this way, we are asked to believe, the rights of men arose,
the father came to be the chief parent, the head of the
mother and the owner of the children, and, therefore, the
parent through whom kinship was traced. We learn that, at
first, "women opposed this new gospel of fatherhood, and
fresh Amazonian risings were the common feature of their
opposition." But the resistance was fruitless. "Jason put an
end to the rule of the Amazons in Lemnos. Dionysus and
Bellerophon strove together passionately, yet without
gaining a decisive victory, until Apollo, with calm
superiority, finally became the conqueror, and the father
gained the power that before had belonged to the
mother."[21]

[21] _Das Mutterrecht_, pp. 73, 85. Compare also McLennan,
_Studies_, p. 322, and Starcke, _The Primitive Family in its
Origin and Development_.

But before this took place, Bachofen relates yet another movement,
which for a time restored the early matriarchate. The women, at first
opposing, presently became converts to the Dionysusian gospel, and
were afterwards its warmest supporters. Motherhood became degraded.
Bacchanalian excesses followed, which led to a return to the ancient
_hetairism_. Bachofen believes that this formed a fresh basis for a
second gynaecocracy. He compares the Amazonian period of these later
days with that in which marriage was first introduced, and finds that
"the deep religious impulse being absent, it was destined to fail, and
give place to the spiritual Apollonic conception of fatherhood."[22]

[22] _Ibid._, p. 85.

In Bachofen's opinion this triumph of fatherhood was the final
salvation. This is what he says--

"It was the assertion of fatherhood which delivered the mind
from natural appearances, and when this was successfully
achieved, human existence was raised above the laws of
natural life. The principal of motherhood is common to all
the spheres of animal life, but man goes beyond this tie in
gaining pre-eminence in the process of procreation, and thus
becomes conscious of his higher vocation. In the paternal
and spiritual principle he breaks through the bonds of
tellurism, and looks upwards to the higher regions of the
cosmos. Victorious fatherhood thus becomes as distinctly
connected with the heavenly light as prolific motherhood is
with the teeming earth."[23]