far-reaching consequences, was entirely undifferentiated from any other
powerful instinct. Every woman of the tribe belonged to every male who
happened to desire her. As is still the case with the aborigines of
Central and Northern Australia, the phenomena of pregnancy and
childbirth were attributed to witchcraft.[1] The concept of _father_ had
not yet been formed; the family congregated round the mother and saw in
her its natural chief; gynecocracy was the prevailing form of
government. In early historical and pre-classical times, promiscuity was
systematised by religion in India and the countries round the
Mediterranean and survived in the Temple Prostitution and the Mysteries.
Man as yet felt himself only as a part of nature, and aspired to no more
than a life in harmony with her laws. The worship of fertility and the
endless renewal of life was the object of the orgiastic cults of Adonis
and Astarte in the East, and Dionysus and Aphrodite in Greece; unbridled
licentiousness and blind gratification of the senses their sacrament.

With the growth of civilisation and the development of personality there
slowly crept into the minds of men a distaste for this irregular
sexuality and a desire for a less chaotic state of things. This longing
and the wish for legitimate heirs gradually overcame promiscuity and, in
Greece, led to the establishment of the monogamous system. It must not
be assumed, however, that the Greek ideal of marriage bore any
resemblance to our modern conception. True, the wife occupied an
honoured position as the guardian of hearth and children and was treated
by her husband with affection and respect, but she was not free. Nor was
her husband expected to be faithful to her. Marriage in no way
restricted his liberty, but left him free to seek intellectual
stimulation in the society of the hetaerae, and gratification of the
senses in the company of his slaves. Love in our sense was unknown to
the ancients, and although there is a modern note in the legends of the