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Updated: May 19, 2025
I have already mentioned how I was recommended to read Social Origins to convince me of my mistake in accepting the mother-age. It has done just the opposite, and has given me the clue to many difficulties that I was before unable to clear up. This is why I am following this book rather than other authorities in my examination of the patriarchal theory.
For one thing, this particular section on the mother-age in The Truth About Woman, and my belief in the favourable influence of mother-descent on the status of women, has been much questioned.
Evidence is not wanting of the great advantage arising to women from their close connection with labour. It was largely their control over the food supply and their position as actual producers which gave them so much influence, and even authority in the mother-age. In this connection I may quote the statement of Miss Werner about the African women as representing the true conditions
II, Essays on the Mother-age Civilisation, etc. Many of the facts given in this chapter are taken from these illuminative essays. K. Pearson, Ibid., p. 102. The Truth about Woman, p. 198. Ibid., pp. 109-110. I cannot leave this subject without emphasising the importance of these erotic-religious festivals, once of universal occurrence.
"But there is another way, and that certainly not less reliable, by which we can arrive at some understanding of the Mother-Age, and how it naturally came about, namely, by a study of our 'contemporary ancestors, of people who linger on the matriarchal level. Such people, as well as others on the still lower nomad stage of civilization, are to be found at this day in Australia.
It does not seem to have been held as possible that the mother-age was a much later development, whose social customs were made for the regulation of the family relationships. A number of very primitive races exhibit no traces, that have yet been discovered, of such a system, and have descent in the male line. This has been thought to be a further proof against a maternal stage.
The strong and certain claim for the acceptance for the mother-age, with its privileged position for women, rests on this foundation. Let us be quite clear as to the real question involved, for it is a crucial one. I refer to the complete disturbance arising through this change in the family organisation in the relationships between the two sexes. A wife was no longer the husband’s property.
Now, I want to say quite frankly, that I feel much of this criticism is just. The inquiry on the mother-age civilisation was only one small section of my book on Woman. I realise that very much was hurried over. There is on this subject of the origin of the family a literature so extensive, and such a variety of opinions, that the work of the student is far from easy.
Those activities, due to female influence, developing and opening up new ways in all directions, until we have that early civilisation, which I have called the mother-age. All the world over, even to this day, this separation in the labour activities of the two sexes can be traced.
The writer, after speaking of the interest to women of the mother-age and the difficulty there was in gaining information on the subject, said that “a small and cheaper book on the matriarchate would be useful to women in all countries.” I was grateful for this suggestion. I at once felt that I wanted to write such a book.
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