According to Baumler, it was Gorres who first attributed a universal polarity in

history to the tension between the masculine and feminine principles. Bachofen it
was, however, who developed and fully formulated this idea, which, in this present
era of disintegration of all forms and figures, is celebrating its rebirth.
It was the maternal elements, Night, Earth, Death, which romantic intuition
perceived as the undercurrents of ancient Greek life. From Etruria, by way of Crete
and the depths of Asia Minor, matriarchy became dominant in both custom and law—
even in the case of the masculine TYRANNIS. As a result there arose the Amazon
concept and the hetairai, as well as poetic hymns to the dead and the mysteries
linked with the earth spirit. Mother figures appear, each representing an aspect of
the one great mysterious Earth Mother. They are holy and untouchable. If even one
mother is slain, the earth itself arises in the shape of the Drinyes demanding
blood who give no rest until the slayer’s blood has been spilled and sucked up by
the earth as expiation. There is no question of whether right or wrong rests with
the mother. A value in itself is represented by each one of them and affords them
absolute inviolability. From the mother, the daughter inherits property which
secures her independence, her name and her rights. Woman appears as the embodiment
of the immortality of matter, or, more correctly, as the image of the
indestructibility of matter as an abstraction.