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In the dimmest, oldest religions, nearest the matriarchate, we find great goddesses types of Motherhood, Mother-love, Mother-care and Service. But under masculine dominance, Isis and Ashteroth dwindle away to an alluring Aphrodite not Womanhood for the child and the World but the incarnation of female attractiveness for man.
I gave a brief history of the marriage institution in all times and countries, of the matriarchate, when the mother was the head of the family and owned the property and children; of the patriarchate, when man reigned supreme and woman was enslaved; of polyandry, polygamy, monogamy, and prostitution.
Susan herself often wished her good friend would stick more closely to woman suffrage instead of introducing extraneous subjects, such as "Educated Suffrage," "The Matriarchate," or "Women and the Church," but nevertheless she proudly read her papers to successive conventions. Insisting that the conventions were too academic, Mrs.
In the household, that stunted, crippled rudiment of the matriarchate, where alone we can find what is left of the natural influence of woman, the laws and government, so far as she is responsible for them, are fairly simple, and bear visible relation to the common good, which relation is clearly and persistently taught.
Her closest male relation was not her husband, but her brother and her son; she was the conduit by which property passed to and from them. Often women established their own claims and all property was held by them; which under favourable circumstances developed into what may literally be called a matriarchate.
The most remarkable feature of the Khasi marriage is that it is usual for the husband to live with his wife in his mother-in-law's house, and not for him to take his bride home, as is the case in other communities. This arrangement amongst the Khasis is no doubt due to the prevalence of the matriarchate.
This has been reconstructed from fossils in the folk lore of agriculture and housewifery, in old customs, ceremonies, festivals, games; in myths and fairy tales and age-worn words. "Professor Karl Pierson finds in the study of witchcraft some of the fossils that point back to the Matriarchate.
The Khasis have a vague belief in a God the Creator, U Blei Nong-thaw, although this deity, owing, no doubt, to the influences of the matriarchate, is frequently given the attribute of the feminine gender, cf., Ka lei Synshar. The Khasis cannot, however, be said to worship the Supreme God, although it is true that they sometimes invoke him when sacrificing and in times of trouble.
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 by the evidence that is open to all investigators. Nothing will be gained by exaggeration and by claiming over much for women.
It is to be remembered that woman has, in her subconscious brain-cells, ancestral memories of the Matriarchate. It is interesting to quote in this connection what Patrick Geddes and G. Arthur Thompson have to say on the mooted question of the Mother-Age: "Prehistoric history is hazardous, but there is a good case to be made out for a Mother-Age.
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