Mr. Crawley considers this assumption may be taken for granted; so
that he does not trouble himself about proofs. The subject of
mother-right is dismissed as unworthy of serious attention. Such an
attitude is surely instructive, and illustrates the failure, to which
I have already pointed, in considering the woman's side in these
questions. There would seem to be a tendency to doubt as being
possible any family arrangement favourable to the authority of women.
Even when descent through the mother is accepted as a phase in social
development, it is denied that such descent confers any special rights
to women.

One reason of this prejudice must be sought in the persistence of the
puritan spirit: the objection to mother-kin rests mainly on the
objection to loose sexual relationships. Thus it became necessary to
attempt a new explanation of the origin of the custom, and hence my
examination of the primordial patriarchal group. It may be thought
that I should have done better to confine my inquiry to existing
primitive peoples. But, if I am right, mother-power is rooted much
further back than history, and arose first in the dawn of the human
family. This had to be established.

It is clearly of vital importance to an inquiry that claims to set up
a new belief in a discredited theory to protect it from those
objections which hitherto have prevented its acceptance. This I have
attempted to do. I have shown that the customs connected with
mother-right had no connection at all with a state of promiscuity;
that they were the result of order in the sexual relationships, and
not of disorder. I have traced the causes which appear to have given
rise to such a system, showing that the maternal order was not the
first phase of the family, but was a natural forward movement--one
which developed slowly and quite simply from the conditions of the
patriarchal group. Moreover, I have maintained, and tried to prove,
that the initiative in progress was taken by the women, they being
inspired by their collective interest to overcome the individual
interests of the male members of the group. If this is not assented
to, then indeed, my view of mother-power can find no acceptance.

It is necessary, however, once more to guard against any mistake. I do
not wish to prove a theory of gynaecocracy, or rule of woman. The title
chosen for this chapter at once opens the way to misinterpretation. It
might appear as if I supported Bachofen's supposi