We must bear in mind that under archaic usages not only did mothers nurse their infants two, three, and even four years, but that maternity was the bond which held together related groups and the source whence proceeded all property rights and tribal honours; also, that under the system of female kinship, male parentage was known but habitually disregarded. Notwithstanding all this, Mr. Spencer can see no reason for concluding that in the most primitive groups there were no “individual possessions of women by men.”[90]
The late Sir A. Smith, who had travelled widely in South Africa and was acquainted with the habits of savages there and elsewhere, expressed the strongest opinion that “no race exists in which woman is considered as the property of the community.”[91] The reasoning employed by Mr. Spencer to disprove the early supremacy of women seems scarcely to justify his lofty pretensions to intellectual greatness.
[91] Quoted by Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 588.
In a state of society in which women were the recognized heads of families and eponymous groups where children took the mother’s name, and in which all rights of succession were traced through them, it is reasonable to suppose that female influence was in the ascendency over that of the male, and especially so as primitive human beings were largely controlled by instincts inherited from the orders of life in which the female chooses her mate and controls the sex-functions.
A knowledge of the customs and tribal usages of the Iroquois Indians throws much light on the early position of women. When this tribe first came under the observation of Europeans it was in the first stage of barbarism, and as the manner and order of development of the various races of mankind are said to be substantially the same, and as many of the facts connected with the history of this truly interesting people through nearly three ethnical periods are accessible, it is thought that by it, as well as by the Arabians, is afforded an excellent opportunity for the study of the general history of mankind during these periods. To Mr. Morgan we are indebted for the results of a thorough research into the customs, manners, and laws of this people.