X.

LAW AND GOVERNMENT.


It is easy to assume that men are naturally the lawmakers and
law-enforcers, under the plain historic fact that they have been such
since the beginning of the patriarchate.

Back of law lies custom and tradition. Back of government lies the
correlative activity of any organized group. What group-insects and
group-animals evolve unconsciously and fulfill by their social
instincts, we evolve consciously and fulfill by arbitrary systems called
laws and governments. In this, as in all other fields of our action, we
must discriminate between the humanness of the function in process of
development, and the influence of the male or female upon it. Quite
apart from what they may like or dislike as sexes, from their differing
tastes and faculties, lies the much larger field of human progress, in
which they equally participate.

On this plane the evolution of law and government proceeds somewhat as
follows:--The early woman-centered group organized on maternal lines of
common love and service. The early combinations of men were first a
grouped predacity--organized hunting; then a grouped
belligerency,--organized warfare.

By special development some minds are able to perceive the need of
certain lines of conduct over others, and to make this clear to their