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"Whether this picture be accurate in detail or not there is at any rate a considerable body of evidence pointing to the 'Matriarchate' as a period during which women began medicine, the domestication of the smaller animals, the cultivation of vegetables, flax and corn, the use of the distaff, the spindle, the broom, the fire-rake and the pitchfork.
Capes was inclined to support Miss Klegg until Miss Garvice cornered him by quoting him against himself, and citing a recent paper in the Nineteenth Century, in which, following Atkinson, he had made a vigorous and damaging attack on Lester Ward's case for the primitive matriarchate and the predominant importance of the female throughout the animal kingdom.
If men had been clever enough to make even an imperfect attempt to protect women without independent means from the terrors of life, say by taxing themselves, they would not be pestered to-day with the demand for equal rights, see themselves menaced in nearly all of the remunerative industries and professions, above all by the return of the Matriarchate.
In proof of this let us now consider marriage and divorce, the laws of inheritance, and other customs of the Khasis. And first we may note that polygamy the distinctive custom of the patriarchs does not exist; as Mr. Gurdon remarks, “such a practice would not be in vogue among a people who observe the matriarchate.” This is the more remarkable as the Khasi women considerably outnumber the men.
There is no evidence to show that polyandry ever existed amongst the Khasis. Unlike the Thibetans, the Khasi women seem to have contented themselves always with one husband, at any rate with one at a time. Certainly at the present day they are monandrists. Polygamy does not exist amongst the Khasis; such a practice would naturally not be in vogue amongst a people who observe the matriarchate.
This female collects all the puja articles and places them ready to the lyngdoh's hand at the time of sacrifice. He merely acts as her deputy when sacrificing. The female soh-blei is without doubt a survival of the time when, under the matriarchate, the priestess was the agent for the performance of all religious ceremonies.
Notwithstanding the strong influence of the matriarchate, we find that U Thawlang, the first father and the husband of Ka Iawbei, is also revered. To him on occasions of domestic trouble a cock is sacrificed, and a jymphong, or sleeveless coat is offered. This puja is called kaba tap Thawlang, i.e. covering the grandfather.
Such customs are certainly survivals from the time of a more primitive matriarchate, when the priestess was the agent for the performance of all religious ceremonies. In one state a priestess still performs the sacrifices on the appointment of a new Siem, or ruler.
Thus, a masculine master has coined that immortal phrase, the Eternal Feminine. And in a matriarchate we should undoubtedly hear of the Eternal Masculine. Each leaves one as unenlightened as the other. A rough and ready code of life attributes certain grossly characteristic qualities of mind and body to each sex. This is supposed to be enough for common sense.
I have been told that I “had quite deliberately gone back to our uncivilised ancestors to ‘fish up’ the precedent of the matriarchate;” that I “had allowed my prejudices to dictate my choice of material, and had thus brought forward examples explanatory of my own opinions;” that I “had fastened eagerly on these, without inquiring too carefully about other facts having a contrary tendency.” I was reminded of what I well knew, that the matriarchate and promiscuity with which it is usually connected were not universally accepted by anthropologists; the tendency to-day being to discredit both as being among the early phases of society.
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