Abstract

Sex Predominance in Historical Development

The article presents information on the book "The Evolution of Woman: An Inquiry Into the Dogma of Her Inferiority to Man," written by Eliza Burt Gamble. Gamble's main thesis, that the change from the coordinate, if not superior, power possessed by females lit the animal kingdom, and in the early stages of savagery and barbarism, to the subjection of the sex which was introduced with the change from the matriarchal to the patriarchal form of descent, was a change for the worse, is well made out. It is possible that she exaggerates the feeling for justice and humanity possessed by women in the earlier ages of the world, and the consequently gain in the progress that would have resulted if the egotism of the males had been held more in check.