by this human tendency, by
material circumstances, and by ideas. Sometimes it keeps pretty closely
to what seems to us to be upward human growth; sometimes it stagnates;
sometimes it gives us perverted products; and sometimes it destroys
itself.

Thus it becomes necessary to trace the past experiences of woman that we
may see with what heritage she faces the future. She is all that she
has felt and thought and done. She started with at least half of the
destiny of the race in her keeping. Handicapped in size and agility, and
periodically weighted down by the burdens of maternity, she still
possessed charms and was mistress of pleasures which made her, for
savage man, the dearest possession next to food; and for civilized man,
the companion, joy and inspiration of his days.

Of woman's position in early savage times we know only what we can learn
from fragmentary prehistoric remains, from the structure of early
languages, from records of travelers and students among savages of more
recent times; or what can be inferred from human nature in general. Most
of this data is difficult to interpret, but it is probable that woman's
position was not much worse than man's. It is a bad beast that fouls its
own food or its own nest; and the female had always the protection of
the male's desire. If she could not entirely control her body, she could
still control her own expressions of affection and desire; and, without
these, mere possession lost much of its charm.

As keeper of the cave, cultivator of the soil, and guardian of the
child, woman, rather than her more foot-loose mate, probably became the
center of the earliest civilization. The jealousy of men formed tribal
rules for her protection; and to these, religion early gave its powerful
sanctions. Thus there came a day when the woman took her mate home to
her tribe and gave her children her own name. Even if the matriarchal
period was not so important as has sometimes been assumed, woman
certainly had large influence over tribal affairs in early savage life.

With the increase in population, and the consequent disappearance of
game, man was forced to turn his attention to the crude agriculture
which woman had begun to develop. The superior qualities which he had
acquired in war and the chase, enabled him slowly to improve on these
beginnings and to shape a body of custom which made settled society
possible. With man's leadership in the family the patriarchal form of
gover