Agriculture’s unpredictability made early man worship mystery and woman.

Evidence

The farmer is subjected to the vagaries of the soil, of germination, and of seasons; he is passive, he beseeches, and he waits: this explains why totem spirits peopled the human world; the peasant endured the whims of these forces that took possession of him. … Woman’s religion is bound to the reign of agriculture, a reign of irreducible duration, contingencies, chance, anticipation, and mystery; the reign of Homo faber is the reign of time that can be conquered like space, the reign of necessity, project, action, and reason. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 165

Categorization

• DEFINE: Pairs concrete economic modes (farming vs. metalworking) with the abstract categories immanence and transcendence.
• XREF: connects to: Early agriculture’s low stakes kept women’s economic power intact and unthreatened; Pre-agricultural societies attributed to women a mystical power over fertility and crops — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 173

Broader Connections

• Pre-agricultural societies attributed to women a mystical power over fertility and crops #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 173