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and still being made, by primitive man—an attempt in some respects curiously analagous[1] to the efforts to-day of beings more highly civilised.
Over the greater part of the world, from the South Pacific Islands, through Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia, Africa and America, an institution has been observed common to nearly all savage tribes called the "Man's House." The savage, instead of living a simple domestic life with wife and child, lives a double life. He has a domestic home and a social home. In the domestic home are his wife and family; in the Man's House is passed all his social civilised life. To the Man's House he goes when he attains maturity. It is his public school, his university, his club, his public-house. Even after marriage, it is in the Man's House he mainly lives. For a woman to enter the Man's House is usually tabu; the penalty is often death. Oddest of all to our minds, the Man's House is not only his social home but also his church. A woman among savages must not go to the Man's Church. To join in the mysteries of the Man's Church, or even sometimes to behold them from a distance, is to a woman death. At the sound of the church-bell, the sacred Bull-roarer, woman must flee, or fall flat with her face to the ground. The home is to us the place of hospitality for strangers. Not so for primitive man. The entertainment of strangers, all contact with and
- ↑ I should like to state distinctly that the ethnological observations introduced from time to time are to be regarded not as arguments supporting my thesis but merely as illustrations. The desirability of the emancipation of women is no wise bound up with their acceptance, and should they be discredited to-morrow or otherwise interpreted, it would remain untouched. The study of primitive custom has, however, helped me to my present point of view, and may, I hope, help others.
