It is the worst insult
one virago can cast upon another in a moment of altercation.
"Infamous woman," will she cry, "I have seen your husband
carrying wood into the lodge to make the fire. Where was
his squaw, that he should be obliged to make a woman of
himself!"[176]
That men are similarly prejudiced against women's taking up male
occupations we know from modern industrial history, without looking
to ethnological evidence. Habit was, however, in another regard
favorable to woman, since what she was constantly associated with and
expended her activities upon was looked upon as hers. Through her
identification with the industrial process she became, in fact, a
property-owner. This result did not spring from the maternal system;
but both this and the maternal system were the results of her bodily
habit, and the social habits flowing from this.
When the woman as cultivator was almost the sole creator of
property in land, she held in respect of this also a position
of advantage. In the transactions of North American tribes
with the colonial governments many deeds of assignments bear
female signatures, which doubtless must also be referred to
inheritance through the mother.
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