Note 168 — SECTION V. ANTHROPOLOGY.
Reading edition
It appears probable that the reverence paid to women by the ancient Germans and Gauls arose from what Tacitus calls “some divine and prophetic quality resident in their women;” from the superstitious belief that the weaker sex was more subject to inspiration, divination, second sight, and other abnormal favours of the gods. The Frauen-cultus of the present age, which in the United States has become an absurdity, would be the relic and survival of this pagan fancy.