oward woman; for while she was the natural object of the powerful
sexual instinct she was quite as much the source of fear because she was
generally supposed to be endowed with spiritistic forces and in league
with supernatural powers. During the long period when the fact of
paternity was unrecognized, the power of reproduction which was thus
ascribed to woman alone made of her a mysterious being. Her fertility
could be explained only on the basis of her possession of an unusually
large amount of mana or creative force, or by the theory of impregnation
by demonic powers. As a matter of fact, both explanations were accepted
by primitive peoples, so that woman was regarded not only as imbued with
mana but also as being in direct contact with spirits. Many of the
devices for closing the reproductive organs which abounded among savage
tribes were imposed as a protection against spirits rather than against
the males of the human species. The tradition of impregnation by gods or
demons was not confined to savage tribes, but was wide-spread in the
days of Greece and Rome and lasted into biblical times, when we read of
the sons of heaven having intercourse with the daughters of men.

In addition to this fear of the woman as in possession of and in league
with supernatural powers, there was an additional motive to avoidance in
the fear of transmission of her weakness through contact, a fear based
on a belief in sympathetic magic, and believed with all the "intensely
realized, living, and operative assurance" of which the untutored mind
is capable. Crawley masses an overwhelming amount of data on this point,
and both he and Frazer show the strength of these beliefs. Indeed, in
many cases violation proved to be "sure death," not by the hand of man,
but from sheer fright. As a result, just as woman was considered to have
both the tendency and power to impart her characteristics through
contact, so the sexual act, the acme of contact, became the most potent
influence for the emasculation of the male.

If we wish for proof that the primitive attitude toward women was
essentially that which we have outlined, we have only to glance at the
typical taboos concerning woman found among ancient peoples and among
savage races of our own day. Nothing could be more indicative of the
belief that the power to bring forth children was a manifestation of the
possession of mana than the common avoidance of the pregnant woman. Her
mystic power is we