ins,
we may readily understand why most of the canons of morality are
functions of the katabolic male activity. Theft, arson, rape,
murder, burglary, highway robbery, treason, and the like, are natural
accompaniments of the more aggressive male disposition; the male is
_par excellence_ both the hero and the criminal. But on the side of
the sex we might expect to find the female disposition setting the
standards of morality, since reproduction is even a greater part of
her nature than of man's. On the contrary, however, we find the male
standpoint carried over and applied to the reproductive process, and
the regulation of sex practices transpiring on the basis of force. In
the earliest period of society, under the maternal system, the woman
had her own will more with her person; but with the formulation of a
system of control, based on male activities, the person of woman was
made a point in the application of the male standpoint. "The wife,
like any other of the husband's goods and chattels, might be sold or
lent."[205] "Even when divorced she was by no means free, as the tribe
exercised its jurisdiction in the woman's affairs and the disposal of
her person."[206] Forsyth reports of the Gonds that

infidelity in the married state is ... said to be very rare;
and, when it does occur, is one of the few occasions when
the stolid aborigine is roused to the extremity of passion,
frequently revenging himself on the guilty pair by cutting off
his wife's nose and knocking out the brains of her paramour
with his ax.[207]

The sacrifice of wives in Africa, India, Fiji, Madagascar, and
elsewhere, upon the death of husbands, shows how completely the person
of the female had been made a part of the male activity. Where this
practice obtained, the failure of the widow to acquiesce in the habit
was highly immoral. Williams says of the strangling of widows by the
Fijians:

It has been said that most of the women thus destroyed are
sacrificed at their own instance. There is truth in this
statement, but unless other facts are taken into account it
produces an untruthful impression. Many are importunate to
be killed, because they know that life would henceforth be to
them prolonged insult, neglect, and want.... If the friends
of the woman are not the most clamorous for her death, their
indifference is construed into disrespect either for her late
husband or his friends.[208]