SEX AND SOCIETY 217 



or not, there is, at any rate a considerable 

 body of evidence pointing to the " matriar- 

 chate " 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. 



In the mother-age inheritance of property 

 passed through the mother; the woman gave 

 her children her own name; husband and 

 father were in the background often far 

 from individualised ; and, indeed, too shadowy 

 for wholesomeness ; the brother and uncle 

 were much more important; the woman was 

 the depositary of custom, lore, and religious 

 tradition; she was at least the nominal head 

 of the family; and she had a large influence in 

 tribal affairs. 



What can be inferred in regard to primeval 

 days seems to bear out our view that certain 

 differences of capacity between men and 

 women are of remote origin and became 

 organic very early. Man, stronger and more 

 agile, was a hunter and a fighter; a premium 

 was put on device and a certain kind of 

 inventiveness; he came into wider relations 

 than his women-folk. Male types without 

 these qualities would be eliminated; the 

 surviving type would gradually become rela- 

 tively masterful, restless, pugnacious, in- 

 ventive, and co-operative not by individual 

 acquisition, though that would help indirectly, 

 but by the hereditary accumulation of con- 

 stitutional variations in the direction stated. 

 That, at least, is our theory. And to the 



