I wish to make it clear that this article will not be concerned with a general theory of the matriarchate. I have limited myself to a clearly defined cultural zone, from which I think that the hypothesis of a primitive matriarchal society cannot be rejected on the debatable grounds (recently stated), that the matriarchate could not have been established until after the discovery of agriculture. If in fact the matriarchate cannot legitimately be separated from the divine cult of the Mother, this in itself presupposes a matriarchal constitution, not political and military save for exceptions, but based simply on feminine authority and prestige. On the other hand, ethnologists and historians of religion tell us that the great goddesses are not born of agricultural civilizations, which merely provide them with conditions particularly favorable to their development. They exist before these civilizations and are worshipped by peoples who live solely by hunting, fishing, and the rudimentary gathering of products from still virgin land.