a system of gynecocracy was of general prevalence, as well as the reason for the gradual establishment of monogamy, must have been principally of an economic nature. The sentimental reason sprang up afterwards and added force to the economic reason, particularly in maintaining the new institution. We shall learn more about this, as we proceed.

The errors into which Mr. Morgan has probably fallen, need not concern us any further. They are not sufficient to overthrow his general theories, and it is not the object of this book to solve ethnological problems. It is sufficient for our purposes to know that, even in the earliest stages of civilization, there was neither chaos nor anarchy in the social or sexual relations of man, but that, on the contrary, they were, at all times, regulated by system, order and law. Nor do Mr. Morgan's errors detract from his merits as a pathfinder. As yet it has never happened that a scientific truth was perfectly and completely evolved by its first discoverer. What I intended to demonstrate, what is of importance for us to know, and what I wish further to show, is:

First, that human society is a living organism.

Second, that its beginning dates back perhaps, hundreds of thousands of years, into the dim ages of lowest savagery.

Third, that the different institutions of human society are interdependent on each other, have either grown together, or stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect, and that none of them can be fully understood without knowing them all.

Fourth, that human institutions cannot in their nature be permanent, that they were from their begin

ning, and still are, subject to a continous process of evolution, changing their forms and modes of procedure, and even going and coming, according to the necessities of the human race.

Fifth, that, because the prime necessity of animated beings is and ever must have been, the means to support physical life, and because the first mental efforts of man must have been directed toward gaining the necessaries of life from physical nature, and considering the term necessaries of life as changing its import with growing civilization, the efforts of gaining the means of subsistence became the power, controlling the human intellect.

Gradually and slowly the human intellect gained a knowledge of nature and its forces, which, of course, had an earlier existence than he. Man, never living singly, and by nature endowed with social instincts, learned the advantages of organization. He used both toward the betterment of his condition. This grew better, as the procurement of the necessaries of life became easier. He shaped his organizations and his rules of conduct with a view toward his economic welfare, and the manner of producing and acquiring the necessaries of life, using the word in its broadest significance, became the causa causans, the fountain cause, of all human action and all human institutions.

II.

THE STATUS OF WOMAN.

The orthodox Hebrews have an ancient prayer in which men thank God for not having created them women, and the women thank him for having them created according to his pleasure. This prayer is significant of the status of woman since the beginning of civilization, up to a comparatively short time ago. There was, perhaps, no time in the history of the human race, in which the condition of women was more inferior, more degraded than in the beginning of the Christian era. According to the doctrines of the fathers of the Church, the woman was an unclean creature, the temptress who brought sin into this world, from whom it was considered good and holy to keep away. Did they not find proof of it in the holy scriptures? Was not man. first tempted by woman? Did not God himself command that man shall be the lord of woman? If there are any books in existence, the authors of which held women more in contempt than the authors of the biblical scriptures and the writings of the fathers of the Church, I do not know of them. I may say without fear of contradiction, that most of what is said about women in these ancient books is revolting to our sense of justice, decency and morality. I shall not indulge much in quoting, because it is all too indelicate, and leave it to the reader to inform himself. If nature and social conditions had not been stronger forces than the zelotism of

the fathers of the Church, such a thing as the family would not exist to-day among Christian nations. "Marriage," said Hieronymus, "is always vicious, wherefore nothing can be done but to excuse it and to sanctify it." According to the views of those men, nothing could please God more than celibacy and sexual abstinence, which according to our modern view would be a gross insult to nature. I am sure that I make no mistake, if I state that at no time and nowhere, even among savages and barbarians, the position of women was, compared with that of men, more inferior than in the Roman empire about twenty centuries ago. Rights they had none and the woman was under tutelage all her life. She was born as the property of her father, and became by marriage the property of her husband. The Roman law, however, became the model law for all continental Europe. The common law of England which, generally, followed its own course, independent of the Roman law, was, nevertheless, not much more favorable to

women.

According to the common law, husband and wife become by marriage one person in law. "That is," says Blackstone in his commentaries, "the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs everything." In other words, husband and wife became one person, but that one person was the husband. "But though," says Blackstone further, "our law in general considers man and wife as one person, yet, there are some instances in which she is separately considered, as inferior to him, and acting by his compulsion. And therefore all deeds executed,

and acts done by her, during her coverture, are void." That is to say that, in the state of marriage, the woman had almost no existence at all, so far as rights were concerned. Yet, for other purposes, she had a well defined existence. For, as we further read in Blackstone, the husband, by the old law, might give his wife moderate correction. "As he is to answer for her misbehavior, the law thought it reasonable to intrust him with this power of restraining her by domestic chastisement, in the same moderation that a man is allowed to correct his apprentices or children, for whom the master or parent is also liable in some cases to answer." The ground upon which this right of correction rested, is certainly interesting, for the responsibility of the husband for the misbehavior of the wife is no other but a pecuniary one. After stating that under the civil law the husband had the right to whip his wife, Blackstone continues: "But with us, in the politer reign of Charles the Second, this power of correction began to be doubted; and a wife may now have security of the peace against her husband; or, in return, a husband against his wife. Yet, the lower rank of people, who were always fond of the old common law, still claim and exert their ancient privilege, and the courts of law will still permit a husband to restrain a wife of her liberty, in case of any gross misbehavior."

Far up into the period of civilization the husband had the privilege of committing adultery at pleasure, and the right to kill his adulterous wife. More than that the savage and barbarian could not do either. But the savage hardly ever did it, while it is questionable whether, even to this day, a French or an American