The Washington herald., 1920-04-13
WOMAN'SVOTTNG.
AGEPUT AT21
England Approves One Part
Of Bill Granting Equal
Ballot Rights.
LABOR PARTY MEASURE
Million Feminine Majority
Would Rule Briton if
Fully Enfranchised.
LABOR PARTY MEASURE

4, LONDON, April .. (By mall. 1.-The
government has approved one i'm
portant provision of the pending
Labor party bill to extend equal
rights to women. It Is
the provision enfranchising all
women at 21 years Of age instead
Of 30 years.
Most of US will agree that a
woman Of 81 is at least as wise and
mature as a man Of that age, IL not
more so.
Passage Of the bill would en-
franchise 100000 new women
voters. 1t would take the pen of a
Wells perhaps to predict all that
might follow In England. Over here,
women are in the majority by quite
million. Fully enfranchised they
would be the rulers of the British
Empire.
We have so long lived in a mans
world that we all. men and women
alike, are prone to think that this
Is the only possible state of So
ciety. that nothing different, and
certainly nothing better ever has
been or ever will be evolved.
But a little reflection upon the
many rapid changes of the present.
and little dip into the past, will
open up amazing vistas of what
may yet happen.
Primitive Woman Held Her own.
We are told by ethnoIogists that
primitive woman did not always
get the worst of II. Indeed some
times she got distinctly the best
of 1t, and her side partner PLAYED
second fiddle with seeming sweet
This state of society is called the
matriarchiate or rule of the
mother-sex. and we are told II is a
stage through which most primi-
tive peoples pass. During such De-
rtods women rule. holding the posi-
tions Of power, making and enforc-
Ing the laws and Cwning the prop
erty. Descent Is traced through the
female line. the family name being
that Of the mother.
Evidences of the previous exist
ence of matriarchial conditions are
found among many tribes, and a
fairly well preserved matriarchate
has been found still existing in
several Of the more remote islands
of the Pacific Ocean and the South
Seas.
Scientists say that these matriar-
chial tribes are gentler. kindlier
and happier than their fiercer, man.
ruled neighbors. War is less IA
vored and life is held in higher es1
TEEN. There is no polygamy, no
of infants, the aged or the
sick, and, naturally, no cruelty to
women.
The matriarchiate gradually
changes into the patriarchiate or
rule of the father sex, the form of
society with which We are familiar.
Indian Women Powerful.
Many Of the American Indian
tribes in their native state gave
their women a high place. Wise old
women were often members OF the
councils of war.
Indian women could bespeak the
life Of a prisoner Of war condemned
to torture or death. 1t was under
this rule that Pocahontas saved
Capt. John Smith.
The Indian women owned all the
property, with the exception of the
actual equipment of the men. The
wigwams were theirs and even the
horses. The white men who first
tried to buy a horse from the In
dians were amazed to be gravely
referred to the women of the tribe,
for in those days European women.
especially when married, had no
property rights at all.
woman's ownership of the wig
wan was reflected in the marriage
customs Of some tribes. The union
toin
rage" At the end of the first year
IL there was no child, the marriage
could be broken. the decision rest
ing with the wife.
Egyptian Woman Active.
The most developed civilization
under matriarchial rule, was an
cient Egypt, where women were to
the last degree, active and respon-
sible. It was the ancient Egyptian
woman who inspired the wonderful
in Proverbs of the "vir-
tuous woman" whose price Is above
rubies." She bought fields, after
due consideration, spun and wove
and managed her household, and
was generally useful and impor-
tant. The only record we get OF
her husband was that he was
praised in the gates of the city and
that he safely trusted his wife! 1t
Is true ancient Egypt had a line OF
kings, but the throne passed not to
the kings son but to his nephew,
his eldest sisters son.
In history the past has a wonder
full habit of repeating itself. Old
old ideas, old laws. old
come again, with mdern
We change and
and often find ourselves
travelling back In a circle to some
thing we thought was lost in the
mists Of the far distant past.
So may 1t be once more. Women
already outrank men in numbers.
Is the matriarchiate coming again?
(Copyright, 1920, by Cross-Atlantic News