oo, she may be barred out from
the temples and excluded from the religious ceremonies when men worship
their deity. There are people who will not permit the women of their
nation to touch the weapons, clothing, or any other possessions of the
men, or to cook their food, lest even this indirect contact result in
emasculation. The same idea of sympathetic magic is at the root of
taboos which forbid the wife to speak her husband's name, or even to use
the same dialect. With social intercourse debarred, and often no common
table even in family life, it is veritably true that men and women
belong to two castes.

Of the primitive institution known as the "men's house," Hutton Webster
says: "Sexual separation is further secured and perpetuated by the
institution known as the men's house, of which examples are to be found
among primitive peoples throughout the world. It is usually the largest
building in a tribal settlement ... Here the most precious belongings of
the community, such as trophies and religious emblems, are preserved.
Within its precincts ... women and children ... seldom or never
enter ... Family huts serve as little more than resorts for the
women and children."[28]

Many examples among uncivilized peoples bear out this description of
the institution of the men's house. Amongst the Indians of California
and in some Redskin tribes the men's clubhouse may never be entered by a
squaw under penalty of death. The Shastika Indians have a town lodge for
women, and another for men which the women may not enter.[15] Among the
Fijis women are not allowed to enter a _bure_ or club house, which is
used as a lounge by the chiefs. In the Solomon Islands women may not
enter the men's _tambu_ house, and on some of the islands are not even
permitted to cross the beach in front of it.[29] In the Marquesas
Islands the _ti_ where the men congregate and spend most of their time
is taboo to women, and protected by the penalty of death from the
pollution of a woman's presence.[30]

Not only is woman barred from the men's club house, but she is also
often prohibited from association and social intercourse with the
opposite sex by many other regulations and customs. Thus no woman may
enter the house of a Maori chief,[31] while among the Zulus, even if a
man and wife are going to the same place they never walk together.[32]
Among the Baganda wives are kept apart from the men's quarters.[21] The
Ojibway Indian Peter Jones says of his