Salt Lake Telegram | 1932-04-16 | Page 4 | Caveman Was Gentle, Eminent Savant Says

Caveman Was Gentle Eminent Savant Says Popular notions have kept alive a rather picture of oC the thc cave man and the cave woman is the view of the Rev John M M. Cooper ethnologist of Df the Catholic University of ot Amer lea ica Dr Cooper Copper says the cave womans woman's position in her little social world appears appears appears ap ap- pears to have been een quite good No scientific basis can be found for the popular notions that cave men were dominating creatures who clubbed the womenfolk over the head and dragged them about by the hair In the caves where the stone tools of ancient men are found and where their paintings may still be seen on cavern walls there is nothing to show directly what social and domestic life lite was like thousands o of year ago But ethnologists can gain gam some idea of or the cave mans man's world by studying modern primitive peoples who live today on onan onan onan an economic and social level similar to the cave men of prehistory Among these peoples womans woman's position is good Dr Cooper states Or perhaps it would be bo more accurate accurate accurate I rate to say SlY that her position depends on her own personality If she is able of good character or strong personality person she counts in society otherwise not At all levels and in all types of oC culture cases of henpecked husbands hus bands are far from being rare The more mora marked oppression and exploitation of women Dr Cooper believes did not exist in the dawn o of human society when the social order was vas very simple It was in the middIe middie middle mid dIe dle ages of social evolution that women women wo woo men were relegated to subordinate positions Men had become the thc property property prop- prop erty owners men the fighters and the he strong hunters and the ones who spoke poke with authority In the middle ages of ot human were introduced head hunting hunt hunt- ing ng organized warfare human flee torture of prisoners slavery cannibalism These institutions like those hose that subjugated women had hadnot hadnot hadnot not been present in primitive society The cave woman has come to be bc regarded as a 3 most downtrodden creature because it was customary in n the Victorian era to consider that society is at Its highest and that society so so- det has changed always for the bet bet- ter cr throughout its history But as science learns more about the complex com corn plex evolution of society it finds that womans woman's status may mayor or may not rise as material civilization advances There is little connection between the he two factors the ethnologist says sas I