to bear out the theory that man’s rule was ever preceded by a period when woman ruled.  The lower we descend, the more absolute and cruelly selfish do we find man’s rule over woman.  The stronger sex everywhere reduces the weaker to practical slavery and holds it in contempt.  Primitive woman has not yet developed these qualities in which her peculiar strength lies, and if she had, the men would be too coarse to appreciate them.

WOMAN’S DOMESTIC RULE

(2) As we ascend in the scale we find a few cases where women rule or at least share the rule with the men; but these occur not among savages but with the lower and higher barbarians, and at the same time they are, as Grosse remarks (161), “among the scarcest curiosities of ethnology.”  The Garos of Assam have women at the head of their clans.  Dyak women are consulted in political matters and have equal rights with the men.  Macassar women in Celebes also are consulted as regards public affairs, and frequently ascend the throne.  A few similar cases have been noted in Africa, where, e.g., the princesses of the Ashantees domineer over their husbands; but these apply only to the ruling class, and do not concern the sex as a whole.  Some strange tales of masculine submission in Nicaragua are told by Herrera.  But the best-known instance is that of the Iroquois and Hurons.  Their women, as Lafitau relates (I., 71), owned the land, and the crops, they decided upon peace or war, took charge of slaves, and made marriages.  The Huron Wyandots had a political council consisting of four women.  The Iroquois Seneca women could chase lazy husbands from the premises, and could even depose a chief.  Yet these cases are not conclusive as to the real status of the women in the tribe.  The facts cited are, as John Fiske remarks (Disc.  Amer., I., 68), “not incompatible with the subjection of women to extreme drudgery and ill-treatment.”  Charlevoix, one of the eye-witnesses to these exceptional privileges granted to some Indian women, declares expressly that their domination was illusory; that they were, at home, the slaves of their husbands; that the men despised them thoroughly, and that the epithet “woman” was an insult.[31] And Morgan, who made such a thorough study of the Iroquois, declares (322) that “the Indian regarded woman as the inferior, the dependent, and the servant of man, and, from nature and habit, she actually considered herself to be so.”  The two honorable employments among Indians were war and hunting, and these were reserved for the men.  Other employments were considered degrading and were therefore gallantly reserved for the women.

WOMAN’S POLITICAL RULE