Early agriculture’s low stakes kept women’s economic power intact and unthreatened

Evidence

What determines women’s present situation is the stubborn survival of the most ancient traditions in the new emerging civilization. Hasty observers are wrong to think woman is not up to the possibilities offered her today or even to see only dangerous temptations in these possibilities. The truth is that her situation is tenuous, which makes it very difficult for her to adapt. Factories, offices, and universities are open to women, but marriage is still considered a more honorable career, exempting her from any other participation in collective life. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 297 (#expands, via linked claim)

For the Bhantas of India, or in Uganda, a sterile woman is considered dangerous for gardens. In Nicobar, it is believed that the harvest will be better if it is brought in by a pregnant woman. In Borneo, seeds are chosen and preserved by women. “One seems to feel in women a natural affinity with the seeds that are said by the women to be in a state of pregnancy. Sometimes women will spend the night in the rice fields during its growth period” (Hose and MacDougall). — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 173 (#complicates, via linked claim)

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 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Pre-agricultural societies attributed to women a mystical power over fertility and crops — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 173; Women’s present situation results from ancient traditions surviving in new economic conditions — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 297; Agriculture’s unpredictability made early man worship mystery and woman. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 165

Broader Connections

• Women’s present situation results from ancient traditions surviving in new economic conditions #expands (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 297
• Pre-agricultural societies attributed to women a mystical power over fertility and crops #complicates (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 173
• Agriculture’s unpredictability made early man worship mystery and woman. #complicates (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 165