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14. MONOSEXUAL DOMINANCE AND THE SEX OF MONARCHS

KINGSHIP and chieftainship are found both in Men's States and in Women's States. The general assumption has hitherto been that in a Men's State, a man, and in a Women's State, a woman, will wield the royal power. At the first glance this psychological principle seems in such perfect harmony with monosexual dominance that we are inclined to regard it as the only possible one. Monarchical authority embodies the supreme power in the State, and we feel as if this power must necessarily be wielded by a member of the dominant sex.

Among many peoples we do in fact find that the monarch is a member of the dominant sex, and the frequency of this experience has confirmed the idea that such an association is inevitable. We need offer no proof of the assertion that in Men's States the right to wield monarchical power is often restricted to men, and it will suffice to refer to counterparts in Women's States. In the kingdom of Attinga, where women held sway, it was a fundamental law that none but women could ascend the throne (Meiners). The Wabuna on the Congo were under feminine dominance, and all their chiefs were women (Schurtz). Reitzenstein says that in Khyria gynecocracy was associated with matriarchy, so that here the chief priestess was at the same time the supreme political authority. The

Gagers, too, were under feminine dominance, and were led by a queen both in peace and war. Women were dominant among the Celtae, and here the women decided the issues of peace and war and conducted parleys with the enemy. In the case of the following peoples, Women's States without exception, we are told that the supreme power was wielded by a woman chief: the Creeks, the Dyaks, the Linggans, the Winnebagos, the Balonda, the Angolans, the Chippewas. Among the Egyptians, who lived under the dominance of women for a very long time, we learn from Diodorus that the queen had more authority and was more highly venerated than the king. Erman says that women were the "nominal" monarchs of Thebae. Thus much in passing anent the Egyptian monarchs. Presently we shall have to consider the matter more fully.

Nevertheless, whether under the dominance of men or under the dominance of women, monarchical rule may take a form which, as far as sex is concerned, seems to conflict with the psychology of monosexual dominance. In the case of not a few peoples we learn that the monarch, or at any rate the person who incorporated the highest political dignity in the State, was a member of the subordinate sex. In reality, however, such a custom, despite its seeming discordance with all the trends of monosexual dominance, is an outcome of this dominance. The monarchy, as the supreme power in the State, is often regarded by the magnates of a country as a menace to their own power. When such a notion prevails, they endeavour to check the tendency of monarchical power to become absolute, by appointing as monarch a member of the subordinate sex. In many instances we are definitely

told that this was the reason for choosing a monarch of the subordinate sex. Naturally, however, the need for the maintenance of the dynasty may play its part.

Thus on the one hand we may find monosexual dominance pushed to an extreme where it is taken as a matter of course that the monarch shall be a member of the dominant sex. Conversely we may find that a dread of the abuse of monarchical authority carries the day. In that event the royal power is entrusted to a member of the subordinate sex.

Meiners[1] informs us that some of the earlier nations of America, "among whom women were despised and ill-treated, nevertheless appointed women as their ostensible rulers." He says that this choice of women as monarchs is referable to the mutual jealousies of the nobles, who were unwilling to concede the royal dignity to any one of their number, and therefore preferred to entrust it to a woman as less likely to restrict their powers. Meiners[2] says the same thing concerning the inhabitants of the East Indies and concerning those of the South Sea Islands. Although in domestic life they despised and oppressed women, they had women as rulers, or at least honoured certain women as queens.

As a counterpart to these Men's States in which women were monarchs, we find Women's States in which men were chieftains or kings. Among the Iroquois in the days of the dominance of women, the choice of ruler was entirely in the women's hands. They chose a prince, and Morgan tells us that they were careful to avoid appointing the most efficient among their men lest he should secure too much power

[1] Geschichte, vol. i, p. 53; History vol. i, p. 44.

[2] Geschichte, vol. i, p. 100; History, vol. i, p. 85.

for himself. Thus the prince or chieftain was a pseudo-ruler. The reports of Lafitau show that the Iroquois women were the sole repositories of political power. The councils consisted of women; the women decided questions of war and peace; they guarded the State treasures; the prisoners were handed over to them. Writing of the Garos, Le Bon says that among them in earlier days a woman was at the head of each clan, but that now the chieftain is a man, who is, however, unable to act without the permission of the women and their council. Meiners says that the queens of some of the southern Asiatic realms, and especially of Patani and Malacca in the Malay Peninsula and of Achin in Sumatra, were shadow queens rather than true monarchs. These instances are probably the obverse of those just mentioned.

In Sparta the monarchical authority was wielded by men at a time when the predominance of women prevailed. A passage in Aristotle's writings shows clearly that the Spartan women exercised the leadership in political matters, for he says that the Lacedæmonians owed most of their institutions in the days of their supremacy to women. He also writes: "Contentious and warlike nations such as the Lacedæmonians are always under women's rule." The political power of the Spartan women is shown by a passage in Plutarch's life of Agis, which proves that the women exercised the powers of aristocracy as well as those of democracy. "The women decided in favour of Agis (who wished to re-establish equality; but others turned to Leonidas, in order that he might countermine the plans of Agis, for these women saw that equality was a menace to their prestige, their power, and their wealth. . . . Subsequently the mass of the people

took the side of Agis."[3] This Spartan Women's State would seem to have had males almost exclusively as monarchs.

We have also records of peoples among which, at least for certain periods, the supreme authority was vested in a duarchy consisting of a man and a woman. In the case of the Hittites there is definite evidence that the king and the queen ruled as equals. We referred on page 156 to the silver tablet recording the treaty of 1290 B.C. between the Hittites and the Egyptians. The pictures on the tablet indicate that the Hittite king and the Hittite queen were co-equal in position as representatives of their nation. According to Müller-Lyer, among the Ashantis a queen ruled the women subjects while her brother held sway over the males. In the Pelew Islands, where political power was vested in the women, the actual rulers of the community were a pair of chieftains, one male and the other female. Among the Wyandots (Hurons), the women were likewise supreme in political matters. They elected chieftains of both sexes, with a marked preponderance of women, for every tribal council consisted of forty-four females and eleven males. Here, again, we see the obverse of the distribution of political power with which we are familiar in our own land.

According to Waitz[4] among the Micronesians the supreme ruler was a woman, but subordinate to her were male chiefs. When disputes arose among the chiefs, the decision of the queen was final, and she also had the last word in questions of war and peace. Her authority was that of an absolute monarch. Among

[3] Schulte-Vaerting, op. cit., pp. 181 et seq.

[4] Op. Cit., vol. v, p. 123.

the Germans all the empresses of the Saxon and Franconian house had a legal right to share in the powers of government.[5] The right has now passed into complete oblivion, for history is written by Men's-State investigators, who turn their blind eye towards such facts.

Seeing that, in less than a thousand years, a right confirmed by written history, the right of women to share in the monarchical power, can be so utterly forgotten in the land where that right prevailed, we have a standard by which to measure the amount of credence to be given to modern reports of foreign monarchical institutions dating sometimes from thousands of years back. For centuries the records of history and tradition have been passing through the filter of masculine dominance, and this has—we might almost say, perforce—tended to extract from the stream all the details disharmonious with the dominance of men. Concurrently with a change in sex dominance, there occurs something more than a change in the mutual relationships of the sexes, and something more than a change in their physiological and mental constitutions. We find also that historical records undergo modification to adapt them to the new conditions.

These trends must always be taken into account in our study of Egyptian lore. There has come down to us a certain amount of definite evidence to show that the queens of Egypt had more power than the kings. We have already quoted Diodorus' statement that in Egypt the queen was more powerful than the king, and was more highly honoured. In documents of as late as the Ptolemaic age the queen is named before the king, for we read: "In the reign of Queen

[5] Cf. Klemm, op. cit., vol. iii, p, 265.

and King Ptolemy... ."[6] We find inscriptions beneath the statues of royal couples which show unmistakably that the chief power was vested in the queen. M. Duncker[7] reproduces inscriptions concerning King Rameses II and his queen. Over the sculptured image of the king is graved: "I come to my father in the train of the gods, whom he always admits to his presence." Over the image of the queen we read: "See what the goddess-spouse says, the queen-mother, the mistress of the world." She goes on to describe her husband, likewise, as "the lord of the world." These inscriptions indicate that the queen's position was greater than that of the king, for only in her inscription is there any reference to monarchical power. The king comes in the train of the gods; the queen is herself a goddess and the mistress of the world. The king is not called "lord" in his own inscription, for this title is merely vouchsafed him by the queen. If we may judge by the customs of our own recently defunct empire, the title given to the king by the queen was no more than a polite formality. The German emperor in whom the supreme authority was vested, was accustomed on public occasions to refer to his spouse as empress, mistress (Herrscherin), and mother of the country. But the lady had absolutely no share in the powers of government.

Here is a practical instance of the monarchical authority of the queens in ancient Egypt. After the death of his queen, Thothmes I had to abdicate in favour of his daughter Hatshepsu. The latter took over the government, although her father had at least two sons of about the same age as herself

[6] Cf. Erman and Krebs, op. cit., p. 117.

[7] Op cit., vol. i, p. 165.

According to Diodorus, Sesostris had two columns in honour of himself and his wife erected at Memphis. They were both of the same height, thirty ells in each case. The significance of this statement becomes obvious when we think of some of the monuments erected during the days of absolute monarchy in Prussia, the régime so recently overthrown. The monuments in the Siegesallee all commemorate the glories of the male Hohenzollerns; their wives being completely ignored. Even those queens who, according to the testimony of our own historians, greatly excelled their husbands in ability (we need only compare Queen Louise with Frederick William III) found no place beside their husbands in the Hohenzollern gallery. Legally, the queens had no share in the government, and were therefore unworthy to be represented side by side with the actual rulers. When we apply this experience to the interpretation of what Diodorus tells us concerning the pillars at Memphis, we may draw the conclusion that Sesostris and his wife shared equally in the royal power.

A reference is in place here to the images of the Sphinx. Of late it has been suggested that these must have been male, but it is far more probable that they were memorials of the queens. Bearing on this theory we have to remember that "lioness" was a favourite term of endearment in Egypt.[8]

A few examples may be given to show how potent the Men's-State influence has been, and still is, in obliterating the traces of the monarchical power of women in Egypt. It may be thought remarkable, in view of the extensive evidence we have adduced to

[8] Both in sport and in earnest, Egyptian women are often spoken of as the "lionesses of the Nile."

show how preponderant was the power of the queens of ancient Egypt, that contemporary Europe should be so much more familiar with the names of the kings of Egypt than with those of the queens. Manetho, the earliest known Egyptian historiographer (though he belonged to the comparatively late days of the Ptolemies, when Men's-State institutions were becoming generally diffused[9]) includes a number of women's names in his list of the Egyptian sovereigns, and tells us that the women members of the royal house always had the right of succession to the throne. Diodorus mentions five female sovereigns. It is characteristic that the names of the queens do not appear among the list of the rulers which are graven in the temples at Thebae and Abydos (Wilkinson). This one fact speaks volumes as to the credibility of the lists of monarchs, and also as to the modificatory influence of the Men's-State trend.

Speaking generally, we find that names and inscriptions in the Egyptian records have been to a great extent modified or falsified, and in some cases have been actually erased. One instance of such falsification is worth recording here, since it bears an unmistakable Men's-State stamp. In the statues of Queen Hatshepsu the feminine robes have been changed into masculine attire in order to suggest that the images represented a male ruler—presumably her successor Thothmes III. Her names, too, have been erased, and have been replaced by masculine names. Bolko

[9] The history of Cleopatra shows how strongly the Men's-State leaven was working in Ptolemaic Egypt, especially in this matter of the royal power. When her father Ptolemy Auletes died, she became queen, but only on condition that she married her younger brother Ptolemy, who was co-ruler. Wilkinson tells us that in monuments of a somewhat later date the name of her son Cæsarion is always associated with her own.

Stern actually inferred from the masculine dress of this queen that the queens as a rule wore men's clothing. This particular attempt to falsify a queen's monuments in order to make them appear to have been a king's was discovered only by chance. We naturally wonder whether there may not have been many similar falsifications which have remained undiscovered.

We may mention in passing the characteristic fact that in the eyes of Men's-State historians it does not detract in any way from the repute and prestige of King Thothmes that he should have been (as is generally supposed) the initiator of the before-mentioned falsifications, which were the outcome of his desire after the death of his spouse and sister to take her glories to himself. But what would our Men's-State historians have thought of the matter, had Thothmes been a woman instead of a man? Let us suppose that a queen, after her husband's death, had cheated concerning his great deeds, had falsified the records so that the fame of their performance might accrue to herself. Would not this instance of petty jealousy have become proverbial?

Erman exhibits similar Men's-State prejudices when he is writing of the Egyptian monarchs. He tells us that the queens were regarded as the mortal representatives of the goddess Nut. For this reason they were held in great veneration. "Sometimes the idea enhanced their political influence. Later, too, in the Saitan epoch, we find that these women are the nominal rulers of Thebae, and there is a good deal to show that once before, at the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty, they had held a similar position." Thus the female sovereigns of Thebae are spoken of

as "nominal rulers," although there is absolutely no foundation for the introduction of the adjective "nominal." Though in general Erman is free in the mention of authorities for his statements, in this instance no authority is given. When there are unmistakable historical traces of the exercise of sovereignty by women, that sovereignty is termed nominal to deprive it of significance and to promote the reader's forgetfulness.

Menes, or Mena, is spoken of as the first king of the First Dynasty. There is just as much reason to describe his wife Neithotep as a supreme ruler, for her title as queen is mentioned quite as often as Menes' title as king, and her name appears more frequently than his. It was she who had a temple built in honour of the goddess Neith. Her mausoleum appears to have been far more splendid than her husband's.

Schneider[10] is another instance. This authority openly expresses his Men's-State displeasure concerning the preponderant position of the queens. "Towards the close of the dynasty, Queen Teye, a woman of comparatively low birth, ruled over her husband and her son. The latter, Amenhotep IV, never appears without his wife. An amazing tendency to give the wife the same rights as the husband was leading to love marriages and to a sort of facultative monogamy." How can we expect that an investigator who regards as "amazing" the tendency to give women equal rights, should exhibit any understanding of the phases of women's dominance?

Here is another example of the way in which Schneider's Men's-State prejudices cloud his judgment.

[10] Kultur und Denken der alten Aegypter, p. 17.

He tells us that the reign of Queen Hatshepsu was an "emasculate period of peace." On the other hand he informs us that King Amenhotep III was a "glorious prince of peace." When a woman rules, peace is "emasculate"; when a man rules, peace is "glorious"! Thus we see that the problem as to which sex really exercised monarchical authority at one period or another throughout several thousand years—a problem already difficult—has been needlessly complicated by the Men's-State prejudices of our own Egyptologists. This much, at least, emerges from a dispassionate study, that the current assumption concerning the persistence of male monarchical authority in ancient Egypt is open to question.

The Men's-State tendency to falsify the record when evidence of female sovereignty offers itself, is manifest in relation to other lands besides Egypt. Let us consider, for example, the case of Semiramis, queen of Assyria. Whereas Herodotus and Diodorus report her doings without hesitation, Alexander Polyhistor initiated the tendency to attribute her exploits to male sovereigns. Modern historians incline, either to follow Alexander Polyhistor by adopting the Men's-State method of a transformation of sex, or else to relegate Semiramis' doings to the realm of fable. Meyer describes as "pure saga," the ascription to a woman of such a part as Semiramis is supposed to have played.

Nevertheless, the historicity of this queen whom it had been proposed to banish to the twilight of fable has of late been rehabilitated by inscriptions and other discoveries. Thereupon our Men's-State pundits seek another way out of the difficulty. Although Semiramis

did exist after all, at any rate the story of her deeds must be mythical. For instance Groebe[11] writes: "Her historicity has been confirmed by recent discoveries in Mesopotamia, but her sovereignty has been decked with fable." Gfröer[12] opines that Semiramis, is an ancient oriental name, a general term denoting the acme of the Assyrian royal power. Winckler[13] writes in a similar strain, as follows: "Sanherib, when he made his son king of Babylon, gave him the name Assurnadinsum, ix., princess (?) of heaven and earth." Extremely characteristic is Winckler's querying of the word princess, for it gives fresh proof of the way in which the Men's-State ideology can blind an investigator to the significance of Women's-State concepts. Those who wish to understand Women's-State institutions when they themselves belong to a Men's State, must imaginatively interchange the rôles of the sexes in accordance with the law of reversal we discussed in an earlier chapter." Unquestionably Sanherib gave his son the title princess to increase the young man's prestige, because at that time and in that place the feminine title of sovereignty was more highly honoured than the masculine. We can give a counterpart from the Men's State in comparatively recent times. It is recorded that when Queen Maria Theresa, sought help from Hungary against her enemies, the Hungarian nobles greeted her with the cry: "Hail to our king, Maria Theresa!" She was a woman, but they called her king instead of queen. Who can doubt that the Hungarians used the masculine denomination

[11] Handbuch für den Geschichtsunterricht.

[12] Urgeschichte des menschlichen Geschlechts. vol. i, p. 208.

[13] Altorientalische Forschungen, vols. v and vi, p. 519.

[14] Since this law had remained unnoticed until the authors of the present work drew attention to it, no one is entitled to censure the Men's-State investigators for their failure to understand. in order to pay special honour to the queen and in order to exhibit their own supreme devotion. Inasmuch as in their day sovereigns were almost invariably males, the word king was more exalted. Surely we are justified in parodying Winckler's utterance. Let us suppose that in hundreds or thousands of years from now the tide of masculine dominance has ebbed and that of feminine dominance has flowed. A woman investigator, disinterring the ancient history of Austria-Hungary, will perhaps tell her contemporaries how the Hungarian nobles exclaimed: "Hail to our king (?), Maria Theresa!"

A study of the special aptitudes of men and women, respectively, for reigning and ruling must be postponed to another book. John Stuart Mill, Fourier, and others, consider that women's capacity in this respect is superior to that of men. Platen goes so far as to say: "Ever and again women have founded powerful realms, for they excel men in wisdom." All that has been written in the present work must serve to emphasise the warning against being too ready to attribute differences between the sexes to inborn biological causes. Enough, for the nonce to remind the reader of this warning in connexion with any such assumption that women have by nature a peculiar gift for reigning and ruling.