Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/423

 MR. STUART-GLENNIE ON THE

ORIGINS OF MATRIARCHY.

O the second volume of Miss Garnett's Women of Turkey and their Folk-lore ("Jewish and Moslem Women"), Mr. Stuart-Glennie has added a study on the "Origins of Matriarchy", in which he treats this puzzling institution as an exemplification of his general theory of the origins of civilisation, and seeks support for his contention in the folk-tale. His argument thus has especial interest for folk-lorists, and, pending a detailed notice of the work to appear shortly in, I wish to call attention to the importance of the points raised by Mr. Stuart-Glennie.

As is well known, Mr. Stuart-Glennie seeks the determining impetus towards our present state of civilisation in the relations between primitive white races (whom he designates Archaian) and coloured races of an altogether inferior mental and moral strain. These relation swere invariably ones of subordination on the part of the lower races. But this subordination varied in degree, and was at times and in places consistent with marriage between women of the higher and men of the lower race. In these cases the wife would retain such political, social, and personal rights as we find in matriarchal communities. To verify the hypothesis, Mr. Stuart-Glennie analyses the folk-lore relating to marriage of the peoples living around the eastern Mediterranean, under three heads: (1) Family usages; (2) marriage sanctions; (3) wedding ceremonies. Historically, as he points out, the patriarchal family has been the dominant type in this region for over 2,000 years; yet, in spite of this, the folk-lore presents marked matriarchal features. Thus, the chief sanctions of the patriarchal