f
thought, and we may accept this direct revelation as true
from our complete confidence in this source of history."[10]

[10] _Das Mutterrecht_, Intro., p. vii.

This mystical religious element, which is the essential part of _Das
Mutterrecht_, is closely connected by Bachofen with the power of
women. As it is his belief that, even at this early period, the
religious impulse was more developed among women than men, he bases on
this unproved hypothesis his theory of women's supremacy. "Wherever
gynaecocracy meets us," he says, "the mystery of religion is bound up
with it, and lends to motherhood an incorporation in some
divinity."[11]

[11] _Ibid._, Intro., p. xv.

Doubtless this theory of a higher feminine spirituality is a pleasing
one for women--but is it true? The insuperable difficulty to its
acceptance arises, in the first place, from the fact that we can know
nothing at all of the spiritual condition of the human beings among
whom mother-kin was held first to have been practised. But we must go
further than this in our doubt. Can we accept for any period a
spiritual superiority in the character of woman over man? To me, at
least, it is clear that a knowledge of the two sexes among all races
both primitive and civilised--yes, and among ourselves, is sufficient
to discredit such a supposition.

Bachofen would have us believe that[12] the mother-right of the
ancient world, was due to a revolt of women against the degraded
condition of promiscuity, which previously had been universal among
mankind, a condition in which men had a community of wives, and
_openly lived together like gregarious animals_.

[12] _Das Mutterrecht_, Intro., p. xxiv. and p. 10.

"Women, by their nature nobler and more spiritual than men,
became disgusted with this lawless _hetairism_, and, under
the influence of a powerful religious impulse, combined in a
revolt (the first Amazonian movement) to put an end to
promiscuity and established marriage."

Over and over again Bachofen affirms this spiritual quality in women.

"The woman's religious attitude, in particular, the tendency
of her mind towards the supernatural and the divine,
influenced the man and robbed him of the position which
nature disposed him to take in virtue of his physical
superiority. In this way women's position was transformed by
religious considerations, until they became in civil life