We may, however, find a most suggestive indication of the real reasons for that masculine supremacy in Doctor Ward's testimony to the way in which the female sex, when it had the power of special selection of the kind of mates it wanted, set a fashion in masculine attainment which did work later against her own command of the sex-relation.
Women did not become subject to men because of physical weakness.

The savage woman does continuous work heavier and more strength-demanding than that assigned to the savage man.

It was not even that the primitive woman had always to carry the child as she worked, and had therefore a double burden, although that greatly helped men in gaining supremacy.

It was rather that the larger leisure of primitive man and his consequent development of thought and imagination enabled him to secure religion and statecraft as allies to his physical claims.

The intellectual side of the male development was doubtless greatly aided by female selection, and when man was reached he already knew how to outwit other men and most women in the race for power.
=The Three Chief Sources of Influence.=--It has been well said that the "three great sources of influence in barbarous as in civilized countries are religion, military power, and money." All these influences became masculine monopolies ages ago.
The ancient woman was sometimes a priestess and often a healer in her simple fashion and in all ages has acted as nurse in illness and care-taker of the aged and the feeble when these have received care.
She has been mistress of the ceremonials of birth and death and marriage when these have been parts of the family ritual, and courtship has been largely in her charge.