Man & woman : a study of human secondary sexual characters.

  • Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939
Date:
1926
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Man & woman : a study of human secondary sexual characters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Patagonians, the women are as large as the men. So among the Afghans, with whom the women in certain tribes enjoy a considerable amount of power. Even among the Arabs and Druses it has been noted that the women are nearly as large as the men. And among Russians the sexes are more alike than among the English or French.1 The militant side of primitive culture belongs to the men; the industrial belongs to women. The characteristic implement of women is not a weapon, but that knife called by the Eskimo the “ ulu ” or woman’s knife, which is used primitively for all manner of industrial purposes, and which still survives among European women as the kitchen chopping knife.2 The man undergoes the fatigue of hunting, and when he has thrown the game at a woman’s feet his work is done; it is her part to carry it and to cook it, as well as to make the vessels in which the food is placed. The skins and the refuse are hers to utilise, and all the indus¬ tries connected with clothing are chiefly in her hands.3 The domestication of animals is usually in women’s hands. They are also usually the primi¬ tive architects; the hut in widely different parts of the world—among Kaffirs, Fuegians, Polynesians, Kamtschatdals—is built by women. Women are everywhere the primitive agriculturists, though the 1H. Schaaffhausen, “ Die beiden menschliche Gesch- lechte,” Anth. StucLien, Bonn, 1885. 3 See an elaborate study by Prof. Otis T. Mason of '* The Ulu, or Woman’s Knife of the Eskimo,” Report of the United States National Museum, 1890. * There are, as ever, exceptions. In East Central Africa, for example, all the sewing for their own and the women’s garments is done by the men, and very well done; “neater tailors than Africans it would be impossible to find anywhere,” says Macdonald. Sewing is here so emphatically recognised as men’s work, that a wife may obtain a divorce if she “ can show a neglected rend in her petticoat.” (Macdonald, “ East Central African Customs,” Journal Anthropological Insti¬ tute, Aug. 1892, pp. 102-110.)