the field,
called out, "Oh, look at the Gobble-gobble,"--the name by which he
called the male-turkey. The cock, his great tail spread, his throat
swelling, was swaggering across the field, making an immense amount of
noisy disturbance. A group of females and young birds, many of them
almost full grown, were near to where we were sitting; they had been
rooting about in the ground getting their food. Their fear at the
approach of the strutting male was manifest. All the band gathered
together, with the young in the centre, led and flanked by the
mothers. As the male continued to advance upon them they retreated
further and further, and finally took harbour in a barn. Here the
swaggerer tried to follow them, but the rear females turned and faced
him and drove him off.

I had found the clue that I was seeking. All I had been reading now
had a clear meaning for me. In my delight, I laughed aloud. I saw the
egoism of the solitary male; I knew the meaning of the females'
retreat; they were guarding the young from the feared attacks of the
father. I realised how the male's unsocial conduct towards his
offspring had forced the females to unite with one another. The cock's
strength, the gorgeous display of sex-charms, were powerless before
this peaceful combination. He was alone, a tyrant--the destroyer of
the family. But I saw, too, that his polygamous jealousy served as a
means to the end of advance in progress. It was the male's non-social
conduct that had forced social conduct upon the females. And I
understood that the patriarchal tyrant was just the one thing I had
been looking for. My belief in mother-power had gained a new and, as I
felt then in the first delight of that discovery, and as I still feel,
a much surer, because a simpler and more natural foundation.

Having now defined my position, and having related how such conviction
came to me, let me proceed to examine the causes that would lead to
the assertion of women's power, in the aboriginal family group. From
what has been said, the following conditions acting on the women, may,
it is submitted, be fairly deduced.

1. In the group, which comprised the mothers, the adult
daughters, and the young of both sexes, the women would live
on terms of association as friendly hearth-mates.

2. The strongest factor in this association would arise from
the dependence of the children upon their mothers; a
dependence that was of much longer dur