Matrilineality

“ Mother-right, implying kinship as well as succession to name and property exclusively in the maternal line, becomes fully established. The matriarchate, unlike the simple mother-group, is not a universal phase through which all mankind has run. In some cases the agnatic system or father-right may have followed immediately upon the earlier stage of mother-right. Incident to the matriarchate are the polygynous and polyandrous forms of the family. With these the institution of property grew apace; and so we reach the paternal system, whose triumph is powerfully aided by wife-capture. ”

“ Matriarchism.—As we have already said, it is the children who constitute the real phylogenetic and [379] psychological bonds in marriage and the family, bonds which are deeply rooted in human nature. This is so true that among many savage peoples, if not in most, marriage is not considered legal as long as it is sterile. Even among civilized people sterile women are generally regarded as of less value. We may, therefore, regard the article in the Code Napoleon which forbids inquiry into paternity as an unnatural measure, or as a monstrosity of civil law. ”

“ We have found women the organisers of the households, the [164] guardians of the household stores, and the distributors of food, under a social organisation that may be termed “a communal matriarchy.” More important than all else, we have noted the remarkable freedom of women in the sexual relationships; in courtship they are permitted to take the active part; in marriage their position is one of such power that, sometimes, they are able to impose the form of the marriage; in divorce they enjoy equal, and even superior, rights of separation ”

“ Indeed, so far as it goes, it tends otherwards: the status of the child follows that of the mother, it is true, in all archaic eyot systems; but how rarely, when status differs between the parents, is that of the mother the higher! Just at present, too, with Dr. Westermarck's book before us, need we hypothesise about matriarchy as a theory when matriarchy as a fact is on its trial? ”

“ Things grow more complicated when the wife lives amongst her husband's people, and, nevertheless, the system of counting descent favours her side of the family and not his. Does the mere fact that descent is matrilineal tend to imply on the whole that the mother's kin take a more active interest in her, and are more effective in protecting her from hurt, whether undeserved or deserved? It is no easy problem to settle. ”

“ We have the mothers as the centre of the communal home; the sons bringing their wives to live in the circle, while the daughters’ husbands are received as permanent guests. Under such a system the mothers are related to each other, and belong to the same clan, and their children after them; the fathers are not bound together by the same ties and are of different clans. The limits within which marriage can take place are fixed, and we can trace the action of the ancient primal law in the bar that prohibits the husband from being of the same clan as his wife. ”

“ Such entire absence of polygamy is to be explained, in part, by the maternal marriage, a system which in its origin was closely connected with sexual regulation; nor would plurality of wives be possible in a society in which all the members of both sexes enjoyed equal privileges, and were in a position of absolute equality. Marriages usually take place at an early age. Under the maternal form, the husband living with the wife worked for her family, and commonly gained his footing only through his service. ”

“ It might appear as if I supported Bachofen’s supposition that, under a system of maternal descent women possessed supreme rule in the family and in the clan: this is a dream only of visionaries. I declare here that I consider the theory of the so-called matriarchate at once false and injurious: false, because it can lead to nothing; and injurious, because, while it cannot be supported by facts, it overthrows what can be proved [98] by the evidence that is open to all investigators. Nothing will be gained by exaggeration and by claiming over much for women. ”

“ Female chastity.—All the changes in the marriage relations of the sexes were thus made out of altruistic motives, in the interest of the progeny with the sacrifice of personal comfort. Promiscuity, consanguineous marriage, punaluan family, and the pairing family followed each other in the interest of the health of the offspring. The last change to female monogamy was made in the economic interest of the progeny. The husband in sacrificing his own comfort, while providing food and shelter for his children, must be certain that he is the father of these children. ”

“ Children, especially when they are still young, follow the mother when she separates from the father. Matriarchy is quite natural in marriages of short duration, with change of wives, and in polygamy; while, in monogamous nations, it is patriarchy, or denomination after the paternal line, which dominates.
Among nations where the denomination of uncles exists, and where the married woman lives with her family till she has a child, matriarchy results quite naturally from this fact. ”

“ The important place which matrimony occupies in social existence, makes it not surprising that the union of individuals in marriage was frequently the alleged subject of second-sight. As already mentioned, when a woman stood at a man’s left hand, she was expected to be his wife. It was also understood that, when a man was seen at a woman’s left hand, he was to be her 283|1703.| future husband. ‘Several persons,’ says Martin, ‘living in a certain family, told me that they had frequently seen two men standing at a young gentlewoman’s left hand, who was their master’s daughter. ”

“ But this was not the sole reason, or indeed the chief one, of descent being traced through the mother. We have found mother-rule in very active existence [141] among the Pueblo peoples, who are monogamists, and where the paternity of the child must be known. The modern civilised man cannot easily accustom himself to the idea that in the old matriarchal family the dominion of the mother was accepted as the natural, and, therefore, the right order of society. It is very difficult for us to accept a relationship of the sexes that is so exactly opposite to that to which we are accustomed. ”

“ I hold that, other conditions being equal, the one system is favourable to the authority of women, the other to the authority of men. The facts which have been cited are, I submit, amply sufficient to support this view.
We have seen that the life of the maternal clan is dependent on the women—and not upon the men; we have noted that the inheritance of the family name and the family property passing through the women adds considerably to their importance, and that daughters are preferred to sons. ”

“ Some sociologists have pretended that maternal filiation implied for the woman a sort of golden age—a reign of Amazons—during which the woman, as centre of the family, must have been honoured as its chief. All we know of ethnography gives the lie to this hypothesis. In the present day the matriarchate [Pg 106] does not anywhere exist, but maternal kinship does, and we do not find that it involves a milder condition for the woman. This system of filiation necessarily indicates a gross state of society, in which paternity is still uncertain. ”

“ For that very reason I am sent to you to explain the good and the bad of which matrimony is composed.
AMELIA.
Then I beg first to be acquainted with the good.
MR. ANHALT.
When two sympathetic hearts meet in the marriage state, matrimony may be called a happy life. When such a wedded pair find thorns in their path, each will be eager, for the sake of the other, to tear them from the root. Where they have to mount hills, or wind a labyrinth, the most experienced will lead the way, and be a guide to his companion. ”

“ I have now to show how far this rejection of promiscuity affects our position with regard to mother-descent and mother-right. It is clearly of vital importance to any theory that its foundations are secure. One foundation—that of promiscuity, on which Bachofen and McLennan, the two upholders of matriarchy, base their hypothesis—has been overthrown. It thus becomes necessary to approach the question from an altogether different position. Mother-right must be explained without any reference to unregulated sexual conduct. ”

“ The fact is obvious that among the orders of life below man but little paternal affection has been developed, and with a more extended knowledge of the past history of the human race comes the assurance that under earlier conditions of society, and in fact, until a comparatively recent time, little notice was taken of the paternal relation—that kinship and all the rights of succession were reckoned through the mother. In other words, motherhood was the primary bond by which society was bound together. ”

“ Denomination by the maternal line corresponds to the system of matriarchism (Chapters VI and XIX) , which is often met with among savage races, and which is more just and leads to less abuse than patriarchism. Moreover, when women shall have obtained their proper rights, there will be an end of the exclusive authority of one of the conjoints in marriage.
Equality in the rights of the two sexes will naturally lead to denomination in the maternal line, for reasons of simplicity, the mother being more closely related to the child than the father. ”

“ The Naïrs are in no respect a people of [173] primitive culture. Through a long period they have most strictly preserved the custom of matriarchal heredity, which has led to an unusual concentration of the family group, and it is probable that here is the best explanation of the conjugal liberty of the Naïr girls. However singular their system may appear to us, it is the most logical and complete of any polyandric system. If we compare it with the more usual form of patriarchal polyandry we see at once the influence of maternal descent. Here, the woman makes a free choice of her husbands ”

“ In reality matriarchal polyandry always coincides with the primitive family form, the matriarchate—that is to say, with a system that takes no account of paternal filiation, and leaves the children to the tribe of the mother. ”

“ The rule of the Matriarchate prevails, “inheritance is from mother to daughter and from the uncle to the children of the eldest sister; the household is directed by the mother or the eldest girl; polyandry and polygamy exist side by side or are inextricably mixed. Thus each woman is the wife of several men, each of whom has in turn several wives.” ”

“ To transport this ancient conception of matrimony into modern society would doubtless not be possible, because it contradicts the great democratic principle of the equality of all before the law, on which our social organisation rests. But considered by itself this ancient conception of matrimony is without a doubt more lofty and more noble, and in particular more favourable to the woman, than the modern one. ”

“ Yet in this connection it is very necessary to remember that the reassertion of the patriarchate was as necessary a stage in human development as the maternal stage. Whatever may have been the advantages arising to women from the clan organisation (and that the advantages were great I claim to have proved) such conditions could not remain fixed for ever. For society is not stable; it cannot be, as the need for adjustment is always arising, and at certain stages of development different tendencies are active. ”

“ Can we accept mother-right? Are there any reasonable causes to explain the rise of female dominance? Westermarck, in criticising the matriarchal theory, has said: “The inference that ‘kinship through females only’ has everywhere preceded the rise of ‘kinship through males,’ would be warranted only on condition that the cause, or the causes, to which the maternal system is owing, could be proved to have operated universally in the past life of mankind.” ”

“ All ethnologists admit that descent through females has been very widespread, but some deny that this system has been universally prevalent at any stage of culture. Those who have diminished its importance, however, have done so chiefly in reinforcement of their denials of the [pg 66] theory of promiscuity. It has been very generally assumed that maternal descent is due solely to uncertainty of paternity, and that an admission that the maternal system has been universal is practically an admission of promiscuity. ”

“ Thus Dargun declares that there is a tendency for the uterine system of kinship to give place to the paternal, but never the reverse. [150] Kohler takes the same position. [151] Lippert regards the history of social culture as beginning with the natural relation of mother and [55] child, producing in course of evolution, long before "marriage" arose, the "primitive family" whose principle is mother-right, and which, in turn, under various influences, generally yields to the "old family" (Altfamilie) in its origin based, not on relationship, but on patriarchal power and possession. ”

“ The reasons for mother-descent have been altogether misunderstood by those who regard it as the earliest phase of the family, and connect the custom with sexual disorder and uncertainty of paternity. In all cases the clan system shows a marked organisation, with a much stronger cohesion than is possible in the restricted family, which is held together by the force of the father. ”

“ And with this affection will grow, according to the immutable law, that the more man gives, the more he loves.
If matriarchy, in a new form, refined by the whole of development, should become the final phase—as in the opinion of many it has been the starting-point—of the family, then this would involve that paternal authority became conditional, depending on the value and warmth of the paternal feeling. At present many fathers are merely an accident in their children’s life, an accident which never even looks “like an idea.” ”