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"THE BRIDE GETS A SHOWER, "MAN IS INCOMPLETE
UNTIL HE'S MARRIED, Generations of comics have paid the bills with jokes about reluctant grooms and man-hungry spinsters. But it wasn't always so; there was a time when men couldn't get married fast enough. Granted, it was in the dim and distant past (anything from 25,000-30,000 years ago) but their eagerness would have stemmed from similar desires for security and position as might have fluttered in the heart of any Victorian miss or marriage-hungry maiden. |
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Overwhelming evidence from archeology, history, mythology and persistent customary practices demonstrate that for a period of perhaps 25,000 years the supreme diety was female. Women were conduits for her power and all life was thought to flow into, through and out of the female. Little distinction being made between spiritual and secular authority women not only held positions of great power but that power was passed from mother to daughter in direct line. A man ruled only when he married the source of power - he did not hold power in his own right. For this reason the power of Thutmose I, Pharaoh of Egypt in the eighteenth dynasty, was ended by his wife's death. He and his two elder children, both sons, were superseded by his teenage daughter Hatshepsut. In Imperial Rome the High Priest depended for his spiritual authority upon marriage to the High Priestess; if she died or chose to leave him then he immediately lost his position. Similairly, matrilineal inheritance, or 'Mother-right', was the rule in ancient Japan. The practice was still evident in the 3rd century AD when the death of Himeko, a priestess-queen sparked a bloody conflict that only ceased on the coronation of her eldest daughter. |
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Nor was it only women of the ruling classes who enjoyed self determination; there is abundant evidence that matrilineal
succession ensured all free women a social and economic importance. In pre-Roman Latium each land holding, or latifundia, originally
belonged to a female householder; the shared root for both country and homestead being Lat - the Goddess.
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It was a favorite idea of nineteenth century scholars. that in our progression from ape tribes to the pinnacle of Victorian Empire humans had passed through a period in which the animalistic male was defeated and excluded from power by the more civilised females. Eventually man overthrew this order and the full flowering of civilization began with women, as the tender sex, providing succour and a softening influence. Evidence of Goddess worship and the matrilineal societies associated with her can be found all over the world, but they do not occur at the same time. Human societies were developing at such different speeds throughout the world that as Egyptian civilisation was peaking and Hammurabi was instituting the first known legal system the Bronze Age Britons were building Stonehenge. Consequently a universal, uniform system is wildly improbable The question of male subjection and the treatment a husband could expect from his householding wife is a slightly thornier one. It would be simplistic to think that matriarchal marriages must have been a mirror image of patriarchy with men legally deprived of any rights or individuality. To do so is to assume that male/female conflict is so 'inevitable' and 'natural' that we can only live in conflict and must therefore always have done so. |
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Having said that, mythological tales and historical evidence do attest to the ritual sacrifice of young men in early cultures; usually on an annual basis when the most beautiful youth would be chosen to have sex with the Goddess or her priestess representative before being killed. This practice was replaced in almost every civilization by symbollic offerings and the average, homely husband had little to fear. However, the impact of being considered expendable must have been as massive for ancient man as it later has been for women. Male expendability was based upon two premises: First, that the biological survival of a group depends upon the number and fertility of its adult females. (A herd of cows, for example, needs only one bull to fertilize them all.) Second that knowing who had fathered a child was of relatively little importance. As a result female monogamy and chastity were unimportant. Consequently marital arrangements for those ancient wife-seekers were frequently flexible, with the woman free to change partners , woo new lovers or make polyandrous alliances. As a man's security depended on his ability to stay wed it seems that the first laws of marriage were designed to ensure monogamy - thus preventing his replacement with a newer model. Monogamous marriage allowed a man to bind a woman, her property and her children to him. |
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With the rise of phallocentric societies wealth and status began to be passed through the male line and it became increasingly important to know who had fathered a child. Marriage became a convenient to enforce monogamy and assume control of the land. For women monogamy and obedience replaced sexual freedom and self-determination. By the same token the pre-Hellenic GoddWhen Hapshepsut had ruled Egypt women were so autonomous that they could legally charge interest on money loaned to their husbands. A mere 1500 years later Egyptian women were not merely the property of their spouse or male relatives; they were actually not recognized as having a seperate self. They were legally part of their father's or husbands; like an extra foot. Godess culture considered monogamy to be a sin. But within a few centuries the Hellenic patriarchy had seized every opportunity to enforce monogamy and Aristotle was teaching that a husband should be twice the age of his bride so that he could dominate her more effectively. |
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That is not to say that Christianity defined men as good and women as evil. Women, in fact, were so polluted that celibacy was the only safe course. Marriage perpetuated the wickedness of women and allowed them to dominate and defile men through sex. The act of giving birth, the primal source of female power, was reviled as an occurence "between feces and urine". So unwilling were the early churchmen to legitimate any union between man and his foul companion that no official Christian marriage sacrament exsisted before 1563, and it was not until 1753 that marriages in England were declared illegal without a church blessing. Christian women retained independence within non-sanctified unions. Quite the contrary. The entwined nature of church and state and the supremacy of Christian moral attitudes meant that the Church could have its cake and eat it too. It was able to continue the vilification of women by refusing to officially sanction marriage while simultaneously controlling the institution through its teachings and edicts. |
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These teachings made it quite clear that women were to be totally subject to masculine control and beaten soundly to ensure compliance. A wife was to be chastised "out of charity and concern for her soul". One Russian Pope discouraged husbands from using a stick, which is more likely to cripple or kill, and suggested that they "Keep to a whip and choose carefully where to strike: a whip is painful and effective." While all marriages must not have been loveless enslavements, all the pieces were in place for them to commonly become so. Given the disempowering nature of marriage it might seem amazing that women were ever so willing to wed that the eager bride became a comedy standard. However, while a Christian wife had no rights over her body, children or even her soul, the prospect was even bleaker for an unmarried woman. |
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As patriarchal laws took property from the hands of women and gave it to men so women were rendered economically powerless without male support. They became pawns in power alliances and enforced marriages were commonplace. Girls were often married off at too young an age to protest, but those older ones who did were frequently threatened or beaten into submission by their relatives. Socially a spinster was either reviled as a dangerous 'loose-cannon' who lacked the restraint of male authority or pitied as a failure. Poor as it was, marriage was the only hope for some measure of security in a society that had no use for a single, uncontrolled female. In the contemporary world women are frequently declared to have achieved equality. Many women have the legal right to vote and work and it is true that spousal abuse and sexual discrimination are illegal in the majority of industrialized nations. However, on a global scale little has changed:
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