In the tribal phase the woman had definitely an inferior status. In the first place the division of labour had its first result the exploitation of the weaker partner. Among the hunter man had advantage over woman in every sense and she had always to depend on him for her protection. Economically too, she was at a disadvantage. She could collect only herbs which were of very little importance as compared to food and clothing collected by man.
Again pregnancy and lactation took their alternate heavy tool. Lactation, in those days was a matter of years. Women in those days became slaves. This status was the result of the lack of sympathy for women or the part of men. Marriage by capture and exogamy further depressed the status of women by separating them from their won blood and stranding them in strange tribe. Finally the women were always cooped in the family confines. Men were organized; women were not. These factor contributed to the inferior status of women. Man was the owner of the woman.
When the tribal phase passed into the high kinship phase, the status of woman did rise high. When the institution of marriage arose, there began secular struggle between man and woman which continues even to this date. We may even say that during these phase women, “the slave and the domestic utensil of the savage man” attained to a position which she has never recaptured in the course of all subsequent evolution. Among some races; during this phase she dominated men. She was the head of the family. Such institution is known as Matriarchal; and in certain other cases women also dominated the political life. We find the instances of Government of women. Women titled the soil (by primitic hoe-culture) and thus has the control of the food they grew. The cooked food, tended children and made clothing for the tribe. The marriages were arranged by the chief trainees of the lodges. The children belonged to their mothers totem and family.
In the late kinship phase there was a renewed subjection of woman. In this era, wealth as a medium of exchange was concentrated in the hands of men and hence the power and importance of men began to rise slowly. Again the scales dip deep and unequally between man and woman. The man who owns any appreciable wealth does not save for his wife inhere and kin and enter his house and more confined to the house, over whose threshold is written, “And he shall rule over them.” Matriarchal fell before the patriarchal aggression. Woman lost her common of food-supplies, her power over her children, her voice in the Councils. She is once more in strict subjection and her fate is sealed for some thousands years.
Even under the full familiar phase of society the position of women seems to be obviously unfavourable. But there are striking differences among different peoples in this respect. In some cases of matriachal traditions, women seem to have secured a position of comparative freedom and dignity, life was certainly better for them among the Egyptians than among the Hebrews, among the Spartans than among Athens. Within her sphere, however circumscribed, she received honour. But even in the most alleviated circumstances women’s lot was hard and degraded. Women’s work is paltry and deadening. The wives are personal property of men. Women are the bearers and wet-nurses of the sons and heirs of men.
The position of women remained almost the same even under the geneonomic phase (Tentons). Even the New Testament is quite explicit over this point of status or women ‘Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man.’
In short, in the great majority in uncivilized people the position of women is in greater or less degree inferior to that of man in point of personal rights.
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