced to follow him. She bade him a friendly adieu and took upon herself the whole charge of any child of the marriage. The women in the Jahiliya[167] had the right to dismiss their husbands, and the form of dismissal was this: "If they lived in a tent they turned it round, so that if the door faced east it now faced west, and when the man saw this he knew that he was dismissed and did not enter." The tent belonged to the woman; the husband was received there and at her good pleasure.[168]

A further striking example of mother-right is furnished by the Mariana Islands, where the position of women was distinctly superior.

"Even when the man had contributed an equal share of property on marriage, the wife dictated everything and the man could undertake nothing without her approval; but if the woman committed an offence, the man was held responsible and suffered the punishment. The women could speak in the a.s.sembly, they held property, and if a woman asked anything of a man, he gave it up without a murmur. If a wife was unfaithful, the husband could send her home, keep her property and kill the adulterer; but if the man was guilty, or even suspected of the same offence, the women of the neighbourhood destroyed his house and all his visible property, and the owner was fortunate if he escaped with a whole skin; and if the wife was not pleased with her husband, she withdrew and a similar attack followed. On this account many men were not married, preferring to live with paid women."[169]

A similar case of the rebellion of men against their position is recorded in Guinea, where religious symbolism was used by the husband as a way of escape. The maternal system held with respect to the chief wife.

"It was customary, however, for a man to buy and take to wife a slave, a friendless person with whom he could deal at pleasure, who had no kindred that could interfere for her, and to consecrate her to his Bossum or G.o.d. The Bossum wife, slave as she had been, ranked next to the chief wife, and was exceptionally treated. She alone was very jealously guarded, she alone was sacrificed at her husband's death. She was, in fact, wife in a peculiar sense. And having, by consecration, been made of the kindred and worship of her husband, her children could be born of his kindred and worship."[170]

This practice of having a slave-wife who was the property of the husband became more and more common; and was one of the causes that led to the establishment of father-right. How this came we have now to see.

IV.--_The Transition to Father-right_

In the preceding sections of this chapter I have collected together, with as much exact.i.tude as I could, many examples of the maternal family. I want now to refer briefly to a few further cases, which will make clearer the causes which led to the adoption of father-right.

Many countries where the patriarchal system is firmly established retain practices which can only be explained as survivals of the earlier custom of mother-descent.[171] It must suffice to mention one or two examples. In Burma, which offers in this respect a curious contrast to India, the women have preserved under father-right most of the privileges of mother-right. This is the more remarkable as the law of marriage and the relationship of the s.e.xes is founded on the code of Manu, which proclaims aloud the inferiority of woman. It is interesting, however, to note that the code recognises only three kinds of men: the good man, the indifferent man, and the bad man.

Women, though recognised solely in their relation as wives, are placed in seven cla.s.ses: the mother-wife, the sister-wife, the daughter-wife, the friend-wife, the master-wife, the servant-wife, and the slave-wife. Manu holds that the last of these, the slave-wife, is the best wife. It is, however, certain that the interpretation of the code in Burma was entirely opposed to any subjection of the wife. That mother-right must have been once practised and was very firmly established is proved by the occurrence of brother-sister marriages.

The queens of the last rulers of the country, Minden-Min and Thebaw, were either their own or their half-sisters, and the power of government seems to have been almost wholly in the hands of these queens. The patriarchal custom, so far as the position of women was concerned, is but a thread, binding them in their marriage, but leaving them entirely free in other respects. The Burmese wife is much more the master than the slave of her husband, though she is clever enough as a rule not to let him feel any inconvenience from her power, which, therefore, he accepts. The exceptional position of the women is clearly indicated by the fact that they enter freely into trade, and, indeed, carry out most of the business of the country. Nearly all the shops are kept by women. In the markets, where everything that any one could possibly want is sold, almost all the dealers are women. All cla.s.ses of the Burmese girls receive their training in these markets; the daughters of the rich sell the costly and beautiful stuffs, the poorer girls sell the cheaper wares. It is this training which accounts for the business capacity shown by the women. The boys are trained by the priests, as every boy is required, "in order to purify his soul, to acquire a knowledge of sacred things." This explains a great deal. It would seem that religion enforces the same penalties on men that in most countries fall upon women. The Burmese women are very attractive, as is testified by all who know them. The streets of the towns are thronged with women at all hours of the day, and they show the greatest delight in everything that is lively and gay.

Given such complete freedom of women, it is self-evident that the s.e.xual relationships will also be free. Very striking are the conditions of divorce. The marriage contract can be dissolved freely at the wish of both, or even of one, of the partners. In the first case the family property is divided equally between the wife and the husband, while if only one partner desires to be freed the property goes to the partner who is left. The children of the marriage remain with the mother while they are young; but the boys belong to the father. I wish it were possible for me to give a fuller account of the Burmese family. The freedom and active work of the women offer many points of special interest. One thing further must be noted. The Burmese women would seem not to be wholly satisfied with their power, disliking the work and responsibility which their freedom entails. For this reason many of them prefer to marry a Chinese husband; he works for them, while with a husband of their own country they have to work for him. This is very instructive. It points to what I believe to be the truth. The loss of her freedom by woman is often the result of her own desire for protection and her dislike of work, and is not caused by man's tyranny. Woman's own action in this matter is not sufficiently recognised. I must not enter upon this here, as I shall return to the subject later in this chapter. We must now consider the traces left by mother-descent in j.a.pan and China.

In j.a.pan, as among the Basques, filiation is subordinated to the transmission of property. It is to the first-born, whether a boy or a girl, that the inheritance is transmitted, and he or she is forbidden to abandon it. At the time of marriage the husband or wife must take the name of the heir or heiress who marries and personifies the property. Filiation is thus sometimes paternal and sometimes maternal.

The maternal uncle still bears the name of "second little father."[172] The children of the same father, but not of the same mother, were formerly allowed to marry, a decisive proof of mother-descent. The wife remained with her own relatives, and the husband had the right of visiting her by night. The word commonly used for marriage signified _to slip by night into the house_. It was not until the fourteenth century that the husband's residence was the home of the wife, and marriage became a continued living together by the married pair. Even now when a man marries an only daughter he frequently lives with her family, and the children take her name.

There is also a custom by which a man with daughters, but no son, adopts a stranger, giving him one of his daughters in marriage; the children are counted as the heirs of the maternal grandfather.[173]

Similar survivals are frequent in China. The patriarchate is rigidly established, but there is evidence to show that the family in this ancient civilisation has pa.s.sed through the usual stages of development, having for its starting-point the familial clan, and pa.s.sing from this through the stage of mother-right.[174] The Chinese language itself attests the ancient existence of the earliest form of marriage, contracted by a group of brothers having their wives in common, but not marrying their sisters. Thus a Chinaman calls the sons of his brothers "his sons," but he considers those of his sisters as his nephews.[175] Certain of the aboriginal tribes still require the husband to live with his wife's family for a period of seven or ten years before he is allowed to take her to his home. The eldest child is given to the husband, the second belongs to the family of the wife.[176] The authority which the Chinese mother exercises over her son's marriage and over his wife can only be explained by mother-right customs. There are many other examples which I must pa.s.s over.

In the Island of Madagascar, with whose interesting civilisation, as it existed before the unfortunate conquest of the country by the French, I am personally acquainted, mother-right has left much more than traces.[177] Great freedom in s.e.xual relations was permitted to the men, and in certain cases to women also. There was no word in the native language for virgin; the word _mpitvo_, commonly used, means only an unmarried woman. On certain festive ceremonies the licence was very great. The hindrances to marriage were much more stringent with the mother's relations than with the father's. Divorce was frequent and easy; the power to exercise it rested with the husband; but the wife could, and often did, run away, and thus compel a divorce. A Malagasy proverb compared marriage to a knot so lightly tied that it could be undone by a touch. Such freedom was due to the great desire for children; every child was welcome in the family, whatever its origin.[178] The children belonged to the husband, and so complete was this possession, that in the case of a divorce not only the children previously born, but any the wife might afterwards bear, were counted as his.

Among the ruling cla.s.ses mother-right remained in its early force. The royal family and n.o.bility traced their descent, contrary to the general practice, through the mother, and not through the father. The rights of an unmarried queen were great. She was permitted to have a family by whomsoever she wished, and her children were recognised as legitimately royal through her. Among the Hovas not only wealth, but political dignities, and even sacerdotal functions, were transmitted to the nephew, in preference to the son.

In the adjacent continent of Africa we find similar privileges enjoyed by royal women. A delightful example is given by Frazer[179] in Central Africa, where a small state, near to the Chambezi river, is governed by a queen, who belongs to the reigning family of Ubemba. She bears the t.i.tle _Mamfumer_, "Mother of Kings." The privileges attached to this dignity are numerous; the husbands may be chosen at will and from among the common people.

"The chosen man becomes prince consort, without sharing in the government of affairs. He is bound to leave everything to follow his royal and often little accommodating spouse. To show that in these households the rights are inverted and that a man may be changed into a woman, the queen takes the t.i.tle of _Monsieur_ and the husband that of _Madame_." A visitor to this state,[180]

who had an interview with the queen, reports that, "she was a woman of gigantic stature, wearing many amulets."

Battle reported that "Loango was ruled by four princes, the sons of a former king's sister, since the sons of a king never succeed.[181]

Frazer gives an account of the tyrannical authority of the princesses in this state.[182]

"The princesses are free to choose and divorce their husbands at pleasure, and to cohabit at the same time with other men. The husbands are nearly always plebeians. The lot of a prince consort is not a happy one, for he is rather the slave and prisoner than the mate of his imperious princess. In marrying her he engages never more to look at a woman; when he goes out he is preceded by guards whose duty it is to drive all females from the road where he is to pa.s.s. If, in spite of these precautions, he should by ill-luck cast his eyes on a woman, the princess may have his head chopped off, and commonly exercised, or used to exercise, the right. This sort of libertinism, sustained by power, often carries the princesses to the greatest excesses, and nothing is so much dreaded as their anger."

In Africa descent through women is the rule,[183] though there are exceptions, and these are increasing. The amusing account given by Miss Kingsley[184] of Joseph, a member of the Batu tribe in French Congo, strikingly ill.u.s.trates the prevalence of the custom. When asked by a French official to furnish his own name and the name of his father, Joseph was wholly nonplussed. "My fader?" he said. "Who my fader?" Then he gave the name of his mother.

The case is the same among the Negroes. The Fanti of the Gold Coast may be taken as an example. Among them an intensity of affection (accounted for partly by the fact that the mothers have exclusive care of the children) is felt for the mother, while the father is hardly known, or disregarded, notwithstanding that he may be a wealthy and powerful man and the legal husband of the mother.[185] The practice of the Wamoima, where the son of a sister is preferred in legacies, "because a man's own son is only the son of his wife," is typical.[186] The Bush husband does not live with his wife, and often has wives in different places. The maternal uncle supplies his place in the family.

Wherever mother-right has progressed towards father-right, as is the condition, broadly speaking, in the African continent, the supreme authority is vested in the maternal uncle. The tribal duty of blood-revenge falls to him, even against the father. Thus, in some cases, if a woman is murdered, the duty of revenge is undertaken by her kinsman.[187] In the state of Loango among the common people the uncle is addressed as _tate_ (father). He has even the power to sell his sister's children.[188] The child is so entirely the property of the kin that he may be given in pledge for their debts. Among the Bavili the mother has the right to p.a.w.n the child, but she must first consult the father, so that he may have a chance of giving her goods to save the pledging.[189] This is very plainly a step towards father-right. There is no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children. Similar conditions prevail among the Alladians of the Ivory Coast, but here the mother cannot pledge her children without the consent of her brother or other male head of the family.

The father has the right to ransom the child.[190] An even stronger example of the property value of children is furnished by the custom found among many tribes, by which the father has to make a present to the wife's kin when a child dies: this is called "buying the child."[191]

These cases, with the inferences they suggest, show that though mother-descent may be strongly established in Africa, this does not confer (except to the royal princesses) any special distinction upon women. This is explained if we recognise that a transitional period has been reached, when, under the pressure of social, and particularly of military activities, the government of the tribe has pa.s.sed to the male kindred of the women. It wants but a step further for the establishment of father-right.

There are many cases pointing to this new father-force a.s.serting itself and pushing aside the earlier order. Again I can give one or two examples only. Among Wayao and Mang'anja of the Shire highlands, south of Lake Nya.s.sa, a man on marrying leaves his own village and goes to live in that of his wife; but, as an alternative, he is allowed to pay a bride-price, in which case he takes his wife away to his home.[192] Whenever we find the payment of a bride-price, there is sure indication of the decay of mother-right: woman has become property. Among the Ba.s.sa Komo of Nigeria marriage is usually effected by an exchange of sisters or other female relatives. The women are supposed to be faithful to their husbands. If, however, as frequently happens, there is a preliminary courtship period, during which the marriage is considered as provisional, considerable licence is granted to the woman. Chast.i.ty is only regarded as a virtue when the woman has become the property of the husband. The men may marry as many wives as they have sisters or female relatives to give in exchange. In this tribe the women look after the children, but the boys, when four years old, go to work and live with their fathers.[193] The husbands of the Bambala tribe (inhabiting the Congo states between the rivers Inzia and Kwilu) have to abstain from visiting their wives for a year after the birth of each child, but they are allowed to return to her on the payment to her father of two goats.[194] Among the Basanga on the south-west of Lake Moeru the children of the wife belong to the mother's kin, but the children of slaves are the property of the father.[195]

It is rendered clear by such cases as these, that the rise of father-right was dependent on property and had nothing to do with blood relationship. The payment of a bride-price, the giving of a sister in exchange, as also marriage with a slave, gained for the husband the control over his wife and ownership of her children. I could bring forward much more evidence in proof of this fact did the limits of my s.p.a.ce allow me to do this; such cases are common in all parts of the world where the transitional stage from mother-right to father-right has been reached. But I believe that the causes by which the father gained his position as the dominant partner in marriage must be clear to every one from the examples I have given. I will, therefore, quote only one final and most instructive case. It ill.u.s.trates in a curious way the conflict between the old rights of the woman and the rising power of the male force in connection with marriage. It occurs among the Ha.s.sanyeh Arabs of the White Nile, where the wife pa.s.ses by contract for only a portion of her time under the authority of her husband.

"When the parents of the man and the woman meet to settle the price of the woman, the price depends on how many days in the week the marriage tie is to be strictly observed. The woman's mother first of all proposes that, taking everything into consideration, with due regard to the feelings of the family, she could not think of binding her daughter to a due observance of that chast.i.ty which matrimony is expected to command for more than two days in the week. After a great deal of apparently angry discussion, and the promise on the part of the relations of the man to pay more, it is arranged that the marriage shall hold good as is customary among the first families of the tribe, for four days in the week, viz. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and in compliance with old established custom, the marriage rites during the three remaining days shall not be insisted on, during which days the bride shall be perfectly free to act as she may think proper, either by adhering to her husband and home, or by enjoying her freedom and independence from all observance of matrimonial obligation."[196]

We have at length concluded our investigation of this first period of organised society, and have ascertained many facts that we can use as a touchstone to try the truth of the various theories that are put forward with regard to woman and her position in the family and in the State. The importance of the mother-age to women is evident. Thus I offer no apology for the length at which I have treated the subject.

It has seemed to me after careful revision that no one of the examples given can be omitted. Facts are of so much more importance than opinions if we are to come to the truth.

Without attempting to trace exhaustively the history or even to enumerate the peoples living, or who have lived, under mother-right customs, we have examined many and varied cases of the actual working of this system, with special reference to the position held by women.

The examples have been chosen from all parts of the world, so as to prove (what is sometimes denied) that mother-right has not been confined to any one race, that it is not a local custom under special conditions, but that it has been a necessary stage of growth of human societies. My aim has been to ill.u.s.trate the stages through which society pa.s.sed from mother-right to father-right. It has not been possible to arrange the evidence in any exact progressive sequence, but I hope the cases given will make clear what I believe to have been the general trend of growth: at first the power in the hands of the women, but this giving way to the slow but steady usurping of the mother's authority by the ever-a.s.sertive male.

I shall now conclude this study of the mother-age by attempting to formulate the general truths, which, it seems to me, may be drawn from the examples we have examined.

I. The first effort of primitive society was to establish some form of order, and in that order the women of the group were the more stable and predominant partners in the family relationship.

II. Impelled by the conditions of motherhood to a more settled life than the men of the tribe, women were the first agriculturists, weavers, dyers and dressers of skins, potters, the domesticators of animals, the first architects, and sometimes the primitive doctors--in a word, the inventors and organisers of the peaceful art of life.[197]

Primitive women were strong in body[198] and capable in work. The power they enjoyed as well as their manifold activities were a result of their position as mothers, this function being to them a source of strength and not a plea of weakness.

III. Moral ideas, as we understand them, hardly existed. The oldest form of marriage was what is known as "group marriage," which was the union of two tribal groups or clans, the men of one _totem_ group marrying the women of another, and _vice versa_, but no man or woman having one particular wife or husband.

IV. The individual relationship between the s.e.xes began with the reception of temporary lovers by the woman in her own home. But as society progressed, a relationship thus formed would tend under favourable circ.u.mstances to be continued, and, in some cases, perpetuated. The lover thus became the husband, but he was still without property right, with no--or very little--control over the woman, and none over her children, occupying, indeed, the position of a more or less permanent guest in her hut or tent.

V. The social organisation which followed this custom was in most cases--and always, I believe, in their primitive form--favourable to women. Kinship was recognised through the mother, and the continuity of the family thus depending solely on the woman, it followed she was the holder of all property. Her position and that of her children was, by this means, a.s.sured, and in the case of a separation it was the man who departed, leaving her in possession. The woman was the head of the household, and in some instances held the position of tribal chief.

VI. This early power of women, arising from the recognition alone of womb-kinship, with the resulting freedom in s.e.xual relationships permitted to women, could not continue. It was no more possible for society to be built up on mother-right alone than it is possible for it to remain permanently based on father-right.