he
code of sexual morality. This is so important that it is worth while
to follow it a little further. That freedom in love carries with it
domestic and social rights and privileges to women I have no longer
to prove. We found the same freedom under the maternal family among
the Iroquois and Zuni Indians: there courtship was in the hands of the
woman; there also divorce was free, and a couple would rather separate
than live together inharmoniously. I have given proof of the happy
domestic life of these peoples. Equality in the sexual relationships
has always been closely associated with the status of women. Wherever
divorce is difficult, there woman's lot is hard, and her position low.
It is part of the patriarchal custom which regards the man as the
owner of the woman. It would be easy to prove this by the history of
marriage in the races of the past, as also by an examination of the
present divorce laws in civilised countries. I cannot do this, but I
make the assertion without the least shadow of doubt. "Free divorce is
the charter of Woman's Freedom." I would point back in proof to these
examples of the maternal family, foremost among whose privileges is
this equality of partnership in marriage. Here you have before you,
solved by these primitive peoples, some of the most urgent questions
that yet have to be faced by us to-day. To hear of peoples who live
gladly, and without those problems that are rotting away our
civilisation, brings a new courage to those of us, who sometimes grow
hopeless at our own needless wastage of love and life.

I must not say more upon this question, though it is one that tempts
me strongly. It is not, however, my purpose in this book to offer
opinions of my own on these problems of the relations of the two
sexes; I prefer to leave the facts of the mother-age to speak for
themselves. Those whose eyes are not blinded will not fail to see.[81]

[81] Mrs. Chapman Catt has an article in the April number of
_Harper's Magazine_ on "A Survival of Matriarchy." It gives
an account of her visit to the Malay States, and the
favourable position of the women under the maternal customs.
I have received a letter from the great American champion of
Women's Rights in which she states how pleased she is that I
am writing this book on the Mother-age. "There are many
facts," she says, "of the early power of women which the
great world does not know."

CHAPTER VII