cal genius, whose concern for the lives of her soldiers and of her enemies is the dominant element And, in spite of the fact that Thet'r survived his wife, after the disaster off Carthagos this stamp disappears from the campaigns of the Jihad As noted, though, the staff work retained its characteristic level of efficiency Hits should not be surprising, for Thet'r continued as chief of staff for the Jihad New generals were sought and within the next few years several different individuals led die crusade, but the execution of their plans remained m the same superbly capable hands The arguments which oppose this view are not founded upon examination of the evi dence of the events of the Jihad Rather, they base themselves upon certain assertions regarding the inability of a woman, or of women, to lead such a force as the Jihad, or to plan such actions as tbe attacks on Richese and Illerda These arguments have in com mon their iterance of the society of Komos, and the position of women within it Unlike many societies, that of Komos had for centimes granted to women an especially important function, one aot bounded by the home and hearth One refers, of course to the maintenance of the religious well being of the people Not only was the worship of the chief deity of the planet in the hands of women, but the sacred life of the family which was the center of Roman society was tile charge of the women- of the family The mates controlled the Me of the farm or the ranch, and the land was passed on through the male hne but the women saw to the religious health of the famil) a power which to the Koman way of thinking involved nothing less than the survival of the family The point of this should be obvious the Konum were used to following the leader ship of the women of their society especially when matters of religion were involved This was the case with the rebellion which began because of the abortions performed by the hospital director and which struck directly at a religious issue, the survival of the fami 3y line Once the movement had spread to Richese, the religious basis expanded The actions of the machines were seen by the priestesses and by the Komans as an affront not only to principles of humanity, but also to their Goddess, Kubebe It wds the priestesses who first preached Jihad Indeed had there been no religious basis for this movement, it would by definition not have been a Tihad And for die Komans religious matters neces sanly involved the leadership of women We should be surprised, then if the leadership of this Koman crusade had not been female These points, which should be transparently simple, have been obscured hy the socio-sexual biases of most of those who have approached the problems posed by the leader ship of the Jihad (One must hasten to add that by no means all of these scholars are male) The concentration upon the matter of sex in the leadership of the Jihad has also distracted attention from other more impo