Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/779

 RELATION OF SEX TO PRIMITIVE SOCIAL CONTROL 765

with those who are most fit to exercise it. Female influence persists as a matter of habit, until, under the pressure of social, particularly of military, activities, the breaking up of the habit and a new accommodation follow the accumulation of a larger fund of social energy.

The men of any group are at any time in possession of the force to change the habits of the group and push aside any exist- ing system. But the savage is not revolutionary ; his life and his social sanctions are habitual. He is averse to change as such, and retains form and rite after their meaning is lost. We con- sequently find an expression of social respect for woman under the maternal system suggestive of chivalry, and even a formal elevation of women to authority in groups where the actual con- trol is in the hands of men.

In the Mariana islands the position of woman was distinctly superior ; even when the man had contributed an equal share of property on marriage, the wife dictated everything and the man could undertake nothing without her approval ; but, if tRe woman committed an offense, the man was held responsible and suffered the punishment. The women could speak in the assembly, they held property, and if a woman asked anything of a man, he gave it up without a murmur. If a wife was unfaithful, the hus- band could send her home, keep her property, and kill the adulterer ; but if the man was guilty or even suspected of the same offense, the women of the neighborhood destroyed his house and all his visible property, and the owner was fortunate if he escaped with a whole skin ; and if a wife was not pleased with her hus- band, she withdrew, and a similar attack followed. On this account many men were not married, preferring to live with paid women. Likewise, in the Gilbert islands a man shows the same respect to a woman as to a chief, by stepping aside when he meets her. If a man strikes a woman, the other women drive him from the tribe. On Lukunor the men used, in conversation with women, not the usual, but a deferential form of language. 1

The discoverers of tin I-Vk-mlly islands found there a king in

i WAITZ-GERI.AND, Anlhropologie dtr Naturuolker % Vol. V, pp. 107 ff.