Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/458

442 nation, which, though less sanguinary in its observances, had the militant structure carried out far more completely, so that its industrial organization formed part of the political organization, gave a lower status to women, who did the hard work, and who, in the upper ranks at least, had to sacrifice themselves on the deaths of their husbands.

The highest societies, ancient and modern, are many of them rendered in one way or other unfit for comparisons. In some cases the evidence is inadequate; in some cases we know not what the antecedents have been; in some cases the facts have been confused by agglomeration of different societies; and in all cases the coöperating influences have increased in number. Concerning the most ancient ones, of which we know least, we can do no more than say that the traits presented by them are not inconsistent with the view here set forth. The Accadians, who before reaching that height of civilization at which phonetic writing was achieved, must have existed in a settled populous state for a vast period, must have therefore had for a vast period a considerable industrial organization; and it seems not improbable that during such period, being powerful in comparison with wandering tribes around, their social life, little perturbed by enemies, was substantially peaceful. Hence there is no incongruity in the fact that they are shown by their records to have given their women a relatively high status: wives owned property, and the honoring of mothers was especially enjoined by their laws. Of the Egyptians something similar may be said. Their earliest wall-paintings show us a people far advanced in arts, industry, observances, mode of life. The implication is irresistible that, before the stage thus depicted, there must have been a long era of rising civilization; and since this era was passed in an isolated fertile tract, mostly surrounded by such nomadic hordes only as the deserts could support, the Egyptians were relatively strong, and may not improbably have long led a life largely industrial. So that, though the militant type of social structure evolved during the time of their consolidation, and made sacred by their form of religion, continued, yet industrialism must have become an important factor, influencing greatly their social arrangements, and diffusing its appropriate sentiments and ideas. And the position of woman was relatively good. Though polygyny existed, it was unusual; matrimonial regulations were strict, and divorce difficult; "married couples lived in full community;" women shared in social gatherings as they do in our own societies; in sundry respects they had precedence given to them; and, in the words of Ebers, "many other facts might be added to prove the high state of married life."

Ancient Aryan societies illustrate well the relationship between the domestic régime and the political régime. The despotism of an irresponsible head, which characterizes the militant type of structure, characterized alike the original patriarchal family, the cluster of