lly pure and
immaculate Model Woman.

From the data of the preceding chapter, it is clear that the early ages
of human life there was a dualistic attitude toward woman. On the one
hand she was regarded as the possessor of the mystic _mana_ force,
while on the other she was the source of "bad magic" and likely to
contaminate man with her weaknesses. Altogether, the study of primitive
taboos would indicate that the latter conception predominated in savage
life, and that until the dawn of history woman was more often regarded
as a thing unclean than as the seat of a divine power.

At the earliest beginnings of civilization man's emotions seem to have
swung to the opposite extreme, for emphasis fell on the mystic and
uncanny powers possessed by woman. Thus it was that in ancient nations
there was a deification of woman which found expression in the belief in
feminine deities and the establishment of priestess cults. Not until the
dawn of the Christian era was the emphasis once more focussed on woman
as a thing unclean. Then, her mystic power was ascribed to demon
communication, and stripped of her divinity, she became the witch to be
excommunicated and put to death.

All the ancient world saw something supernatural, something demoniacal,
in generation. Sometimes the act was deified, as in the phallic
ceremonials connected with nature worship, where the procreative
principle in man became identified with the creative energy pervading
all nature, and was used as a magic charm at the time of springtime
planting to insure the fertility of the fields and abundant harvest,[1]
It was also an important part of the ritual in the Phrygian cults, the
cult of the Phoenician Astarte, and the Aphrodite cults. These mystery
religions were widely current in the Graeco-Roman world in pre-Christian
times. The cult of Demeter and Dionysius in Greece and Thrace; Cybele
and Attis in Phrygia; Atagartes in Cilicia; Aphrodite and Adonis in
Syria; Ashtart and Eshmun (Adon) in Phoenicia; Ishtar and Tammuz in
Babylonia; Isis, Osiris and Serapis in Egypt, and Mithra in Persia--all
were developed along the same lines.[2] The custom of the sacrifice of
virginity to the gods, and the institution of temple prostitution, also
bear witness to the sacred atmosphere with which the sex act was
surrounded among the early historic peoples.[3] It was this idea of the
mysterious sanctity of sex which did much to raise woman to her position
as divinity and ferti