perty and the ability to free herself from her
husband.[276]

It is also impossible to avoid connecting the primitive tendency to
mother-descent, and the emphasis it involved on maternal rather than
paternal generative energy, with the tendency to place the goddess rather
than the god in the forefront of primitive pantheons, a tendency which
cannot possibly fail to reflect honor on the sex to which the supreme
deity belongs, and which may be connected with the large part which
primitive women often play in the functions of religion. Thus, according
to traditions common to all the central tribes of Australia, the woman
formerly took a much greater share in the performance of sacred ceremonies
which are now regarded as coming almost exclusively within the masculine
province, and in at least one tribe which seems to retain ancient
practices the women still actually take part in these ceremonies.[277] It
seems to have been much the same in Europe. We observe, too, both in the
Celtic pantheon and among Mediterranean peoples, that while all the
ancient divinities have receded into the dim background yet the goddesses
loom larger than the gods.[278] In Ireland, where ancient custom and
tradition have always been very tenaciously preserved, women retained a
very high position, and much freedom both before and after marriage.
"Every woman," it was said, "is to go the way she willeth freely," and
after marriage she enjoyed a better position and greater freedom of
divorce than was afforded either by the Christian Church or the English
common law.[279] There is less difficulty in recognizing that
mother-descent was peculiarly favorable to the high status of women when
we realize that even under very unfavorable conditions women have been
able to exert great pressure on the men and to resist successfully the
attempts to tyrannize over them.[280]

If we consider the status of woman in the great empires of antiquity we
find on the whole that in their early stage, the stage of growth, as well
as in their final stage, the stage of fruition, women tend to occupy a
favorable position, while in their middle stage, usually the stage of
predominating military organization on a patriarchal basis, women occupy a
less favorable position. This cyclic movement seems to be almost a natural
law of the development of great social groups. It was apparently well
marked in the very stable and orderly growth of Babylonia. In the earliest
times a Babylo