A SOCIAL HISTORY OF MAN
A SUMMARY OF:
ROBERT BRIFFAULT
THE MOTHERS; A STUDY OF THE ORIGINS OF SENTIMENTS AND INSTITUTIONS, I-III, 1927
by drs. Marinus Anthony van der Sluijs, Netherlands
introduction
Robert Briffault ought to be called a true hero in the academic fields of anthropology and religion, not only because of the colossal size of his work, not only because of his eloquent mode of writing or the impressive depth of his reasoning, but especially because of the taboos he dared to break in his quest for scientific truth. In the post-Victorian fashion of Briffault’s time the revolutionary theory of the original prevalence of women over men, which is the core of the entire argument, would have faced a thousand times more opposition than it would nowadays. In spite of all social opinions dictating the mental attitude of his time, Briffault endeavoured to erect a literal monument that will persist over the ages.
For in our own day
The Mothers would rouse as much wind as it did in his own period, this time
because of a class of statements concerning ‘primitive peoples’ that may be
suspected of semi-racism. Briffault repeatedly works with terms as ‘the absence
of interest in the truth among savages’, ‘the essential conclusion of mental
growth and development at the time of adolescence in savages’, and so on. Such
statements should, however, never be taken as signs of racism. Nowhere in The
Mothers can any evidence be found for a racistic attitude of the author’s.
In every one of these instances Briffault bases his statements on facts which
are accurately registered in his primary sources; and Briffault rarely if
anywhere describes the limits and faults in the mind of precivilised man as due
to his imperfectness and race. Instead, shortcomings of the mind or the body
are everywhere seen in terms of a weakened application of the capacities of
mind and body; or as having been irrelevant in the modus vivandi that
prevailed at the time. A culture in which reasoning by logic is not appreciated
cannot be faulted at all for not using some of the faculties of the mind. When
it is seen that Briffault applies his suspect statements as much to the
ancestors of the races of
Briffault adduces abundant evidence drawn from all possible cultures for every statement he gives. To limit the size of this summary concrete examples are nowhere given here, however.
evolution of human culture and religion
The essence of the theory exposed in The Mothers is that of a linear evolution in the social history of mankind. This evolution has its beginning in the earliest roots of mankind, touching the animal aspects of humanity at its most, and comes to an end in the cultures of the highly advanced societies of human history.
Everywhere in Briffault’s argument the mode of operation of this evolution is that of a slowly progressing automatic change, effected by the increasing operation of the mind upon the instincts. It is expressly stated that civilisation is directly inherent with an absence of the faculty of naturalness: the more instinctive behaviour is suppressed in the early days of childhood education, the more rational and unnatural the product will be, to wit, civilisation. Briffault shows over and over again that the original condition of humanity corresponded in several areas of culture to the circumstances prevailing in the world of the primates, or, broader, of mammals in general, whereas the evolutionary development in history has resulted in a breaking away from these roots and the adoption of a new lifestyle, foreign to that of the natural roots.
If I understand him well, Briffault generally recognises two main shifts of development within human history. None of these shifts have been completed; both are still operating and converting peoples that have not been reached so far. The first of these shifts is far older and far more widespread than the second, which is rooted in the first. The first shift marks the transition from what we may call ‘precivilised cultures’ to ‘civilisation’. This shift entails three main developments, which are closely bound up with each other: the shift from matriarchy to patriarchy; the shift from a pastoralist culture to agriculture; and the shift from moon worship to sun worship. The second main development is that of Christianity, which entailed two more or less contemporaneous shifts: that from polygamy to monogamy; and the increasing appreciation of true virginity. Nowhere in his work does Briffault explicitly unfold this theory as clearly as is done here, but from close scrutiny of the relevant paragraphs in his work it becomes clear that precisely this scenario was the backbone of his thinking.
• from precivilised to civilised • from matriarchy to patriarchy
• from pastoralism to agriculture
• from moon worship to sun worship
• from civilised to Christianity • from polygamy to monogamy
• appreciation of virginity
the maternal family as the original social unit
Biologically human society is a group of males and females; all else is superstructure. [III 512]
The original
constitution of human society was the maternal family. Mankind did not consist
of different peoples, different tribes, different states, but of small herding
family-groups only. The primordial family was not the unit, but was the
whole of society. [III 510]. These original family-groups consisted of a
mother and her offspring, both male and female. The natural and biological
dominance of the primitive mother over the group which she created, the awe
attaching to her magical nature and powers, were the rudiments of the
characters of the priestess and the queen. [III 510]. The father was an
unimportant figure in this original constellation. Briffault shows that in all
cases where male dominance and female suppression are found (notably in
Australia and parts of Melanesia), these are late developments, as traces of
earlier matriarchy are found and transition from patriarchy to matriarchy is
technically impossible. This development is then comparable with the same
development in
Universally, the bond between mother and child is extremely strong, whereas that between man and woman is often completely absent. [I 126-131]. The child’s, especially the boy’s love towards his mother is extremely strong, more than towards any other creature, and harming her is the biggest crime. [I 148-151]. Mothers often offer themselves up for their children. [I 128]
The word for brother, adelphos, which means ‘from the womb’, may be a relic from a time when the relationship of brother was reckoned on the mother’s side only. [I 405]. Within the original clan, all men were called ‘brothers’ and all women ‘sisters’. The whole clan acted as the parents of a child. [I 591-598]. This practice accounts for the common practice of adoption and the attachment between the adopting parents and the child. [I 598-605]. In some cultures a child is suckled or adopted by several mothers in the tribe. [I 600-602]. In the precivilised group the woman’s brother, to the children the uncle, was the most influential man, certainly more than the father. [I 498-505]
This family unit was the origin of the tribe. Hostility towards everything that does not belong to the tribe is universal and considered quite as much a sacred duty as love towards the own tribe. [I 158]. Some precivilised peoples have no tribal organisation, but live in family groups only. These are all degenerate, however, and do not represent an archaic stage of mankind. [I 196ff.]. Many precivilised tribes had no chief and if they existed, they exercised no power, or chiefs were appointed in war-times only. [I 493-495]. But primitively the distinction between ‘home’ and ‘State’, between family group and nation does not exist; the woman by virtue of that rule of the household which is recognised among the most patriarchal peoples is social ruler of the community in all its internal economy. [I 497]
This original social constitution of mankind has changed in two respects:
• The family came to be centered around the line of the oldest male individual, consisting of the descendants of the pater familias.
• A difference rose between state, tribe and family, between public and private law.
The theory of a formerly prevailing matriarchy is supported by two main lines of argument:
• In the animal world, and especially in the class of mammals, the mother is often the dominant figure and the leader of the herd or family.
• The oldest extant reports concerning all populations in the world betray that matriarchy everywhere preceded patriarchy, whereas the reverse development has never been recorded.
The difficulty is how human society could ever have evolved from a number of tribes that were basically unconnected. Briffault argues that the exogamous marriage as a novelty in the light of mammal evolution has served to cement tribes together and thus given rise to the origin of society, as we will see below.
modesty, love, sexuality and jealousy
In precivilised societies marriage has nothing to do with sexual relations or love. There is prenuptial and postnuptial licence. Prenuptial sexual licence was common among all precivilised cultures, [II 2ff.], with the possible exception of people outside the tribe [II 19f.]. Marriage is often contracted late in life or not at all or only by those who can afford it. [I 520f.]. The function of marriage was purely economical - the man and the woman helping each other in the work that was done. Often partners are changed frequently or marriages are dissolved many times a year. [II 1-96]. Marriage was an institution of economic import, dealing with the division of labour, and, later, of property. Marriage was originally not done out of love, but by agreement between the mutual parents or families. [I 524-527]. Husband and wife do not love each other or show no signs of love for each other[1]. [I 125-129] Or women love their husbands more than the reverse. [I 133]. Originally love and marriage were unconnected. The patriarchal family did not exist in precivilised society. Often husband and wife do not live together and one of them, usually the man, visits the other occasionally in the night. If the man is caught meeting his wife, he is beaten and ejected. [I 505-519]
There was no real jealousy in precivilised cultures, as the men did not have the desire to ‘possess’ or ‘control’ the woman. Savage jealousy has reference neither to ‘exclusive possession’ nor to ‘an individual who is the object of one’s sexual desire’. [II 100]. All that is found is the sexual desire at the moment that it is felt. At other times the man easily borrows his wife to guests and friends. The notion of virginity at marriage is completely non-existent. Connubial fidelity is regarded with indifference. If two men desire the same woman, a duel is fought out.
Precivilised adultery often merely consists of sexual intercourse between forbidden degrees: different clans and castes and the like. It often has no monogamous intention. [II 297]
Sexual intercourse in many societies took place in public and without any shame. [III 260f.]. Although it appears that no sense of indecency attaches among many, probably most, uncultured races to the sexual act, and primitive man in general has no such sentiment, it is nevertheless the rule that privacy is sought for its performance, and even legitimate marital relations are, among many primitive peoples, clandestine. This, we saw, is probably the effect of actual danger attending such relations in their primitive form. [III 262]. It is not round the sexual act but the exposure of the sexual organs that the sentiment of modesty centres. [III 260]
the development of marriage
In the oldest times, the human family consisted of the offspring of the mother of the group. Theoretically, this yielded two possibilities for marriage:
• by endogamy, which was then identical with incest: the men could cohabit with the women in the group;
• by exogamy: the men could leave the group and marry girls of another tribe.
Incest is in most cultures scorned and is believed to lead to deformation and infertility, sometimes also if it concerns cattle. Sometimes the parents themselves are believed to be punished with afflictions or even the whole tribe. [I 238-240]. In other cultures, certain unions are forbidden, and others not: the union between father and daughter is legitimate, for instance, whereas that between brother and sister is taboo. [I 257]. In other cultures incestuous unions are considered fruitful and lucky. [I 240-247]. How is this situation to be evaluated?
First, it must be noted that an incestuous marriage and an incestuous sexual union are not the same thing in precivilised society. Incestuous marriages are defined by the ‘forbidden degrees’ of clan totemism, more than by degree of relationship.
Second, the attitude taken towards incest corresponds generally to the attitude towards any taboo: the object of taboo is variously regarded as repulsive and as highly sacred. Both have sprung from an originally undifferentiated notion of ‘apartness’, of ‘relatedness to the gods’. Hence, it can be assumed that incest was a notion of taboo to precivilised man, whether this was to be developed in its positive or in its negative aspect, and was clearly associated with the gods.
Briffault argues that marriage has originated as a group-marriage. Marriage was instituted not to legalise the relation between man and woman, but as a contract between groups rather than individuals, a contract of intermarriage of individuals. Because the same relationships between two groups were often maintained over many generations, the different clans and tribes were allied and sewn together into a unified whole and this is how human society originated.
This group-marriage must be seen as the contract or agreement between two matriarchal families, the brothers in one family marrying the sisters in another. Later forms of marriage have risen as derivatives and simplifications of this original situation:
• Originally, the brothers of one family married the sisters of another family. The two families could either live mixed through each other or the brothers came to live in the family of the sisters. Collective marriage is still found the world over. [I 629-766]. Sexual hospitality, the practice to lend a wife to a guest, is widespread, and must be explained by the foreigner formally becoming a brother, and, hence, a participant in the collective marriage. [I 635-640]. There is often a system of seniority, the elder brother having no claim to the wives of the younger brothers, if they have any[2]. Relics of the collective nature of marriage may be seen in the intervention of others: marriages are negotiated by go-betweens. [I 527-531]; parents, or the maternal uncles, or the mothers or other relatives arrange the marriage and often the parties involved are yet children or not even born. [I 531-544]; sometimes the king selects a wife for a man who wants to marry. [I 540]. Often people marry who have known each other all their lives. [I 247]
• In fraternal polyandrous marriages the women marry all brothers of one family, whereas the husband’s brothers do not necessarily marry her sisters. The levirate, the practice of marrying the brother of a husband after the husband’s decease, must be seen as a relic of fraternal polyandry. [I 672; 766-772; 777-779]. Non-fraternal polyandry, as an original and traditionally established institution, is extremely rare, if indeed it exists at all. [I 705]. If it is found, it is invariably derived from fraternal group-marriage as an adaptation and modification of the established tradition. [I 707]
• In sororal polygynous marriages the men marry all sisters of one family, whereas the wife’s sisters do not necessarily marry his brothers. [I 268-; 614-620]. A relic of this custom is the right to marry a deceased wife’s sister or a barren wife’s sister. [I 622-624]. The rule that when a man’s wife dies he marries her sister, which is often the only survival of sororal polygyny, is thus clearly an attenuated relic of the widespread claim of a man to all the sisters of a family when he marries one of them, and it would be difficult to find any two social facts the connection between which is so manifest and so fully exhibited by every possible transition and similarity in the mode of their observance. [I 624]. Usually the wives live together in harmony, which can be understood when they are sisters. [I 625-626]. Women are not jealous in polygynous families, but are, instead, the strongest stimulators of the system. A considerable number of wives indicates wealth of the husband and alleviates the burden of housework for the wives themselves. [II 257-264]. A non-sororal polygyny has arisen later.
In a polygynous society it is not necessarily true that every husband marries more than one wife. In the precivilised situation the man has as many wives as he can afford to sustain. Thus, in most polygynous societies most men have but one wife. In other societies the number of wives allowed is limited. In other societies an artificial distinction between a ‘chief wife’ and concubines is made, although originally this ‘chief wife’ seems to have been the personal favourite of the husband, changing with the time. [II 267-315]
Briffault’s thesis is that both systems - sororal polygyny and fraternal androgyny - originated in a custom called ‘collective marriage’, by which one family attached itself to another (on economic grounds only, not with respect to love or sexuality). The one-sided observance of sororal polygyny and perhaps also of fraternal polyandry are, however, at the present day much more common than the combination of the two practices as complete group-marriage. [I 628]. This is because the combination is an unstable arrangement. As soon as marriage involves not only sexual relations, but also economic interdependence and association, such an arrangement becomes almost impracticable in an unmodified form; for no economic association can take place between a man and a woman or group of women unless the labour of those women is in some degree specially allotted to the man, unless, therefore, he has an individual right to their labour. [I 628].
If two groups continue to intermarry in the exogamous system, incest is the result, as the candidates for marriage become each other’s cross-cousins. It is, …, a very widespread custom for a man to marry his first cousin, the daughter of his maternal, or in some cases of his paternal uncle. Those marriages are regarded in many parts of the world as obligatory, and the rule has been strictly observed from immemorial time. Yet nowhere have indications of any resulting evil effects been observed, and the races which habitually practise those marriages include some of the finest physical types of mankind. [I 217ff.; 563-572]. As the marriages are arrangements between families or groups, close communities exist and groups are linked together that were formerly not united. Thus, the world over people have to select a partner from a limited, predefined group. [I 572-580]. The cross-cousins marry the daughters of the maternal uncle. The reverse, marriage with the daughter of the paternal uncle is limited. [I 581]. A person is bound to marry in a certain group, but within that group he is free to make his choice. [I 550]. In a process of disintegration of clan-organisation the man obtained the right to choose a wife without restriction outside the incestuous degrees. [I 587-591]
The bride price goes to all members of the groups or all help to pay to the other party. [I 555]. Sometimes the bride and bridegroom do not partake in the wedding banquet. [I 556-557].
Originally, the man who was married to a woman did not stay with her at all, only visiting her at certain occasions, or came to live in her place, which is called the matrilocal marriage. All sorts of variations are found. Separation of man and woman after the birth of children was common practice. [II 86f.]. Or the man has to live in the house of his wife, either for a short moment, a few days, a few months, a few years or forever. The children and property are hers. Descent is reckoned through the female line. Female ancestry was considered more important than male ancestry. [I 366-372]. Often the woman performs all important work: trade and agriculture. The man may be sent away by the wife. Often the man continues to live separately, meeting her only to cohabit. [I 268-303, 308]. The man may usually have several wives in different locations. [I 276-].
Briffault ably demonstrates that the unique development of mankind in distinction from the animal kingdom lies in its gregarious organisation, the constituents of the tribe or people really benefiting from each other and interacting, a phenomenon which is not found in the animal kingdom, not even in the insect and bird colonies, the origination of which is certainly not bound up with social interest, but with the quest for food and maternal care only. The problem rises how the human group could ever possibly have evolved from the animal group in this respect:
There is, in fact, one way, and one only, whereby the feminine constitution of the family could have been maintained, while it expanded at the same time into a larger assemblage, namely, by the sons leaving the group, and the daughters remaining and pairing with males from some other group. [I 201]
Fundamentally that principle - the first part of it at least - is identical with the prohibition of incest, for in the primitive family group there is no alternative to the marrying out of the males except union with their own sisters: and our own horror of incest represents among ourselves the very principle, which appears to us to operate so strangely in the exogamic regulations of primitive man. [I 203]
A convincing argument follows to the effect that exogamy and the abstention of incest, both of which are unique human phenomena, have served as the only way for mankind to develop in its current form as different from the animal world.
I feel uneasy with Briffault’s argument that the aversion towards incest is universal, on one hand, and his demonstration that incest was once universally accepted on the other hand. Briffault makes a compelling argument that incest and inbreeding are common, widespread and frequently the rule among animals and precivilised humans alike and have, in spite of the general belief, not in the least any negative effects on their health and fertility, the few negative effects of inbreeding resulting from other factors, such as bad housing and focusing on intrinsically unhealthy features, such as fatness. Briffault interestingly notes that even exogamy leads to in-breeding on the long term, as the bond of intermarriage is usually active in a very limited group, sometimes reduced to two separate families only. Briffault argues that exogamy can only have arisen as a direct result of the mother’s attempt to maintain the female group and to keep the daughters at home. The men were originally not forbidden to stay home and marry their sisters, as incest was not taboo yet, like in the animal world, but often, in accord with their nature, married girls at other places and stayed there. As a transitional phase may be seen the intercourse with girls and the subsequent retreat of the man to his former place. While girls are in all primitive societies tied, so to speak, to their mother’s apron strings, the boys start off on expeditions almost as soon as they are able to walk. [I 251] … the men sleep wherever they happen to be, under some tree or ledge. It is the woman who is the maker of the home and the home-dweller. [I 251]. This attempt is successful as the men marry matrilocally.
In precivilised society, the choice of a partner is a task for the woman, not for the man. Precivilised men select women not for their beauty, but for their capacity to work. Older women are preferred for their experience. Fat women are preferred. [II 97-]. Love of adornment is greater in precivilised males than in females. [II 176-181]. In most primitive societies the biological rule is observed that it is the male who adorns himself, the female remaining inconspicuous; and, what is even more remarkable, the coquetry and love of adornment which is commonly assumed to be an innate trait of all ‘daughters of Eve’ appear to be absent or rudimentary in primitive womankind. [II 176f.]. It is notable that in primitive societies feather ornaments are very rarely worn by women. Their peculiar virtues are associated with the pursuits of warriors and hunters, and have little or no bearing on female functions. [III 274f. note 8]. In many precivilised societies the initiative in individual marriage comes from the women, not from the men. [II 168-176]. Women’s choice of men is determined by economic conditions. [II 181-186]
The removal of a woman from her family, either to live in the family of the man, or to build a new house with him, can be seen as the beginning of patriarchy. All sorts of variations are seen. The original resistance to the removal of a woman from her maternal home survived in the traditional dread of the mother-in-law. The mother-in-law is universally seen as dangerous and taboo and is sometimes propitiated with gifts. [I 243ff.; 265]. The mother-in-law may not be seen or spoken to and is feared (for the husband; and elsewhere for the wife). [I 259ff.]. Sometimes the bad attitude is pretended by the mother-in-law. [I 266]. The taboo was sometimes avoided by marrying the mother-in-law as well. [I 264]
Whenever a man removes his wife from her home and brings her to his own, the procedure invariably involves a compact or transaction whereby such a transfer is sanctioned by the woman’s family; that sanction is obtained in all but some of the highest phases of culture by bestowing upon them a compensation or consideration. [I 306]. One way is to have the removal of a wife as a temporary affair. The origin of the honeymoon may lay in the custom that the woman stays a limited time in the place of the husband and then returns to her own home, either with him or not. [I 268-]. In all other cases, the man has to offer something in order to marry a bride:
• marriage by tests of endurance: A man has to kill a man or an animal before he can marry. [II 184-185]. Tests of endurance are often done at initiation and marriage ceremonies. In the original conception, only a man who has passed the initiation ceremonies can marry. Sometimes the marriage and initiation ceremonies are identical. The men were flagellated, had to walk over hot stones, had to dance until the level of exhaustion, were wounded with boar tusks or exposed to biting insects, had to participate in contests of archery, running, wrestling and theft, were scourged, speared, flogged, and circumcised. Cicumcision often is a preliminary to marriage. Tattooing was also done and was regarded as a sign of manhood. In the marriage ceremonies the woman often imposes tests of endurance upon her future husband and he may not show signs of pain. Bride-races are held. [II 187-208]
• marriage by service: By working for the woman’s family the man equally shows his capacities and aptness. A man obtains the right of access to a woman in primitive matriarchal societies by contributing his services to her family, that being the sole form of economic contribution which in the absence of personal property and transferable wealth he is able to make. [II 209-212]
• marriage by purchase: The commonest mode of obtaining a wife is marriage by purchase. The husband or his family had to pay a bride-price. [II 212-229]
• marriage by capture: Briffault shows that marriage by capture has nowhere been the regular mode of obtaining a wife. [II 230-250]. Mock fights between the relatives of the bride and those of the bridegroom, the former pretending to prevent her removal from her parental home, and the latter endeavouring to secure her by force, are of almost universal prevalence. But they are explained by the resistance to remove the wife from her home, not to marry her or to have intercourse with her. [II 239]. The practice of lifting the bride over the threshold of the husband’s house is related to the meaning of the transfer of the woman from her home to the man’s home. Sometimes the woman has to be carried all the way. [II 248f.]
arts and crafts
Originally all work was performed on a voluntary basis and there was no slavery. Although the primitive division of labour between the sexes generally throws the most continuous and onerous burden upon the woman, it is precisely that fact which excludes the possibility of male supremacy as it exists in patriarchal society. [I 436]. Put otherwise, the hard labour performed by precivilised women is not a token of their subordinate positions, but, instead, of their independence and sovereignty.
Briffault abundantly demonstrates that virtually all facets of civilisation were originally associated with women rather than men: the women were the performers; the women knew the arts that were secretly handed down in tradition. In many precivilised cultures the woman is physically stronger than or at least equal in strength to the man. [I 442-446]. Primitive women have an easy delivery or are so strong as to be able to easily undergo it. [I 459]. In precivilised cultures the woman was more alert and ingenious than the man. [I 490-491]. PRimitive men and women look very similar and are hard to distinguish, because of the muscular appearance. [I 446-447]
agriculture: sowing, the bestowal of fertility and rain-making
Agriculture and fertility are connected with women. [III 2]. In the primitive division of labour the gathering and the cultivation of vegetable food are the special occupation of the women as hunting is that of the men. [III 2]. Rain rites and weather phenomena are originally connected with women. [III 9-15]
kingship and priestly office
Kingship was originally a female, rather than a male institution. [III 25-42]. The character of primitive and archaic sacred monarchies affords a strong confirmation of the conclusion to which we were previously led, that magic and priestly functions were originally exercised by women. The power of sacred monarchs and of priesthoods, which is so important an element of established agricultural civilisations, is founded upon magical attributes which originally belonged prescriptively to women and are regarded as being transmitted through women. [III 44]. The matriarchal constitution of royalty, however, far from being exceptional, is, on the contrary, the general rule in barbaric kingdoms. [III 25]. In some precivilised monarchies the wives of the kings appear to have had ritual functions connected with the promotion of agriculture. [III 21]
Priestesses or shamanesses served prominently if not exclusively in the precivilised cults. [II 514-530].
healing: sorcery and medicine
Women were the original healers, surgeons and doctors. [I 485-490, II 562-563]. The power of witchcraft is, however, universally regarded as appertaining specifically to women. The witch is a woman; the wizard is but a male imitation of the original wielder of magic power. [II 556]. The first practice and teaching of magic is acribed to a woman. [II 556]. Witchcraft is associated with women, often old women. The explanation of this by reference to women’s liability to hysteria is inadequate. [II 556ff.]. Women, we are told, exercise power because they are regarded as witches; but it seems equally probable that they were originally regarded as witches because they exercised power. [II 559]. The primitive witch was dreaded not because she was necessarily maleficent, but because she was possessed of magical power; and all magical power is dreaded and regarded as dangerous, not because it is habitually employed to do harm, but because it is susceptible of being so used, even if commonly exercised for objects beneficial to all. [II 570]. The diabolic nature so generally ascribed to women, not only by Christian fathers, but by all humanity from the most primitive phases of culture, is rather the expression of the dread with which women were originally regarded than the cause of that dread. [II 560]. It does not appear that the universal practice is susceptible of any other interpretation than that magical power was originally associated with women, and was regarded as essentially a woman’s function. [II 534]
house-making
The mother is connected with the house or the tent. [I 372-381]. The woman was the original builder, the maker of the home. In the heavier work the men often help. [I 477-483]
hunting and warring
In precivilised society women are hunters. [I 447-448]. Women used to be warriors. [I 451-458]
leatherwork and embroidery
Leatherwork, weaving and basketry were originally performed by the women solely. [I 460-466]. Canoes are, as well as weapons, generally made by men, but the rule is not invariable. [I 461 note 5]. The sewing and ornamenting of robes with embroidery even formed the chief purpose of a kind of ‘secret society’ from which men were excluded. [I 462, 464f.]
pottery
The art of pottery is a feminine invention; the original potter was a woman. [I 466]. Pottery is done by women and the pots resembled goddesses or women. [I 466-477]. The secrets of the art of pottery were transmitted in the female line. [I 472]
trading
Women were the original traders. [I 483-485]
making music
It may be noted that the sacred drum which plays so important a part in religious and magic ceremonies in every part of the world, being originally a pan or pot covered with a hide, and pots being manufactured exclusively by women, is necessarily of female origin. [II 524]
the woman and the goddess
The position of the woman in matriarchal society is in all instances exactly mirrored in the qualities and aspects of the great Mother Goddess. Briffault connects the following functions with the Primitive Goddess: (1) Mother of God and Primal Ancestress; (2) Mother of Animals; (3) Mother of Corn and Fertility; (4) Mother Earth. [III 47-61]. The Goddess is associated with diseases and evil, both in sending them and healing from them. [III 49]
woman tabooed
According to Briffault, the first taboo was the taboo on blood issuing from women, whether it be the virginal blood of the ruptured hymen, menstrual blood, or the blood shed at the act of birth-giving. All these kinds of lochial blood are identical in the original conception. Premature births and all issues of blood are treated as regards tabu in the same manner as full-time births, and the reference to the cause of the tabu is always to the lochia and not to the child. [II 366]. Menstruation is, according to the ideas of many uncultured peoples, as in the latest views of physiologists, regarded as a form of pregnancy; the foetus is, it is very generally supposed, formed out of the menstrual blood, and menstruation is merely a form of abortion in which the foetus is not properly formed or developed, or is, as it is popularly called, a ‘moon-calf’. [II 584]
The tabus on certain women, on women in certain situations, namely, during and after parturition, and during menstruation, are the most invariable and the most strictly observed of all the tabus of primitive humanity. [II 366]. Menstruating women or menstrual blood are taboo and dangerous. [II 386-390]. Women are taboo during menstruation and in the puerperal state. They have to abide in special huts and they must live secluded for some days. They are subject to special dietary regulations or to fasting. Often the woman may not touch the food or male implements with her own hands. Sometimes the first menstruation of a girl is stressed. Women at the time of childbirth were expelled and the child is born in the open air. [II 366-390]. A related motif must be the birth of children in a desert.
Often the wife and the husband separate during pregnancy and suckling. Sometimes the man cannot see his child in the first years of its life. It is a very general rule that all cohabitation must cease when a woman becomes pregnant, or at any rate during the later months of pregnancy, and the separation between her and her husband is commonly observed during the whole time that she is nursing the child. [II 391]. Children are often suckled for three to seven years. [II 390-397].
The separation of husband and wife during menstruation and pregnancy is usually interpreted as due to an aversion towards menstruating from the side of the men, but this is unjustified. The savage has no feeling for ‘natural disgust and repulsiveness’. Among all animals the female admits the male at such times only as she is prepared for the exercise of his function. [II 400]. The initiative for the separation was originally taken by the women as a natural, in-born characteristic. As among all mammals, the restrictions on sexual intercourse operate not only at the menstrual period, but also while the females are pregnant and while they are suckling. The sole difference between the biological and the human restrictions is that the latter have become formulated as established prohibitions and tabus and form part of the traditional social heredity of human societies. [II 403]. [II 397-412]. The foregoing facts and considerations, taken together, point to the conclusion that the veto imposed by women upon the masculine impulses during their periodical unfitness for sexual functions was the earliest formulated prohibition imposed upon the operation of sexual instincts, and embodied in human tradition. It was therefore the prototype of all such prohibitions or tabus. [II 417]. The menstrual tabu was the type of all taboo prohibitions. [II 412-417].
The taboo state is signified by marking a person or an object with blood or red paint. A manslayer is painted red, for instance. [II 412f.]. Blood, as one of the forms of the vital principle, or soul, has a special significance of its own, and the practice of painting corpses and bones red, which is well-nigh universal in primitive society, and has been so from the earliest ages in Europe, may be regarded as connected with that special aspect of it. [II 413]
lunar religion
We have now reviewed the original supremacy of the woman in power in all aspects of society, as well as provided a sketch for the development of marriage. We have also seen the taboo on bleeding women and the magical states of the woman. All these characteristics of ‘primitive woman’ culminate in moon worship, which may be called the mythological aspect of matriarchal society. Just as the primitive woman, it is shown that the great Goddess too possesses ‘lunar’ attributes. [III 62-184]. Moon religion can be traced along two different lines.
I: SYMBOLISM OF THE MOON
The appearance and behaviour of the moon are interpreted in a symbolical way, from which the original ‘moon cult’ can be reconstructed, consisting of belief in immortality and rites of initiation by death and resurrection, mortal combat, and so on. [II 678-787].
immortality
The lunar cycle gives rise to the notion of the moon god’s supposed immortality. The moon is associated with time, fate and immortality. [II 600-603]. The moon is the patron of immortality, as it renews its life. [II 651-660].
As the moon shares this feature with the serpent, which rejuvenates by sloughing its skin, the moon is also consistently described as a serpent. The serpent is associated with the same phenomena as the moon and is an interchangeable symbol for the moon:
• The serpent and the moon are associated. [II 641-663]
• The serpent is associated with rejuvenation by sloughing the skin. [II 641-651]. The serpent is in all primitive thought, as well as in later symbolism, the emblem of immortality. [II 641]. The gift of renewed life, the hope of the resurrection and the life everlasting, are thus indissolubly connected in the most intimate beliefs of peoples in the five parts of the world with the moon and with the serpent. The two are in those beliefs interchangeable. [II 660]. By uncultured peoples the serpent is thought to be the only animal, with the exception of lizards and other reptiles, and also crabs, which are regarded as equivalent, that possesses the gift of immortality, because, instead of dying, it changes its skin. [II 641]
• The serpent is the husband of all women, controlling menstruation, deflowering and impregnating them. [II 664-669]. The serpent is associated with water, rain and storm. [II 670-673]. The notion that women are liable to be assaulted by serpents has been thought to have its origin in the phallic shape of the animal, and that idea is undoubtedly present in those world-wide beliefs … But the phallic form of serpents is probably not the primary ground for the notion that women are liable to be assaulted by them; for the same thing is imagined, in parts of the world where there are no serpents, with reference to lizards and other animals which are understood to change their skins. [II 667f.]
rivalling twin brothers
The varying degrees of black and white surface on the moon during the lunar cycle are interpreted as a combat of two rivalling lunar divinities. They are often described as twin brothers. Often one of them is white, the other black, one good, the other bad, one of them swallows the waters as a serpent or frog, the other has horns. It is a characteristic of lunar gods that, although they are engaged in mortal combat, they are never killed, or their death is only temporary. [II 732]. The fraternal combatant was originally the dark aspect of the moon, but came to be replaced by the sun in younger myths: The moon used to be more prominent than now, sometimes rivalling the sun. [II 577-582]. Although the brothers are sometimes identified as sun and moon, originally they were the full moon and the new moon. In Persian religion, as in most other religions, the dissociated good principle became identified with the sun, ‘the conqueror’, and dark, fatal, inexorable aspects were left in their old association with the lunar powers. [III 113 note 2]
magic
Due to the power of rejuvenation, the moon was conceived as the first magician. The moon is everywhere regarded as exercising a dangerous, dreaded, and malignant influence, and the dangers arising from that evil influence are considered to be greatest during certain phases of the lunar cycle. [II 429]. The moon is associated with evil and dread. [II 572-577]. Abstention from work was practiced on the days of the new moon, and sometimes of the full moon as well. This is connected with the supposed evil effects of the moon on those days[3]. [II 433-439]. The moon is the lord and teacher of wizards, witches and shamans. [II 597-600]
circular god
The orbital form of the full moon is the root of the idea that the moon god is a head, a ball, a wheel, and so on. The twin brothers were often represented by stones or heads, gemstones, indicating the lunar shape. [II 678-787]
crescent
The crescent form of the moon would have been the primary origin of the mythology of the bull. Many male gods were bulls. [III 192-194]. The bull is an obvious emblem of generative power. Not only is it representative of masculine procreative force, but as the usual drawer of the plough among agricultural peoples, the bull is also apt to be regarded as fertilising the earth. [III 194]. Bulls are, in fact, specially connected with the transfer of agricultural work from the women to the men; for as cattle are generally regarded in pastoral societies as appertaining prescriptively to the men, the yoking of oxen to the plough marked the turning-point in the transfer of agriculture to the men who drove them. [III 194]. But although the bull is a natural emblem of fertilising power, it appears, I think, conclusively that the primary ground for the equation and for the widespread identification of gods with bulls was the assimilation of the horned animal to the moon. [III 194]
II: COINCIDENCE OF THE LUNAR CYCLE AND THE MENSTRUATION CYCLE
The coincidence of the duration of the lunar cycle with that of the menstruous cycle in the woman is largely exploited to link the lunar divinity with the woman. Menstruation is called ‘the moon’ or associated with the moon. [II 431-432]. Menstruation in the human female is but a manifestation, which happens to be the only conspicuous one, of a monthly periodicity which affects all vital functions whatsoever … and there can be little doubt that a similar periodicity exists in the male. [II 431 note 3]. The actual connection between the physiological and the lunar cycle is in all probability due, as Darwin suggested, to the fact that animal life developed during the greater part of its evolution in the sea … Thus in several polychaete annulates, spawning occurs at regular intervals during the breeding season at the new and at the full moon. The reproductive functions of sea-urchins are found to correspond with the phases of the moon … Algae likewise exhibit a lunar reproductive rhythm. [II 429f.]
Hence, all features associated with the precivilised woman are transferred to the moon. The attributes of the moon in primitive thought are not the products of a poetical symbolism of natural phenomena, but are the transferred characters, functions, and activities of primitive woman, which are regarded as being derived from, and controlled by the magic power of the moon. The moon is everywhere regarded as the counterpart of women, their special deity, the controller of their being and the source of their powers. [II 638f.]. The moon deity is associated with spinning and weaving, or with a spider. [II 624-628]. The moon deity was a basket or pot maker. [II 626]. The moon deity is associated with fire and cooking. [II 626-628]. The moon is the deity of women. [II 639-640]. In carrying firewood or charcoal, as in carrying pitchers, in cooking, spinning, weaving, the man in the moon but conforms to the law by which he assumes every feminine occupation. [II 628]
Briffault’s argument is not tenable in its entirety, however. First, the majority of deities whose myths and forms are deemed ‘lunar’ by Briffault, are not explicitly identified with the moon in any religious tradition known to us. They certainly may have been lunar in spite of this lack of evidence, but the argument is an argumentum e silentio. And second, a significant number of lunar traditions do not find any ‘natural’ explanation in the moon’s behaviour:
• Briffault clearly acknowledges the connection of the moon with all sorts of moisture, notably water, sperm, and plant juice; the association of the moon with the frog also belongs in this context. [II 632-639]. The frog, often interchangeable in myth not only with the toad, but also with the dragon, is a universal emblem of water and of the moon. [II 634]. The function of the moon as controller of atmospheric conditions persists amongst ourselves in the common notion that there exists a relation between the changes in the weather and the phases of the moon. The belief, like other survivals of primitive thought, such as the notion that marriage between near kin is injurious to their offspring, is often seriously regarded as having the status of a fact; and professional meteorologists and astronomers have gone to infinite trouble to investigate it and to demonstrate that it is devoid of foundation. [II 637]. The deluge was connected with the moon. [II 573]. The prominent place which the story of the flood occupies in most mythologies is in all probability due not so much to any particular dread of the damage caused by inundations as to the direct association of those events with the moon, which is universally held to control all waters, floods being, therefore, a characteristic manifestation of her destructive and maleficent character. [II 573]
Briffault does not give an adequate explanation for this association, however: It is anything but obvious on grounds of mere nature symbolism why the moon should be universally and indissolubly associated with the control of water and moisture. That, as has frequently been suggested, the occasional presence of dews and damp mists on moonlight nights should have compelled all peoples in every quarter of the globe to recognise the moon as the source and ruler of all waters, including the ocean, appears improbable. The connection between the moon and the tides appears to be unknown to the majority of uncultured peoples. [II 637f.]. The archetypal moisture issuing from the moon must be compared with the lochial issues, such as the menstrual blood and the foetal water.
• The moon was the real husband of all women, controlling menstruation, deflowering and impregnating women or virgins, or revealing the future husband to them. [II 583-592]
• The moon is variously male and female. [II 593-597]. The ‘bisexual’ character of primitive deities is not the expression of a transcendental conception of metaphysical hermaphroditism, but a natural result of the combination of male attributes and feminine interests in the primitive lunar deity and of the facile inconsistency of primitive thought and tradition. [III 47]. All spirits, personifications, or gods are, in primitive mythology, conceived as males or as females, as suits the particular occasion, and there is no incongruity in primitive thought in one and the same power being represented at one time as a male and at another as a female. That does not mean that the personified power is thought of as bi-sexual or a-sexual; the sexual character and functions of primitive deities are, on the contrary, strongly emphasised. But primitive mythical conceptions not being a fixed and critical system of theology, everyone is at liberty to regard a given power as male or female, as the ideas connected with it appear to demand, and primitive beliefs or logic are not shocked by the same power being represented at one time as a female and at another as a male, or as two coexistent personifications respectively, male and female. [II 592f.]. This is not necessarily right. The notion of a ‘really’ androgynous being was part and parcel of the most archaic religions that we know of, and must have formed part of the archetypal religion.
• The moon is conceived as a triple being. [II 603-608]. Reference to the ‘three phases’ of the moon is an inadequate explanation for this belief, as the delineation of the moon’s phases in a number of three is an arbitrary feature, not inherent with the morphology of the moon itself.
• The moon is associated with frenzy, madness and ecstasy. [II 608-610]
• The moon deity was associated with canine animals. [II 610-611]
• The moon deity was associated with hares. [II 611-621]. The original relation of the hare to the lunar deity was, there can be little doubt, sacrificial. [II 619]
• The moon deity was associated with feline animals. [II 621-623]
• The moon is associated with trees and vegetation, and with the juices springing therefrom. [II 628-632] … and the fire-wood of the man in the moon has baffled the ingenuity of interpreters. [II 627]. Sap is supposed to rise and fall with the phases of the moon; hence it is a technical rule that in order to obtain dry timber it must be felled at the waning of the moon. [II 631]. As the source of moisture and of vegetation the moon is specially connected with the sap of plants and with all fluids that exude from them; hence the sacred character of gums, resins, and incense. They were regarded as the special vehicles of the magic and prophetic powers derived from the moon. [III 133]. When the juice of a plant is observed to give rise to symptoms of intoxication, symptoms which are identified with the state of inspiration, enthusiasm, ecstasy or divine madness due to the moon, that vegetable fluid is naturally regarded as rich in the divine essence. [III 133]
• The moon is associated with a cross. The cross seems to be uniformly regarded as symbolic of infinite extension in all directions and, by analogy, of eternal life. [II 750]. The form of nature worship with which the sign of the cross appears to be more especially connected is primitive cosmic lunar religion. [II 750]
• So-called wind gods are generally moon-gods, the winds being, like all atmospheric disturbances, regarded as manifestations of the moon. [III 68 note 5]
Third, the appearance of the moon alone would not have given rise to the idea of a mortal combat between brothers: the black half of the moon hardly suggests a personality, and the waxing and waning of the moon take place so slowly as to hardly have been able to have suggested the idea of a fierce battle to the first sky-watchers. The swallowing of the waters and of the ‘white’ Hero is a universal motif in the mythology of the dragon combat, but neither the waters nor the existence of the ‘white’ Hero in the monster’s interior do have a clear match in the moon’s appearance.
Just as the sun cult must be seen as a transformation of a pre-existing moon cult, we would like to suggest that the moon cult must be seen as the transformation of a still more primitive cult, in which the gods and their archetypal deeds referred to other phenomena than sun and moon. Briffault’s statement - The interest and importance which attach to the superstitious, magical, or quasi-religious conceptions of uncultured peoples concerning the moon lie in the fact that they constitute the first germ of a cosmic religion. [II 674] - is therefore not acceptable. In Briffault’s opinion nature worship was not the beginning of religion, only the moon. Most natural objects were thought to be animated, but no religion would grow from this general conception. [II 675]. It makes no sense, however, why the cycle of the moon would have had the ability to evolve into a religion, whereas the processes found in other natural phenomena would not.
I conclude, therefore, that the shift from a lunar religion to a solar religion, in association with a shift from matriarchy to patriarchy, is a legitimate theory, but the origin of mythology cannot be given with lunar religion or the primitive position of the woman.
union with the moon man: virginity
The male moon god is of key importance, as Briffault acknowledges when talking about the Goddess: Her primitive character, which was never forgotten, was preserved above all by her relation to the male god with whom she was associated. The gods who accompany the Great Mothers are not merely male counterparts of her; they are not her ‘husbands’. With divine pairs that are purely male and female aspects of the same divinity, the relation is usually that of husband and wife … At other times the male and the female deity stand sharply contrasted as masculine and feminine principles, as heaven and earth, which are for the most part simply called by their own names … [III 168] … every function of woman, whether as mother, as wife, as supplier of food, as cultivator of the soil, as sorceress, witch, prophetess, or priestess, postulates her union with the god who is the bestower of those powers. [III 207]
We have seen that the moon is often conceived as a man, who exercises the first rights over all women, every woman representing the first, mythical woman in relationship to him. The moon is often regarded, like the totem, as the progenitor of the tribe; the tribe itself is with most people equivalent to mankind, and its members call themselves simply ‘men’, ignoring the rest of the human race, and regarding the diminitutive (sic!) territory which they inhabit as the universe. [II 674]. The primitive moon-god presents, indeed, the incongruity of a male who is nevertheless the patron of all the pursuits and attributes which appertain to the sphere of women. [III 46]. The male moon-god, the lover of women, is everywhere in the habit of kidnapping women; the ravished woman naturally undertakes those feminine occupations which are unsuited to a male deity. In later cultural phases the myth is commonly reversed: the female moon kidnaps a male lover, as Artemis Endymion. [III 47]
The notion of a woman’s union with the lunar god has developed in a number of different directions, which have in their final forms become so utterly distinct as to render them almost irreconcilable. This development can be sketched as follows. The sexual union of the moon god with the moon goddess is the archetypal model of all sexual unions. In this model, the moon goddess is represented by a mortal woman, and the moon god is imagined as a being partaking in divinity in any given way. Why the male participant in the myth should be divine and the female mortal is not clear; perhaps this is due to the influence of patriarchy. The archetypal myth itself does not distinguish between gods and human beings. The moon god assumes different forms:
• The moon god is believed to cohabit with a woman by means of natural phenomena, such as wind, lightning and water. In several cultures freshly married women observe rites of continence, the origin of which may be to present herself to the moon god during these days, rather than to her human husband. Nuptial continence during one or more nights is common for newly married couples among precivilised peoples. The couple are often guarded. In almost all cases prenuptial relations are completely free. [III 232-243]. It is manifest from such examples that the practice of observing continence for a certain period after marriage is unrelated in its origin to any notion concerning the meritorious character of chastity … It is not improbable that in many instances where the custom of deferring consummation of the marriage is observed, it was formerly accompanied by some form of union of the bride with a representative of the god, either in the form of indiscriminate prostitution, or by intercourse with some priest, prince, or holy man … It is not by any means invariably necessary that the divine spouse, spirit, god, or demon, should be incarnated in a human representative. [III 236ff.]. Continence is regarded as one of the conditions required for the successful carrying out of magical operations and for securing the satisfactory issue of important enterprises. It is often practised in combination with the ritual licentiousness which, in another aspect, and sometimes at a different stage of those operations, is likewise thought to promote magical efficiency. [III 353]
• The moon god is believed to cohabit with a woman by means of a rod or phallic object which is placed in the bed, particularly in marriage rites. Artificial defloration was practiced at a great scale, either with a tool or digitally, and always before marriage. Often at the same occasion women are circumcised by trimming the lesser labia and clitoris. [III 319-325]. Circumcision of girls, as is manifest from some of the examples above mentioned, is originally identical with mechanical defloration, and is often indistinguishable from it. [III 325]
• The moon god is believed to cohabit with a woman in the form of a statue or temple object, which is rubbed against the woman’s belly or forced into her vagina.
• The moon god is believed to cohabit with a woman in the form of an animal, which is called zoogamy. Women ritually have sexual intercourse with animals representing the male gods. [III 186-190]
• The moon god is believed to cohabit with a woman in the form of a male officiating priest[4]. Priests or other forms of the god, such as a sacred tree, had holy communion with women. [III 209-248]. A woman must be deflowered by a priest, king or sacred personage before marrying, the so-called jus primae noctis. [III 226-232]
• The moon god is believed to cohabit with a woman in the form of a stranger who is requested to deflower a woman, often the king, a guest, or a passing foreigner; the women often meets this man while acting as a sacred prostitute, or during festivals of sexual licence. Sexual licence was prevalent at festivals. [III 185-204]. Why should the removal of all tabus on sexual relations, and indulgence in unrestricted promiscuity be regarded as pleasant to the gods, who are generally credited with having imposed these very restrictions? … By the removal of personal claims to individual women, the latter are, as it were, offered to whomsoever it may please to take them, and therefore to the god or gods, who are given the same opportunity as any other person. [III 202f.]. Strangers uniting with women are considered gods. [III 221f.]. In many of the rites of sacred prostitution among uncultured peoples and in the ancient world, the man who is invited to take advantage of them is expressly described as a ‘stranger’. To the primitive mind there is always a possibility that a stranger may be a god in disguise, and that when the stranger is honoured, a god has been entertained unawares. [III 203]. Sacred prostitution is, in fact, the equivalent of a propitiatory and piatory sacrifice. [III 204]. Every girl was under the obligation of acting once in her life as public prostitute, often before her marriage. [III 214f., 219f.]. Mothers or fathers requested strangers, sometimes officials, to deflower their daughters. [III 222f.]. Or the bride, before her husband exercises his rights, yields herself to all the wedding guests, the so called Nasamonian custom. [III 223-226]. Sometimes the man who deflowers a girl after marriage is the husband’s father. [III 237]. The requirement that a bride should be deflowered before her marriage proceeds, as we shall see, from the dread which attaches to the haemorrhage resulting from rupture of the hymen, which is regarded as analogous to menstrual blood. A second reason for why the services of a stranger are sought by the husband is the fact that the stranger is often a priest or noble person. [III 227]
• And finally, the moon god is believed to cohabit with a woman in the form of the husband she has married himself. This interpretation seems to be late.
Briffault explains the widespread custom of prenuptial defloration as follows: virginity was feared because of the haemorrhage from hymeneal rupture, which was likened to menstruation. Girls were often deflowered before puberty. Defloration was often performed before marriage by members of the same family or clan, with whom marriage was strictly forbidden. This is probably due to the fact that these clan members were considered immune from the perils attaching to menstrual or hymeneal blood. [III 313-319]. He identifies the means by which the woman is deflowered with the mythical moon god.
Hence the conclusion is justified: Whether marriage be entered upon with the observance of strict chastity, or with rites of promiscuity, or the defloration of the bride by a sacred personage, the intention is in each case the same, namely, to secure the union, or Holy Matrimony, of the woman with the god. [III 243]
It is precisely this notion of the divine bridegroom that marked the difference between the original, secular character of the act of marriage, and the sacred character of marriage. Marriage was originally not of a religious nature and not even celebrated. [III 244]. Marriage ceremonies, where they exist as observances of a religious character among peoples of relatively advanced culture, have generally other purposes than that of establishing a fast union between the bride and bridegroom. A large proportion of marriage rites are intended to promote the fertility of the union. [III 244]. Where such a view has come to be adopted, the sacred character imparted to the transaction arises from combining the human marriage with, or assimilating it to, a Holy Matrimony. [III 245]. The religious or sacred character which the contract of marriage has assumed in the more pronounced patriarchal societies, contrasting as it does with the secular and business nature of the institution in primitive social phases, is imparted to it by the identification of the human husband with the god who is unite to the woman in earlier fertility rites; the human marriage thus becomes itself a Holy Matrimony. [III 248]
Children born from unions with the male god rather than with a mortal man are as sacred as the unions themselves. It appears that the notion of the virgin is given with this idea. The ‘virgin’ in a traditional religious sense is a free woman who has cohabited with a god and did not have children previously, not a woman who has never cohabited. The word ‘virgin’ itself has not, strictly speaking, the meaning which we attach to it; the correct Latin expression for an untouched virgin is not ‘virgo’, but ‘virgo intacta’. [III 170]. A woman who has not borne a child is usually treated in primitive societies as an unmarried girl and is called a virgin. [II 85]. It is by that dissociation from a divine consort that the rise to matriarchal predominance of the agricultural goddesses is above all characterised. They have no husband; they are ‘Virgins’. [III 169]. The character of Virgin, in its primitive sense of free and unwed, is everywhere the denotation of the independence of the goddess in the phase of her supremacy. [III 171]. The term ‘virgin’ is, of course, used in those titles in its primitive sense as denoting ‘unwed’, and connoting the very reverse of what the term has come to imply. [III 169]
Virgin-born are all those born from such a union. Their divine fathers can be wind, lightning, phallic statues, animals representing the god, priests and kings who have deflowered the woman, and strangers who have made love with the prostitute. Belief in ‘immaculate conception’ is universal. It is the usual manner in which gods and heroes are conceived even in cultural stages far above savagery. It is by no means a privilege of heroes and gods; the stories and legends of impregnation by agencies other than sexual intercourse are innumerable in all parts of the world and in all ages. [II 450f.]. Immaculate conception through dreams and visions succeeds older versions in which impregnation takes place by eating. [II 476]. Conception may take place through the operation of the moon, of the sun, by bathing in the sea or in other waters, by rain, by partaking of various foods. [II 451-455]. The notion of paternity was not generally regarded in ancient and modern times, and is not regarded by the majority of primitive peoples, as representing a physiological relation, but a social and juridic claim. A father is ‘responsible’ for a woman’s child in an economic and juridic sense; his relation to it is not founded, as is the woman’s, on physical facts. Resemblance of father and child is overlooked or otherwise accounted for. [II 445]. Children born out of wedlock were called ‘parthenioi’, that is, ‘virgin-born’, and were regarded as in every respect equal to those born in wedlock, although, as Justin says, ‘they had no father.’ (Justin, III. 4, cf. I. 6). [I 400]. Many gods were virgin-born or their ancestry was given from women. [I 400-422]. Gods and heroes are commonly referred to in Greek genealogies by the names of their mothers, as ‘Apollo, the son of Leto’, ‘Dionysos, the son of Semele’, ‘Herakles, the son of Alkmene’, ‘Achilles, the son of Thetis’, and so forth. It is true that they are also regarded as the sons of Zeus, the universal Father; but Zeus, as in some districts Poseidon, merely plays the part of a unifying principle … Such gods and heroes were in fact ‘virgin-born’ … [I 403]. In matriarchal societies it would be an inconceivable incongruity that a masculine personage should have no mother. The metaphysical notion of a self-begotten god does not enter into the conceptions of primitive theology. [III 48]
food and seed as two forms of the totem
To the savage, as Briffault argues, the merger of sperm and egg and the subsequent growth of the embryo is not a known process. Children are believed to be formed out of menstrual blood [II 442], out of the food the woman has eaten, or out of the substance with which she was impregnated by man or god. Conception is not regarded as dependent upon sexual intercourse. [II 446ff.]. The exact duration of pregnancy is often unknown. [II 447f.]
The belief that children are formed from the food that the woman has eaten is of key importance, as it suggests that seed and food are on a common level. And they are. This is where the concept of the totem comes in. The totem is a natural object which is identified as the ancestor of the clan. The clan or tribe is commonly regarded as having sprung from the union of the totem, or some othe