t tightened for women.

IX. At a much later date virginity came to have a special
market-value, from which time a jealous watch began to be kept upon
maidenhood.

It seems to me of very great importance that women should grasp firmly
this truth: the virtue of chastity owes its origin to property. Our
minds fall so readily under the spell of such ideas as chastity and
purity. There is a mass of real superstition on this question--a
belief in a kind of magic in purity. But, indeed, chastity had at
first no connection with morals. The sense of ownership has been the
seed-plot of our moral code. To it we are indebted for the first germs
of the sexual inhibitions which, sanctified by religion and supported
by custom, have, under the unreasoned idealism of the common mind,
filled life with cruelties and jealous exclusions, with suicides and
murders and secret shames.

X. This intrusion of economics into the sexual relationships brought
about the revolution in the status of women. As soon as women became
sexually marketable, their early power was doomed. First came what I
hold to have been the transitional stage of the mother-age. This will
explain how it is that, even where matrilineal descent is in full
force, we may find the patriarchal subjection of women. The mother's
authority has been usurped by her male kindred, usually her brother.

XI. We have noted the alien position of the father even among peoples
at a stage of development where paternity was fully established. This
subjection, which, perhaps, would not be felt in the earlier stage of
mother-right, must have been increased by the intrusion of the
authority of the wife's male kindred. The impulse to dominate by
virtue of strength or of property possessions has manifested itself in
every age. As society advanced property would increase in value, and
the social and political significance of its possession would also
increase. It is clear that such a position of insecurity for the
husband and father would tend to become impossible.

XII. One way of escape--which doubtless took place at a very early
stage--was by the capture of women. Side by side with the customary
marriages in which the husband resided in the home of the wife,
without rights and subject to her clan-kindred, we find the practice
of a man keeping one or more captive wives in his own home for his use
and service. It will be readily seen that the special rights in the
home over these owned wives (r