But on the side of
the sex we might expect to find the female disposition setting the
standards of morality, since reproduction is even a greater part of
her nature than of man's. On the contrary, however, we find the male
standpoint carried over and applied to the reproductive process, and
the regulation of sex practices transpiring on the basis of force. In
the earliest period of society, under the maternal system, the woman
had her own will more with her person; but with the formulation of a
system of control, based on male activities, the person of woman was
made a point in the application of the male standpoint. "The wife,
like any other of the husband's goods and chattels, might be sold or
lent."[205] "Even when divorced she was by no means free, as the tribe
exercised its jurisdiction in the woman's affairs and the disposal of
her person."[206] Forsyth reports of the Gonds that
infidelity in the married state is ... said to be very rare;
and, when it does occur, is one of the few occasions when
the stolid aborigine is roused to the extremity of passion,
frequently revenging himself on the guilty pair by cutting off
his wife's nose and knocking out the brains of her paramour
with his ax.
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