rules for her protection; and to these, religion early gave its powerful
sanctions. Thus there came a day when the woman took her mate home to
her tribe and gave her children her own name. Even if the matriarchal
period was not so important as has sometimes been assumed, woman
certainly had large influence over tribal affairs in early savage life.

With the increase in population, and the consequent disappearance of
game, man was forced to turn his attention to the crude agriculture
which woman had begun to develop. The superior qualities which he had
acquired in war and the chase, enabled him slowly to improve on these
beginnings and to shape a body of custom which made settled society
possible. With man's leadership in the family the patriarchal form of
government developed, and man's power over woman was sanctioned by
custom and law. The woman was stolen, or bought; and while sexual
attraction did not play the continuous part which it plays in developed
society, it must have done much to protect women from abuse and neglect,
at least during the years of girlhood and child-bearing. It is at this
point that our historical records begin.

In the pages of Homer, or of the Old Testament, in Tacitus's "Germania,"
or in the writings of Livy, we find woman's position well defined. True,
she stands second to the man, but she is his assistant, not his slave.
She must be courted, and while marriage presents are exchanged, she is
not bought. In times of emergency, she steps to the front and
legislates, judges, or fights. It is possible in the pages of the Old
Testament to find women doing everything which men can do. Even where
the power is not nominally in her own hands, she often, as in the cases
of Penelope or Esther, rules by indirection. Her body and her offspring
are protected; and the Hebrew woman of the Proverbs shows us a
singularly free and secure industrial position.[16] Such was the