Swiss antiquarian, jurist, philologist, and anthropologist (1815-1887) who is most often connected with his theories surrounding prehistoric matriarchy, or Das Mutterrecht, the title of his seminal 1861 book Mother Right: an investigation of the religious and juridical character of matriarchy in the Ancient World. He became an important precursor of 20th-century theories of matriarchy, such as the Old European culture postulated by Marija Gimbutas from the 1950s, and the field of feminist theology and ‘matriarchal studies’ in 1970s feminism. ALS in French, signed “Dr. J. J. Bachofen,” four pages on two adjoining sheets, 5.5 x 8.25, January 12, 1868. An untranslated handwritten letter to the French anthropologist and historian Alexis Giraud-Teulon. In fine condition. Accompanied by an untranslated ALS in French from American botanist, paleontologist, and sociologist Lester Frank Ward, July 12, 1909, addressed to Giraud-Teulon and requesting his help to locate his 1874 work Les Origines de la Famille (The Origins of the Family).
