ould not come into play in a
community the members of which resembled one another so closely that all
personal characteristics were obliterated in a general monotony. One
woman was as good as another, although in all probability a healthy,
youthful and strong individual would be preferred to a sickly, puny
specimen. But apart from this, the wish to choose a partner instead of
being content with the first comer, must have coincided historically
with the outward, and later on with the inward differentiation of the
race. I cannot prove my theory by quoting chapter and verse from ancient
writers, but obviously a feeling of preference could not have arisen
until individuals had begun to show very noticeable traces of
difference. Therefore with growing differentiation a new factor--modest
at first and operating within narrow limits--the factor of choice, had
come into the sexual life. The slow development of personality gave
birth to the feeling which rebelled against universal sexual intercourse
and gynecocracy in general. The men desired to shape their own world;
they had no share in the immortality of maternal life. As (relatively
speaking) single individuals they stood over against the material bond
of the generations living in the chain of the mothers. Demigods, the
sons of the gods of light and mortal mothers, were credited with the
salvation of men from a confused, chaotic existence, and the
introduction of new conditions of life, no longer based on the dictates
of nature but on the moulding genius of man. "Hercules, Theseus and
Perseus overthrew the ancient powers of darkness. They laid the
foundations of man's great achievement, civilisation, and were the
first to worship the gods of light. They delivered humanity from the
gross materialism in which it had hitherto been steeped; they were the
awakeners of spiritual life, which is a higher life than the life of the
senses; they were as incorruptible as the sun from whence they came, the
heroes of a new civilisation distinguished by gentleness, a higher
endeavour and a new dispensation." (Bachofen.)

Heinrich Schurtz has proved (though not in connection with matriarchy)
that side by side with the family, unions of unmarried men existed in
many countries at a very early time. The object of these unions, which
had nothing of the rigidity of blood-relationship, was fellowship. As
soon as the boys had outgrown the care of their mother they were
compelled to combine for the