"As to their families, at a time when they still lived in their old long houses (communistic households of several families) ... a certain clan (gens) always reigned so that the women chose their husbands from other clans. The female part generally ruled the house; the provisions were held in common; but woe to the luckless husband or lover who was too indolent or too clumsy to contribute his share to the common stock. No matter how many children or how much private property he had in the house, he was liable at any moment to receive a hint to gather up his belongings and get out. And he could not dare to venture any resistance; the house was made too hot for him and he had no other choice but to return to his own clan or, as was mostly the case, to look for another wife in some other clan. The women were the dominating power in the clans and everywhere else."

Bachofen discovered that in the communistic household, the supremacy of woman was caused by the fact that the women all belonged to the same gens while the men came from different gentes. During this period the children belonged to the same gens as the mother and took her name. At this time man's tools and weapons were yet crude and they were his only possession. The woman owned the household goods and utensils, the value of which for the preservation and preparation of food was very great. Bachofen has shown how women were strong factors in the demand for monogamy through this and the earlier periods.

Man learned to till the soil and to domesticate animals; he captured enemies from neighboring tribes and learned to make slaves instead of food of them. And the conqueror became a master, and the slave an instrument of production. It was the men who were lucky enough to be first to enslave the enemy, to acquire more precious metals and larger flocks, who evolved the state, to protect them against the commune, or the mass, in their ownership of private property. At the death of the father his own children were disinherited, in the matriarchy. As increasing wealth strengthened the position of man, he began to desire to overthrow the old maternal law and to establish a new one that would permit inheritance in favor of his children. And so monogamy became the law, and descent was traced by male instead of female lineage. Engels says that "the downfall of maternal law was the historic defeat of the female sex."

In order to insure the faithfulness of the wife, and the reliability of paternal lineage, the women were given absolutely into the power of the men. Husbands had power of life and death over their wives. In certain countries today it is only the man who can dissolve the marriage bonds and cast off his wife. But gradually the old standards which were applied to men and women are changing. New laws are written on our statute books. Civil laws protecting male rule apply only to the wealthy classes and their intercourse with the working class. In sex relations the sentiment, in America particularly, has swung around in favor of woman.