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CHAPTER IV. - THE SYNDYASMIAN AND THE PATRIARCHAL FAMILIES.

The Syndyasmian Family.—How Constituted.—Its Characteristics.—Influence upon it of the Gentile Organization.—Propensity to Pair a late Development.—Ancient Society should be studied where the highest Exemplifications are found.—The Patriarchal Family.—Paternal Power its Essential Characteristic.—Polygamy subordinate.—The Roman Family similar.—Paternal Power unknown in previous Families.

When the American aborigines were discovered, that portion of them who were in the Lower Status of barbarism, had attained to the syndyasmian or pairing family. The large groups in the marriage relation, which must have existed in the previous period, had disappeared; and in their places were married pairs, forming clearly marked, though but partially individualized families. In this family, may be recognized the germ of the monogamian, but it was below the latter in several essential particulars.

The syndyasmian family was special and peculiar. Several of them were usually found in one house, forming a communal household, in which the principle of communism in living was practiced. The fact of the conjunction of several such families in a common household is of itself an admission that the family was too feeble an organization to face alone the hardships of life. Nevertheless it was founded upon marriage between single pairs, and possessed some of the characteristics of the monogamian family. The woman was now something more than the principal wife of her husband; she was his companion, the preparer of his food, and the mother of children whom he now began with some assurance to regard as his own. The birth of children, for whom they jointly cared, tended to cement the union and render it permanent.

But the marriage institution was as peculiar as the family. Men did not seek wives as they are sought in civilized society, from affection, for the passion of love, which required a higher development than they had attained, was unknown among them. Marriage, therefore, was not founded upon sentiment but upon convenience and necessity. It was left to the mothers, in effect, to arrange the marriages of their children, and they were negotiated generally without the knowledge of the parties to be married, and without asking their previous consent. It sometimes happened that entire strangers were thus brought into the marriage relation. At the proper time they were notified when the simple nuptial ceremony would be performed. Such were the usages of the Iroquois and many other Indian tribes. Acquiescence in these maternal contracts was a duty which the parties seldom refused. Prior to the marriage, presents to the gentile relatives of the bride, nearest in degree, partaking of the nature of purchasing gifts, became a feature in these matrimonial transactions. The relation, however, continued during the pleasure of the parties, and no longer. It is for this reason that it is properly distinguished as the pairing family. The husband could put away his wife at pleasure and take another without offence, and the woman enjoyed the equal right of leaving her husband and accepting another, in which the usages of her tribe and gens were not infringed. But a public sentiment gradually formed and grew into strength against such separations. When alienation arose between a married pair, and their separation became imminent, the gentile kindred of each attempted a reconciliation of the parties, in which they were often successful; but if they were unable to remove the difficulty their separation was approved. The wife then left the home of her husband, taking with her their children, who were regarded as exclusively her own, and her personal effects, upon which her husband had no claim; or where the wife’s kindred predominated in the communal household, which was usually the case, the husband left the home of his wife.470 Thus the continuance of the marriage relation remained at the option of the parties.

There was another feature of the relation which shows that the American aborigines in the Lower Status of barbarism had not attained the moral development implied by monogamy. Among the Iroquois, who were barbarians of high mental grade, and among the equally advanced Indian tribes generally, chastity had come to be required of the wife under severe penalties which the husband might inflict; but he did not admit the reciprocal obligation. The one cannot be permanently realized without the other. Moreover, polygamy was universally recognized as the right of the males, although the practice was limited from inability to support the indulgence. There were other usages, that need not be mentioned, tending still further to show that they were below a conception of monogamy, as that great institution is properly defined. Exceptional cases very likely existed. It will be found equally true, as I believe, of barbarous tribes in general. The principal feature which distinguished the syndyasmian from the monogamian family, although liable to numerous exceptions, was the absence of an exclusive cohabitation. The old conjugal system, a record of which is still preserved in their system of consanguinity, undoubtedly remained, but under reduced and restricted forms.

Among the Village Indians in the Middle Status of barbarism the facts were not essentially different, so far as they can be said to be known. A comparison of the usages of the American aborigines, with respect to marriage and divorce, shows an existing similarity sufficiently strong to imply original identity of usages. A few only can be noticed. Clavgero remarks that among the Aztecs “the parents were the persons who settled all marriages, and none were ever executed without their consent.”471 “A priest tied a point of the huepilli, or gown of the bride, with the tilmatli, or mantle of the bridegroom, and in this ceremony the matrimonial contract chiefly consisted.”472 Herrera, after speaking of the same ceremony, observes that “all that the bride brought was kept in memory, that in case they should be unmarried again, as was usual among them, the goods might be parted; the man taking the daughters, and the wife the sons, with liberty to marry again.”473

It will be noticed that the Aztec Indian did not seek his wife personally any more than the Iroquois. Among both it was less an individual than a public or gentile affair, and therefore still remained under parental control exclusively. There was very little social intercourse between unmarried persons of the two sexes in Indian life; and as attachments were not contracted, none were traversed by these marriages, in which personal wishes were unconsidered, and in fact unimportant. It appears further, that the personal effects of the wife were kept distinct among the Aztecs as among the Iroquois, that in case of separation, which was a common occurrence as this writer states, she might retain them in accordance with general Indian usage. Finally, while among the Iroquois in the case of divorce the wife took all the children, the Aztec husband was entitled to the daughters, and the wife to the sons; a modification of the ancient usage which implies a prior time when the Iroquois Indian rule existed among the ancestors of the Aztecs.

Speaking of the people of Yucatan generally Herrera further remarks that “formerly they were wont to marry at twenty years of age, and afterwards came to twelve or fourteen, and having no affection for their wives were divorced for every trifle.”474 The Mayas of Yucatan were superior to the Aztecs in culture and development; but where marriages were regulated on the principle of necessity, and not through personal choice, it is not surprising that the relation was unstable, and that separation was at the option of either party. Moreover, polygamy was a recognized right of the males among the Village Indians, and seems to have been more generally practiced than among the less advanced tribes. These glimpses at institutions purely Indian as well as barbarian reveal in a forcible manner the actual condition of the aborigines in relative advancement. In a matter so personal as the marriage relation, the wishes or preferences of the parties were not consulted. No better evidence is needed of the barbarism of the people.

We are next to notice some of the influences which developed this family from the punaluan. In the latter there was more or less of pairing from the necessities of the social state, each man having a principal wife among a number of wives, and each woman a principal husband among a number of husbands; so that the tendency in the punaluan family, from the first, was in the direction of the syndyasmian.

The organization into gentes was the principal instrumentality that accomplished this result; but through long and gradual processes. Firstly. It did not at once break up intermarriage in the group, which it found established by custom; but the prohibition of intermarriage in the gens excluded own brothers and sisters, and also the children of own sisters, since all of these were of the same gens. Own brothers could still share their wives in common, and own sisters their husbands; consequently the gens did not interfere directly with punaluan marriage, except to narrow its range. But it withheld permanently from that relation all the descendants in the female line of each ancestor within the gens, which was a great innovation upon the previous punaluan group. When the gens subdivided, the prohibition followed its branches, for long periods of time, as has been shown was the case among the Iroquois. Secondly. The structure and principles of the organization tended to create a prejudice against the marriage of consanguinei, as the advantages of marriages between unrelated persons were gradually discovered through the practice of marrying out of the gens. This seems to have grown apace until a public sentiment was finally arrayed against it which had become very general among the American aborigines when discovered.475 For example, among the Iroquois none of the blood relatives enumerated in the Table of Consanguinity were marriageable. Since it became necessary to seek wives from other gentes they began to be acquired by negotiation and by purchase. The gentile organization must have led, step by step, as its influence became general, to a scarcity of wives in place of their previous abundance; and as a consequence, have gradually contracted the numbers in the punaluan group. This conclusion is reasonable, because there are sufficient grounds for assuming the existence of such groups when the Turanian system of consanguinity was formed. They have now disappeared although the system remains. These groups must have gradually declined, and finally disappeared with the general establishment of the syndyasmian family. Fourthly. In seeking wives, they did not confine themselves to their own, nor even to friendly tribes, but captured them by force from hostile tribes. It furnishes a reason for the Indian usage of sparing the lives of female captives, while the males were put to death. When wives came to be acquired by purchase and by capture, and more and more by effort and sacrifice, they would not be as readily shared with others. It would tend, at least, to cut off that portion of the theoretical group not immediately associated for subsistence; and thus reduce still more the size of the family and the range of the conjugal system. Practically, the group would tend to limit itself, from the first, to own brothers who shared their wives in common, and to own sisters who shared their husbands in common. Lastly. The gentes created a higher organic structure of society than had before been known, with processes of development as a social system adequate to the wants of mankind until civilization supervened. With the progress of society under the gentes, the way was prepared for the appearance of the syndyasmian family.

The influence of the new practice, which brought unrelated persons into the marriage relation, must have given a remarkable impulse to society. It tended to create a more vigorous stock physically and mentally. There is a gain by accretion in the coalescence of diverse stocks which has exercised great influence upon human development. When two advancing tribes, with strong mental and physical characters, are brought together and blended into one people by the accidents of barbarous life, the new skull and brain would widen and lengthen to the sum of the capabilities of both. Such a stock would be an improvement upon both, and this superiority would assert itself in an increase of intelligence and of numbers.

It follows that the propensity to pair, now so powerfully developed in the civilized races, had remained unformed in the human mind until the punaluan custom began to disappear. Exceptional cases undoubtedly occurred where usages would permit the privilege; but it failed to become general until the syndyasmian family appeared. This propensity, therefore, cannot be called normal to mankind, but is, rather, a growth through experience, like all the great passions and powers of the mind.

Another influence may be adverted to which tended to retard the growth of this family. Warfare among barbarians is more destructive of life than among savages, from improved weapons and stronger incentives. The males, in all periods and conditions of society, have assumed the trade of fighting, which tended to change the balance of the sexes, and leave the females in excess. This would manifestly tend to strengthen the conjugal system created by marriages in the group. It would, also, retard the advancement of the syndyasmian family by maintaining sentiments of low grade with respect to the relations of the sexes, and the character and dignity of woman.

On the other hand, improvement in subsistence, which followed the cultivation of maize and plants among the American aborigines, must have favored the general advancement of the family. It led to localization, to the use of additional arts, to an improved house architecture, and to a more intelligent life. Industry and frugality, though limited in degree, with increased protection of life, must have accompanied the formation of families consisting of single pairs. The more these advantages were realized, the more stable such a family would become, and the more its individuality would increase. Having taken refuge in a communal household, in which a group of such families succeeded the punaluan group, it now drew its support from itself, from the household, and from the gentes to which the husbands and wives respectively belonged. The great advancement of society indicated by the transition from savagery into the Lower Status of barbarism, would carry with it a corresponding improvement in the condition of the family, the course of development of which was steadily upward to the monogamian. If the existence of the syndyasmian family were unknown, given the punaluan toward one extreme, and the monogamian on the other, the occurrence of such an intermediate form might have been predicted. It has had a long duration in human experience. Springing up on the confines of savagery and barbarism, it traversed the Middle and the greater part of the Later Period of barbarism, when it was superseded by a low form of the monogamian. Overshadowed by the conjugal system of the times, it gained in recognition with the gradual progress of society. The selfishness of mankind, as distinguished from womankind, delayed the realization of strict monogamy until that great fermentation of the human mind which ushered in civilization.

Two forms of the family had appeared before the syndyasmian and created two great systems of consanguinity, or rather two distinct forms of the same system; but this third family neither produced a new system nor sensibly modified the old. Certain marriage relationships appear to have been changed to accord with those in the new family; but the essential features of the system remained unchanged. In fact, the syndyasmian family continued for an unknown period of time enveloped in a system of consanguinity, false in the main, to existing relationships, and which it had no power to break. It was for the sufficient reason that it fell short of monogamy, the coming power able to dissolve the fabric. Although this family has no distinct system of consanguinity to prove its existence, like its predecessors, it has itself existed over large portions of the earth within the historical period, and still exists in numerous barbarous tribes.

In speaking thus positively of the several forms of the family in their relative order, there is danger of being misunderstood. I do not mean to imply that one form rises complete in a certain status of society, flourishes universally and exclusively wherever tribes of mankind are found in the same status, and then disappears in another, which is the next higher form. Exceptional cases of the punaluan family may have appeared in the consanguine, and vice versÂ; exceptional cases of the syndyasmian may have appeared in the midst of the punaluan, and vice versÂ; and exceptional cases of the monogamian in the midst of the syndyasmian, and vice versÂ. Even exceptional cases of the monogamian may have appeared as low down as the punaluan, and of the syndyasmian as low down as the consanguine. Moreover, some tribes attained to a particular form earlier than other tribes more advanced; for example, the Iroquois had the syndyasmian family while in the Lower Status of barbarism, but the Britons, who were in the Middle Status, still had the punaluan. The high civilization on the shores of the Mediterranean had propagated arts and inventions into Britain far beyond the mental development of its Celtic inhabitants, and which they had imperfectly appropriated. They seem to have been savages in their brains, while wearing the art apparel of more advanced tribes. That which I have endeavored to substantiate, and for which the proofs seem to be adequate, is, that the family began in the consanguine, low down in savagery, and grew, by progressive development, into the monogamian, through two well-marked intermediate forms. Each was partial in its introduction, then general, and finally universal over large areas; after which it shaded off into the next succeeding form, which, in turn, was at first partial, then general, and finally universal in the same areas. In the evolution of these successive forms the main direction of progress was from the consanguine to the monogamian. With deviations from uniformity in the progress of mankind through these several forms, it will generally be found that the consanguine and punaluan families belong to the status of savagery—the former to its lowest, and the latter to its highest condition—while the punaluan continued into the Lower Status of barbarism; that the syndyasmian belongs to the Lower and to the Middle Status of barbarism, and continued into the Upper; and that the monogamian belongs to the Upper Status of barbarism, and continued to the period of civilization.

It will not be necessary, even if space permitted, to trace the syndyasmian family through barbarous tribes in general upon the partial descriptions of travelers and observers. The tests given may be applied by each reader to cases within his information. Among the American aborigines in the Lower Status of barbarism it was the prevailing form of the family at the epoch of their discovery. Among the Village Indians in the Middle Status, it was undoubtedly the prevailing form, although the information given by the Spanish writers is vague and general. The communal character of their joint-tenement houses is of itself strong evidence that the family had not passed out of the syndyasmian form. It had neither the individuality nor the exclusiveness which monogamy implies.

The foreign elements intermingled with the native culture in sections of the Eastern hemisphere produced an abnormal condition of society, where the arts of civilized life were remolded to the aptitudes and wants of savages and barbarians.476 Tribes strictly nomadic have also social peculiarities, growing out of their exceptional mode of life, which are not well understood. Through influences, derived from the higher races, the indigenous culture of many tribes has been arrested, and so far adulterated as to change the natural flow of their progress. Their institutions and social state became modified in consequence.

It is essential to systematic progress in Ethnology that the condition both of savage and of barbarous tribes should be studied in its normal development in areas where the institutions of the people are homogeneous. Polynesia and Australia, as elsewhere suggested, are the best areas for the study of savage society. Nearly the whole theory of savage life may be deduced from their institutions, usages and customs, inventions and discoveries. North and South America, when discovered, afforded the best opportunities for studying the condition of society in the Lower and in the Middle Status of barbarism. The aborigines, one stock in blood and lineage, with the exception of the Eskimos, had gained possession of a great continent, more richly endowed for human occupation than the Eastern continents, save in animals capable of domestication. It afforded them an ample field for undisturbed development. They came into its possession apparently in a savage state; but the establishment of the organization into gentes put them into possession of the principal germs of progress possessed by the ancestors of the Greeks and Romans.477 Cut off thus early, and losing all further connection with the central stream of human progress, they commenced their career upon a new continent with the humble mental and moral endowments of savages. The independent evolution of the primary ideas they brought with them commenced under conditions insuring a career undisturbed by foreign influences. It holds true alike in the growth of the idea of government, of the family, of household life, of property, and of the arts of subsistence. Their institutions, inventions and discoveries, from savagery, through the Lower and into the Middle Status of barbarism, are homogeneous, and still reveal a continuity of development of the same original conceptions.

In no part of the earth, in modern times, could a more perfect exemplification of the Lower Status of barbarism be found than was afforded by the Iroquois, and other tribes of the United States east of the Mississippi. With their arts indigenous and unmixed, and with their institutions pure and homogeneous, the culture of this period, in its range, elements and possibilities, is illustrated by them in the fullest manner. A systematic exposition of these several subjects ought to be made, before the facts are allowed to disappear.

In a still higher degree all this was true with respect to the Middle Status of barbarism, as exemplified by the Village Indians of New Mexico, Mexico, Central America, Grenada, Ecuador, and Peru. In no part of the earth was there to be found such a display of society in this Status, in the sixteenth century, with its advanced arts and inventions, its improved architecture, its nascent manufactures and its incipient sciences. American scholars have a poor account to render of work done in this fruitful field. It was in reality a lost condition of ancient society which was suddenly unveiled to European observers with the discovery of America; but they failed to comprehend its meaning, or to ascertain its structure.

There is one other great condition of society, that of the Upper Status of barbarism, not now exemplified by existing nations; but it may be found in the history and traditions of the Grecian and Roman, and later of the German tribes. It must be deduced, in the main, from their institutions, inventions and discoveries, although there is a large amount of information illustrative of the culture of this period, especially in the Homeric poems.

When these several conditions of society have been studied in the areas of their highest exemplification, and are thoroughly understood, the course of human development from savagery, through barbarism to civilization, will become intelligible as a connected whole. The course of human experience will also be found as before suggested to have run in nearly uniform channels.

The patriarchal family of the Semitic tribes requires but a brief notice, for reasons elsewhere stated; and it will be limited to little more than a definition. It belongs to the Later Period of barbarism, and remained for a time after the commencement of civilization. The chiefs, at least, lived in polygamy; but this was not the material principle of the patriarchal institution. The organization of a number of persons, bond and free, into a family, under paternal power, for the purpose of holding lands, and for the care of flocks and herds, was the essential characteristic of this family. Those held to servitude, and those employed as servants, lived in the marriage relation, and, with the patriarch as their chief, formed a patriarchal family. Authority over its members and over its property was the material fact. It was the incorporation of numbers in servile and dependent relations, before that time unknown, rather than polygamy, that stamped the patriarchal family with the attributes of an original institution. In the great movement of Semitic society, which produced this family, paternal power over the group was the object sought; and with it a higher individuality of persons.

The same motive precisely originated the Roman family under paternal power (patria potestas); with the power in the father of life and death over his children and descendants, as well as over the slaves and servants who formed its nucleus and furnished its name; and with the absolute ownership of all the property they created. Without polygamy, the pater familias was a patriarch and the family under him was patriarchal. In a less degree, the ancient family of the Grecian tribes had the same characteristics. It marks that peculiar epoch in human progress when the individuality of the person began to rise above the gens, in which it had previously been merged, craving an independent life, and a wider field of individual action. Its general influence tended powerfully to the establishment of the monogamian family, which was essential to the realization of the objects sought. These striking features of the patriarchal families, so unlike any form previously known, have given to it a commanding position; but the Hebrew and Roman forms were exceptional in human experience. In the consanguine and punaluan families, paternal authority was impossible as well as unknown; under the syndyasmian it began to appear as a feeble influence; but its growth steadily advanced as the family became more and more individualized, and became fully established under monogamy, which assured the paternity of children. In the patriarchal family of the Roman type, paternal authority passed beyond the bounds of reason into an excess of domination.

No new system of consanguinity was created by the Hebrew patriarchal family. The Turanian system would harmonize with a part of its relationships; but as this form of the family soon fell out, and the monogamian became general, it was followed by the Semitic system of consanguinity, as the Grecian and Roman were by the Aryan. Each of the three great systems—the Malayan, the Turanian, and the Aryan—indicates a completed organic movement of society, and each assured the presence, with unerring certainty, of that form of the family whose relationships it recorded.

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CHAPTER V. - THE MONOGAMIAN FAMILY.

This Family comparatively Modern.—The Term Familia.—Family of Ancient Germans.—Of Homeric Greeks.—Of civilized Greeks.—Seclusion of Wives.—Obligations of Monogamy not respected by the Males.—The Roman Family.—Wives under Power.—Aryan System of Consanguinity.—It came in under Monogamy.—Previous System probably Turanian.—Transition from Turanian into Aryan.—Roman and Arabic Systems of Consanguinity.—Details of the Former.—Present Monogamian Family.—Table.

The origin of society has been so constantly traced to the monogamian family that the comparatively modern date now assigned to this family bears the semblance of novelty. Those writers who have investigated the origin of society philosophically, found it difficult to conceive of its existence apart from the family as its unit, or of the family itself as other than monogamian. They also found it necessary to regard the married pair as the nucleus of a group of persons, a part of whom were servile, and all of whom were under power; thus arriving at the conclusion that society began in the patriarchal family, when it first became organized. Such, in fact, was the most ancient form of the institution made known to us among the Latin, Grecian and Hebrew tribes. Thus, by relation, the patriarchal family was made the typical family of primitive society, conceived either in the Latin or Hebrew form, paternal power being the essence of the organism.

The gens, as it appeared in the later period of barbarism, was well understood, but it was erroneously supposed to be subsequent in point of time to the monogamian family. A necessity for some knowledge of the institutions of barbarous and even of savage tribes, is becoming constantly more apparent as a means for explaining our own institutions. With the assumption made that the monogamian family was the unit of organization in the social system, the gens was treated as an aggregation of families, the tribe as an aggregation of gentes, and the nation as an aggregate of tribes. The error lies in the first proposition. It has been shown that the gens entered entire in the phratry, the phratry into the tribe, and the tribe into the nation; but the family could not enter entire into the gens, because husband and wife were necessarily of different gentes. The wife, down to the latest period, counted herself of the gens of her father, and bore the name of his gens among the Romans. As all the parts must enter into the whole, the family could not become the unit of the gentile organization. That place was held by the gens. Moreover, the patriarchal family, whether of the Roman or of the Hebrew type, was entirely unknown throughout the period of savagery, through the Older, and probably through the Middle, and far into the Later Period of barbarism. After the gens had appeared, ages upon ages, and even period upon period, rolled away before the monogamian family came into existence. It was not until after civilization commenced that it became permanently established.

Its modern appearance among the Latin tribes may be inferred from the signification of the word family, derived from familia, which contains the same element as famulus, = servant, supposed to be derived from the Oscan famel, = servus, a slave.478 In its primary meaning the word family had no relation to the married pair or their children, but to the body of slaves and servants who labored for its maintenance, and were under the power of the pater familias. Familia in some testamentary dispositions is used as equivalent to patrimonium, the inheritance which passed to the heir.479 It was introduced in Latin society to define a new organism, the head of which held wife and children, and a body of servile persons under paternal power. Mommsen uses the phrase “body of servants” as the Latin signification of familia.480 This term, therefore, and the idea it represents, are no older than the iron-clad family system of the Latin tribes, which came in after field agriculture and after legalized servitude, as well as after the separation of the Greeks and Latins. If any name was given to the anterior family it is not now ascertainable.

In two forms of the family, the consanguine and punaluan, paternal power was impossible. When the gens appeared in the midst of the punaluan group it united the several sisters, with their children and descendants in the female line, in perpetuity, in a gens, which became the unit of organization in the social system it created. Out of this state of things the syndyasmian family was gradually evolved, and with it the germ of paternal power. The growth of this power, at first feeble and fluctuating, then commenced, and it steadily increased, as the new family more and more assumed monogamian characteristics, with the upward progress of society. When property began to be created in masses, and the desire for its transmission to children had changed descent from the female line to the male, a real foundation for paternal power was for the first time established. Among the Hebrew and Latin tribes, when first known, the patriarchal family of the Hebrew type existed among the former, and of the Roman type among the latter; founded in both cases upon the limited or absolute servitude of a number of persons with their families, all of whom, with the wives and children of the patriarch in one case, and of the pater familias in the other, were under paternal power. It was an exceptional, and, in the Roman family, an excessive development of paternal authority, which, so far from being universal, was restricted in the main to the people named. Gaius declares that the power of the Roman father over his children was peculiar to the Romans, and that in general no other people had the same power.481

It will be sufficient to present a few illustrations of the early monogamian family from classical writers to give an impression of its character. Monogamy appears in a definite form in the Later Period of barbarism. Long prior to this time some of its characteristics had undoubtedly attached themselves to the previous syndyasmian family; but the essential element of the former, an exclusive cohabitation, could not be asserted of the latter.

One of the earliest and most interesting illustrations was found in the family of the ancient Germans. Their institutions were homogeneous and indigenous; and the people were advancing toward civilization. Tacitus, in a few lines, states their usages with respect to marriage, without giving the composition of the family or defining its attributes. After stating that marriages were strict among them, and pronouncing it commendable, he further remarks, that almost alone among barbarians they contented themselves with a single wife—a very few excepted, who were drawn into plural marriages, not from passion, but on account of their rank. That the wife did not bring a dowry to her husband, but the husband to his wife, ... a caparisoned horse, and a shield, with a spear and sword. That by virtue of these gifts the wife was espoused.482 The presents, in the nature of purchasing gifts, which probably in an earlier condition went to the gentile kindred of the bride, were now presented to the bride.

Elsewhere he mentions the two material facts in which the substance of monogamy is found:483 firstly, that each man was contented with a single wife (singulis uxoribus contenti sunt); and, secondly, that the women lived fenced around with chastity (septÆ pudicitia agunt). It seems probable, from what is known of the condition of the family in different ethnical periods, that this of the ancient Germans was too weak an organization to face alone the hardships of life; and, as a consequence, sheltered itself in a communal household composed of related families. When slavery became an institution, these households would gradually disappear. German society was not far enough advanced at this time for the appearance of a high type of the monogamian family.

With respect to the Homeric Greeks, the family, although monogamian, was low in type. Husbands required chastity in their wives, which they sought to enforce by some degree of seclusion; but they did not admit the reciprocal obligation by which alone it could be permanently secured. Abundant evidence appears in the Homeric poems that woman had few rights men were bound to respect. Such female captives as were swept into their vessels by the Grecian chiefs, on their way to Troy, were appropriated to their passions without compunction and without restraint. It must be taken as a faithful picture of the times, whether the incidents narrated in the poems were real or fictitious. Although the persons were captives, it reflects the low estimate placed upon woman. Her dignity was unrecognized, and her personal rights were insecure. To appease the resentment of Achilles, Agamemnon proposed, in a council of the Grecian chiefs, to give to him, among other things, seven Lesbian women excelling in personal beauty, reserved for himself from the spoil of that city, Briseis herself to go among the number; and should Troy be taken, the further right to select twenty Trojan women, the fairest of all next to Argive Helen.484 “Beauty and Booty” were the watchwords of the Heroic Age unblushingly avowed. The treatment of their female captives reflects the culture of the period with respect to women in general. Men having no regard for the parental, marital or personal rights of their enemies, could not have attained to any high conception of their own.

In describing the tent life of the unwedded Achilles, and of his friend Patroclus, Homer deemed it befitting the character and dignity of Achilles as a chief to show, that he slept in the recess of his well-constructed tent, and by his side lay a female, fair-cheeked Diomede, whom he had brought from Lesbos. And that Patroclus on the other side reclined, and by him also lay fair-waisted Iphis, whom noble Achilles gave him, having captured her at Scyros.485 Such usages and customs on the part of unmarried as well as married men, cited approvingly by the great poet of the period, and sustained by public sentiment, tend to show that whatever of monogamy existed, was through an enforced constraint upon wives, while their husbands were not monogamists in the preponderating number of cases. Such a family has quite as many syndyasmian as monogamian characteristics.

The condition of woman in the Heroic Age is supposed to have been more favorable, and her position in the household more honorable than it was at the commencement of civilization, and even afterwards under their highest development. It may have been true in a far anterior period before descent was changed to the male line, but there seems to be little room for the conjecture at the time named. A great change for the better occurred, so far as the means and mode of life were concerned, but it served to render more conspicuous the real estimate placed upon her through the Later Period of barbarism.

Elsewhere attention has been called to the fact, that when descent was changed from the female line to the male, it operated injuriously upon the position and rights of the wife and mother. Her children were transferred from her own gens to that of her husband, and she forfeited her agnatic rights by her marriage without obtaining an equivalent. Before the change, the members of her own gens, in all probability, predominated in the household, which gave full force to the maternal bond, and made the woman rather more than the man the center of the family. After the change she stood alone in the household of her husband, isolated from her gentile kindred. It must have weakened the influence of the maternal bond, and have operated powerfully to lower her position and arrest her progress in the social scale. Among the prosperous classes, her condition of enforced seclusion, together with the avowed primary object of marriage, to beget children in lawful wedlock (pa?d?p??e?s?a? ???s???), lead to the inference that her position was less favorable in the Heroic Age than in the subsequent period, concerning which we are much better informed.

From first to last among the Greeks there was a principle of egotism or studied selfishness at work among the males, tending to lessen the appreciation of woman, scarcely found among savages. It reveals itself in their plan of domestic life, which in the higher ranks secluded the wife to enforce an exclusive cohabitation, without admitting the reciprocal obligation on the part of her husband. It implies the existence of an antecedent conjugal system of the Turanian type, against which it was designed to guard. So powerfully had the usages of centuries stamped upon the minds of Grecian women a sense of their inferiority, that they did not recover from it to the latest period of Grecian ascendency. It was, perhaps, one of the sacrifices required of womankind to bring this portion of the human race out of the syndyasmian into the monogamian family. It still remains an enigma that a race, with endowments great enough to impress their mental life upon the world, should have remained essentially barbarian in their treatment of the female sex at the height of their civilization. Women were not treated with cruelty, nor with discourtesy within the range of the privileges allowed them; but their education was superficial, intercourse with the opposite sex was denied them, and their inferiority was inculcated as a principle, until it came to be accepted as a fact by the women themselves. The wife was not the companion and the equal of her husband, but stood to him in the relation of a daughter; thus denying the fundamental principle of monogamy, as the institution in its highest form must be understood. The wife is necessarily the equal of her husband in dignity, in personal rights and in social position. We may thus discover at what a price of experience and endurance this great institution of modern society has been won.

Our information is quite ample and specific with respect to the condition of Grecian women and the Grecian family during the historical period. Becker, with the marvelous research for which his works are distinguished, has collected the principal facts and presented them with clearness and force.486 His statements, while they do not furnish a complete picture of the family of the historical period, are quite sufficient to indicate the great difference between the Grecian and the modern civilized family, and also to show the condition of the monogamian family in the early stages of its development.

Among the facts stated by Becker, there are two that deserve further notice: first, the declaration that the chief object of marriage was the procreation of children in lawful wedlock; and second, the seclusion of women to insure this result. The two are intimately connected, and throw some reflected light upon the previous condition from which they had emerged. In the first place, the passion of love was unknown among the barbarians. They are below the sentiment, which is the offspring of civilization and superadded refinement. The Greeks in general, as their marriage customs show, had not attained to a knowledge of this passion, although there were, of course, numerous exceptions. Physical worth, in Grecian estimation, was the measure of all the excellences of which the female sex were capable. Marriage, therefore, was not grounded upon sentiment, but upon necessity and duty. These considerations are those which governed the Iroquois and the Aztecs; in fact they originated in barbarism, and reveal the anterior barbarous condition of the ancestors of the Grecian tribes. It seems strange that they were sufficient to answer the Greek ideal of the family relation in the midst of Grecian civilization. The growth of property and the desire for its transmission to children was, in reality, the moving power which brought in monogamy to insure legitimate heirs, and to limit their number to the actual progeny of the married pair. A knowledge of the paternity of children had begun to be realized under the syndyasmian family, from which the Grecian form was evidently derived, but it had not attained the requisite degree of certainty because of the survival of some portion of the ancient jura conjugialia. It explains the new usage which made its appearance in the Upper Status of barbarism; namely, the seclusion of wives. An implication to this effect arises from the circumstance that a necessity for the seclusion of the wife must have existed at the time, and which seems to have been so formidable that the plan of domestic life among the civilized Greeks was, in reality, a system of female confinement and restraint. Although the particulars cited relate more especially to the family among the prosperous classes, the spirit it evinces was doubtless general.

Turning next to the Roman family, the condition of woman is more favorable, but her subordination the same.

She was treated with respect in Rome as in Athens, but in the Roman family her influence and authority were greater. As mater familias she was mistress of the family. She went into the streets freely without restraint on the part of her husband, and frequented with the men the theaters and festive banquets. In the house she was not confined to particular apartments, neither was she excluded from the table of the men. The absence of the worst restrictions placed upon Grecian females was favorable to the growth of a sense of personal dignity and of independence among Roman women. Plutarch remarks that after the peace with the Sabines, effected through the intervention of the Sabine women, many honorable privileges were conferred upon them; the men were to give them the way when they met on the street; they were not to utter a vulgar word in the presence of females, nor appear nude before them.487 Marriage, however, placed the wife in the power of her husband (in manum viri); the notion that she must remain under power following, by an apparent necessity, her emancipation by her marriage from paternal power. The husband treated his wife as his daughter, and not as his equal. Moreover, he had the power of correction, and of life and death in case of adultery; but the exercise of this last power seems to have been subject to the concurrence of the council of her gens.

Unlike other people, the Romans possessed three forms of marriage. All alike placed the wife in the hand of her husband, and recognized as the chief end of marriage the procreation of children in lawful wedlock (liberorum querendorum causa).488 These forms (confarreatio, coËmptio, and usus) lasted through the Republic, but fell out under the Empire, when a fourth form, the free marriage, was generally adopted, because it did not place the wife in the power of her husband. Divorce, from the earliest period, was at the option of the parties, a characteristic of the syndyasmian family, and transmitted probably from that source. They rarely occurred, however, until near the close of the Republic.489

The licentiousness which prevailed in Grecian and Roman cities at the height of civilization has generally been regarded as a lapse from a higher and purer condition of virtue and morality. But the fact is capable of a different, or at least of a modified explanation. They had never attained to a pure morality in the intercourse of the sexes from which to decline. Repressed or moderated in the midst of war and strife endangering the national existence, the license revived with peace and prosperity, because the moral elements of society had not risen against it for its extirpation. This licentiousness was, in all probability, the remains of an ancient conjugal system, never fully eradicated, which had followed down from barbarism as a social taint, and now expressed its excesses in the new channel of hetÆrism. If the Greeks and Romans had learned to respect the equities of monogamy, instead of secluding their wives in the gynÆconitis in one case, and of holding them under power in the other, there is reason to believe that society among them would have presented a very different aspect. Since neither one nor the other had developed any higher morality, they had but little occasion to mourn over a decay of public morals. The substance of the explanation lies in the fact that neither recognized in its integrity the principle of monogamy, which alone was able to place their respective societies upon a moral basis. The premature destruction of the ethnic life of these remarkable races is due in no small measure to their failure to develop and utilize the mental, moral and conservative forces of the female intellect, which were not less essential than their own corresponding forces to their progress and preservation. After a long protracted experience in barbarism, during which they won the remaining elements of civilization, they perished politically, at the end of a brief career, seemingly from the exhilaration of the new life they had created.

Among the Hebrews, whilst the patriarchal family in the early period was common with the chiefs, the monogamian, into which the patriarchal soon subsided, was common among the people. But with respect to the constitution of the latter, and the relations of husband and wife in the family, the details are scanty.

Without seeking to multiply illustrations, it is plain that the monogamian family had grown into the form in which it appeared, at the commencement of the historical period, from a lower type; and that during the classical period it advanced sensibly, though without attaining its highest form. It evidently sprang from a previous syndyasmian family as its immediate germ; and while improving with human progress it fell short of its true ideal in the classical period. Its highest known perfection, at least, was not attained until modern times. The portraiture of society in the Upper Status of barbarism by the early writers implies the general practice of monogamy, but with attending circumstances indicating that it was the monogamian family of the future struggling into existence under adverse influences, feeble in vitality, rights and immunities, and still environed with the remains of an ancient conjugal system.

As the Malayan system expressed the relationships that existed in the consanguine family, and as the Turanian expressed those which existed in the punaluan, so the Aryan expressed those which existed in the monogamian; each family resting upon a different and distinct form of marriage.

It cannot be shown absolutely, in the present state of our knowledge, that the Aryan, Semitic and Uralian families of mankind formerly possessed the Turanian system of consanguinity, and that it fell into desuetude under monogamy. Such, however, would be the presumption from the body of ascertained facts. All the evidence points in this direction so decisively as to exclude any other hypothesis. Firstly. The organization into gentes had a natural origin in the punaluan family, where a group of sisters married to each other’s husbands furnished, with their children and descendants in the female line, the exact circumscription as well as the body of a gens in its archaic form. The principal branches of the Aryan family were organized in gentes when first known historically, sustaining the inference that, when one undivided people, they were thus organized. From this fact the further presumption arises that they derived the organization through a remote ancestry who lived in that same punaluan condition which gave birth to this remarkable and wide-spread institution. Besides this, the Turanian system of consanguinity is still found connected with the gens in its archaic form among the American aborigines. This natural connection would remain unbroken until a change of social condition occurred, such as monogamy would produce, having power to work its overthrow. Secondly. In the Aryan system of consanguinity there is some evidence pointing to the same conclusion. It may well be supposed that a large portion of the nomenclature of the Turanian system would fall out under monogamy, if this system had previously prevailed among the Aryan nations. The application of its terms to categories of persons, whose relationships would now be discriminated from each other, would compel their abandonment. It is impossible to explain the impoverished condition of the original nomenclature of the Aryan system except on this hypothesis. All there was of it common to the several Aryan dialects are the terms for father and mother, brother and sister, and son and daughter; and a common term (San., naptar; Lat., nepos; Gr., ??e????;) applied indiscriminately to nephew, grandson, and cousin. They could never have attained to the advanced condition implied by monogamy with such a scanty nomenclature of blood relationships. But with a previous system, analogous to the Turanian, this impoverishment can be explained. The terms for brother and sister were now in the abstract, and new creations, because these relationships under the Turanian system were conceived universally as elder and younger; and the several terms were applied to categories of persons, including persons not own brothers and sisters. In the Aryan system this distinction is laid aside, and for the first time these relationships were conceived in the abstract. Under monogamy the old terms were inapplicable because they were applied to collaterals. Remains of a prior Turanian system, however, still appear in the system of the Uralian family, as among the Hungarians, where brothers and sisters are classified into elder and younger by special terms. In French, also, besides frÈre, and soeur, we find aÎnÉ, elder brother, pÛnÉ and cadet, younger brother, and aÎnÉe and cadette, elder and younger sister. So also in Sanskrit we find agrajar, and amujar, and agrajri, and amujri for the same relationships; but whether the latter are from Sanskrit or aboriginal sources, I am unable to state. In the Aryan dialects the terms for brother and sister are the same words dialectically changed, the Greek having substituted ?de?f?? for f??t??. If common terms once existed in these dialects for elder and younger brother and sister, their previous application to categories of persons would render them inapplicable, as an exclusive distinction, to own brothers and sisters. The falling out from the Aryan system of this striking and beautiful feature of the Turanian requires a strong motive for its occurrence, which the previous existence and abandonment of the Turanian system would explain. It would be difficult to find any other. It is not supposable that the Aryan nations were without a term for grandfather in the original speech, a relationship recognized universally among savage and barbarous tribes; and yet there is no common term for this relationship in the Aryan dialects. In Sanskrit we have pitameha, in Greek p?pp??, in Latin avus, in Russian djed, in Welsh hendad, which last is a compound like the German grossvader and the English grandfather. These terms are radically different. But with a term under a previous system, which was applied not only to the grandfather proper, his brothers, and his several male cousins, but also to the brothers and several male cousins of his grandmother, it could not be made to signify a lineal grandfather and progenitor under monogamy. Its abandonment would be apt to occur in course of time. The absence of a term for this relationship in the original speech seems to find in this manner a sufficient explanation. Lastly. There is no term for uncle and aunt in the abstract, and no special terms for uncle and aunt on the father’s side and on the mother’s side running through the Aryan dialects. We find pitroya, p?t???, and patruus for paternal uncle in Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin; stryc in Slavonic for the same, and a common term, eam, oom, and oheim in Anglo-Saxon, Belgian, and German, and none in the Celtic. It is equally inconceivable that there was no term in the original Aryan speech for maternal uncle, a relationship made so conspicuous by the gens among barbarous tribes. If their previous system was Turanian, there was necessarily a term for this uncle, but restricted to the own brothers of the mother, and to her several male cousins. Its application to such a number of persons in a category, many of whom could not be uncles under monogamy, would, for the reasons stated, compel its abandonment. It is evident that a previous system of some kind must have given place to the Aryan.

Assuming that the nations of the Aryan, Semitic and Uralian families formerly possessed the Turanian system of consanguinity, the transition from it to a descriptive system was simple and natural, after the old system, through monogamy, had become untrue to descents as they would then exist. Every relationship under monogamy is specific. The new system, formed under such circumstances, would describe the persons by means of the primary terms or a combination of them: as brother’s son for nephew, father’s brother for uncle, and father’s brother’s son for cousin. Such was the original of the present system of the Aryan, Semitic and Uralian families. The generalizations they now contain were of later introduction. All the tribes possessing the Turanian system describe their kindred by the same formula, when asked in what manner one person was related to another. A descriptive system precisely like the Aryan always existed both with the Turanian and the Malayan, not as a system of consanguinity, for they had a permanent system, but as a means of tracing relationships. It is plain from the impoverished conditions of their nomenclatures that the Aryan, Semitic and Uralian nations must have rejected a prior system of consanguinity of some kind. The conclusion, therefore, is reasonable that when the monogamian family became generally established these nations fell back upon the old descriptive form, always in use under the Turanian system, and allowed the previous one to die out as useless and untrue to descents. This would be the natural and obvious mode of transition from the Turanian into the Aryan system; and it explains, in a satisfactory manner, the origin as well as peculiar character of the latter.

In order to complete the exposition of the monogamian family in its relations to the Aryan system of consanguinity, it will be necessary to present this system somewhat in detail, as has been done in the two previous cases.

A comparison of its forms in the several Aryan dialects shows that the original of the present system was purely descriptive.490 The Erse, which is the typical Aryan form, and the Esthonian, which is the typical Uralian, are still descriptive. In the Erse the only terms for the blood relationships are the primary, namely, those for father and mother, brother and sister, and son and daughter. All the remaining kindred are described by means of these terms, but commencing in the reverse order: thus brother, son of brother, and son of son of brother. The Aryan system exhibits the actual relationships under monogamy, and assumes that the paternity of children is known.

In course of time a method of description, materially different from the Celtic, was engrafted upon the new system; but without changing its radical features. It was introduced by the Roman civilians to perfect the framework of a code of descents, to the necessity for which we are indebted for its existence. Their improved method has been adopted by the several Aryan nations among whom the Roman influence extended. The Slavonic system has some features entirely peculiar and evidently of Turanian origin.491 To obtain a knowledge historically of our present system it is necessary to resort to the Roman, as perfected by the civilians.492 The additions were slight, but they changed the method of describing kindred. They consisted chiefly, as elsewhere stated, in distinguishing the relationships of uncle and aunt on the father’s side from those on the mother’s side, with the invention of terms to express these relationships in the concrete; and in creating a term for grandfather to be used as the correlative of nepos. With these terms and the primary, in connection with suitable augments, they were enabled to systematize the relationships in the lineal and in the first five collateral lines, which included the body of the kindred of every individual. The Roman is the most perfect and scientific system of consanguinity under monogamy which has yet appeared; and it has been made more attractive by the invention of an unusual number of terms to express the marriage relationships. From it we may learn our own system, which has adopted its improvements, better than from the Anglo-Saxon or Celtic. In a table, at the end of this chapter, the Latin and Arabic forms are placed side by side, as representatives, respectively, of the Aryan and Semitic systems. The Arabic seems to have passed through processes similar to the Roman, and with similar results. The Roman only will be explained.

From Ego to tritavus, in the lineal line, are six generations of ascendants, and from the same to trinepos are the same number of descendants, in the description of which but four radical terms are used. If it were desirable to ascend above the sixth ancestor, tritavus would become a new starting-point of description; thus, tritavi pater, the father of tritavus, and so upward to tritavi tritavus, who is the twelfth ancestor of Ego in the lineal right line, male. In our rude nomenclature the phrase grandfather’s grandfather must be repeated six times to express the same relationship, or rather to describe the same person. In like manner trinepotis trinepos carries us to the twelfth descendant of Ego in the right lineal male line.

The first collateral line, male, which commences with brother, frater, runs as follows: Fratris filius, son of brother, fratris nepos, grandson of brother, fratris pronepos, great-grandson of brother, and on to fratris trinepos, the great-grandson of the great-grandson of the brother of Ego. If it were necessary to extend the description to the twelfth descendant, fratris trinepos would become a second starting-point, from which we should have fratris trinepotis trinepos, as the end of the series. By this simple method frater is made the root of descent in this line, and every person belonging to it is referred to him by the force of this term in the description; and we know at once that each person thus described belongs to the first collateral line, male. It is therefore specific and complete. In like manner, the same line, female, commences with sister, soror, giving for the series, sororis filia, sister’s daughter, sororis neptis, sister’s granddaughter, sororis proneptis, sister’s great-granddaughter, and on to sororis trineptis, her sixth descendant, and to sororis trineptis trineptis, her twelfth descendant. While the two branches of the first collateral line originate, in strictness, in the father, pater, the common bond of connection between them, yet, by making the brother and sister the root of descent in the description, not only the line but its two branches are maintained distinct, and the relationship of each person to Ego is specialized. This is one of the chief excellences of the system, for it is carried into all the lines, as a purely scientific method of distinguishing and describing kindred.

The second collateral line, male, on the father’s side, commences with father’s brother, patruus, and is composed of him and his descendants. Each person, by the terms used to describe him, is referred with entire precision to his proper position in the line, and his relationship is indicated specifically; thus, patrui filius, son of paternal uncle, patrui nepos, grandson of, and patrui pronepos, great-grandson of paternal uncle, and on to patrui trinepos, the sixth descendant of patruus. If it became necessary to extend this line to the twelfth generation we should have, after passing through the intermediate degrees, patrui trinepotis trinepos, who is the great-grandson of the great-grandson of patrui trinepos, the great-grandson of the great-grandson of patruus. It will be observed that the term for cousin is rejected in the formal method used in the Pandects. He is described as patrui filius, but he was also called a brother patrual, frater patruelis, and among the people at large by the common term consobrinus, from which our term cousin is derived.493 The second collateral line, female, on the father’s side, commences with father’s sister, amita, paternal aunt; and her descendants are described according to the same general plan; thus, amitÆ filia, paternal aunt’s daughter, amitÆ neptis, paternal aunt’s granddaughter, and on to amitÆ trineptis, and to amitÆ trineptis trineptis. In this branch of the line the special term for this cousin, amitina, is also set aside for the descriptive phrase amitÆ filia.

In like manner the third collateral line, male, on the father’s side commences with grandfather’s brother, who is styled patruus magnus, or great paternal uncle. At this point in the nomenclature, special terms fail, and compounds are resorted to, although the relationship itself is in the concrete. It is evident that this relationship was not discriminated until a comparatively modern period. No existing language, so far as the inquiry has been extended, possesses an original term for this relationship, although without it this line cannot be described except by the Celtic method. If he were called simply grandfather’s brother, the phrase would describe a person, leaving the relationship to implication; but if he is styled a great-uncle, it expresses a relationship in the concrete. With the first person in this branch of the line thus made definite, all of his descendants are referred to him, by the form of the description, as the root of descent; and the line, the side, the particular branch, and the degree of the relationship of each person are at once fully expressed. This line also may be extended to the twelfth descendant, which would give for the series patrui magni filius, son of the paternal great-uncle, patrui magni nepos, and on to patrui magni trinepos, and ending with patrui magni trinepotis trinepos. The same line, female, commences with grandfather’s sister, amita magna, great paternal aunt; and her descendants are similarly described.

The fourth and fifth collateral lines, male, on the father’s side, commence, respectively, with great-grandfather’s brother, who is styled patruus major, greater paternal uncle, and with great-great-grandfather’s brother, patruus maximus, greatest paternal uncle. In extending the series we have in the fourth patrui majoris filius, and on to patrui majoris trinepos; and in the fifth patrui maximi filius, and on to patrui maximi trinepos. The female branches commence, respectively, with amita major, greater, and amita maxima, greatest paternal aunt; and the description of persons in each follows in the same order.

Thus far the lines have been on the father’s side only. The necessity for independent terms for uncle and aunt on the mother’s side to complete the Roman method of description is now apparent; the relatives on the mother’s side being equally numerous, and entirely distinct. These terms were found in avunculus, maternal uncle, and matertera, maternal aunt. In describing the relatives on the mother’s side, the lineal female line is substituted for the male, but the first collateral line remains the same. In the second collateral line, male, on the mother’s side, we have for the series avunculus, maternal uncle, avunculi filius, avunculi nepos, and on to avunculi trinepos, and ending with avunculi trinepotis trinepos. In the female branch, matertera, maternal aunt, materterÆ filia, and on as before. The third collateral line, male and female, commence, respectively, with avunculus magnus, and matertera magna, great maternal uncle, and aunt; the fourth with avunculus major, and matertera major, greater maternal uncle, and aunt; and the fifth with avunculus maximus, and matertera maxima, greatest maternal uncle, and aunt. The descriptions of persons in each line and branch are in form corresponding with those previously given.

Since the first five collateral lines embrace as wide a circle of kindred as it was necessary to include for the practical objects of a code of descents, the ordinary formula of the Roman civilians did not extend beyond this number.

In terms for the marriage relationships, the Latin language is remarkably opulent, whilst our mother English betrays its poverty by the use of such unseemly phrases as father-in-law, son-in-law, brother-in-law, step-father, and step-son, to express some twenty very common, and very near relationships, nearly all of which are provided with special terms in the Latin nomenclature.

It will not be necessary to pursue further the details of the Roman system of consanguinity. The principal and most important of its features have been presented, and in a manner sufficiently special to render the whole intelligible. For simplicity of method, felicity of description, distinctness of arrangement by lines and branches, and beauty of nomenclature, it is incomparable. It stands in its method pre-eminently at the head of all the systems of relationship ever perfected by man, and furnishes one of many illustrations that to whatever the Roman mind had occasion to give organic form, it placed once for all upon a solid foundation.

No reference has been made to the details of the Arabic system; but, as the two forms are given in the Table, the explanation made of one will suffice for the other, to which it is equally applicable.

With its additional special terms, and its perfected method, consanguinei are assumed to be connected, in virtue of their descent, through married pairs, from common ancestors. They arrange themselves in a lineal and several collateral lines; and the latter are perpetually divergent from the former. These are necessary consequences of monogamy. The relationship of each person to the central Ego is accurately defined and, except as to those who stand in an identical relationship, is kept distinct from every other by means of a special term or descriptive phrase. It also implies the certainty of the parentage of every individual, which monogamy alone could assure. Moreover, it describes the relationships in the monogamian family as they actually exist. Nothing can be plainer than that this form of marriage made this form of the family, and that the latter created this system of consanguinity. The three are necessary parts of a whole where the descriptive system is exclusive. What we know by direct observation to be true with respect to the monogamian family, its law of marriage and its system of consanguinity, has been shown to be equally true with respect to the punaluan family, its law of marriage and its system of consanguinity; and not less so of the consanguine family, its form of marriage and its system of consanguinity. Any of these three parts being given, the existence of the other two with it, at some one time, may be deduced with certainty. If any difference could be made in favor of the superior materiality of any one of the three, the preference would belong to systems of consanguinity. They have crystallized the evidence declaring the marriage law and the form of the family in the relationship of every individual person; thus preserving not only the highest evidence of the fact, but as many concurring declarations thereto as there are members united by the bond of consanguinity. It furnishes a test of the high rank of a domestic institution, which must be supposed incapable of design to pervert the truth, and which, therefore, may be trusted implicitly as to whatever it necessarily teaches. Finally, it is with respect to systems of consanguinity that our information is most complete.

The five successive forms of the family, mentioned at the outset, have now been presented and explained, with such evidence of their existence, and such particulars of their structure as our present knowledge furnishes. Although the treatment of each has been general, it has touched the essential facts and attributes, and established the main proposition, that the family commenced in the consanguine, and grew, through successive stages of development, into the monogamian. There is nothing in this general conclusion which might not have been anticipated from À priori considerations; but the difficulties and the hindrances which obstructed its growth are seen to have been far greater than would have been supposed. As a growth with the ages of time, it has shared in all the vicissitudes of human experience, and now reveals more expressively, perhaps, than any other institution, the graduated scale of human progress from the abyss of primitive savagery, through barbarism, to civilization. It brings us near to the daily life of the human family in the different epochs of its progressive development, indicating, in some measure, its hardships, its struggles and also its victories, when different periods are contrasted. We should value the great institution of the family, as it now exists, in some proportion to the expenditure of time and of intelligence in its production; and receive it as the richest legacy transmitted to us by ancient society, because it embodies and records the highest results of its varied and prolonged experience.

When the fact is accepted that the family has passed through four successive forms, and is now in a fifth, the question at once arises whether this form can be permanent in the future. The only answer that can be given is, that it must advance as society advances, and change as society changes, even as it has done in the past. It is the creature of the social system, and will reflect its culture. As the monogamian family has improved greatly since the commencement of civilization, and very sensibly in modern times, it is at least supposable that it is capable of still farther improvement until the equality of the sexes is attained. Should the monogamian family in the distant future fail to answer the requirements of society, assuming the continuous progress of civilization, it is impossible to predict the nature of its successor.

[Pg 493]
[Pg 497]

Roman and Arabic System of Relationship.

Transcriber's Note: Abbreviations: fa=father, mo=mother, GF=Grandfather, GM=Grandmother, GD=Granddaughter, GS=Grandson, bro=Brother, str=sister, gt=great, dau=daughter. End of Transcriber's Note.

Description of Persons.		Relationship in Latin.	Translation		Relationship in Arabic.	Translation
1	gt-GF'sgt-GF	tritavus	gt-GF'sgt-GF		jidd jidd jiddi	GFofGFofGFmy
2	g " t G " 's GF	atavu	gt-GF's GF		jidd jidd abi	G " i o " f i " F o " f famy
3	g " t G " 's fa	abavus	gt-gt-GF		jidd jiddi	G " i o " f GFmy
4	g " t G " 's mo	abavia	gt-gt- GM		sitt sitti	GM of GM my
5	gt-GF	proavus	gt-GF		jidd abi	GF of fa my
6	g " t GM	proavia	gt- GM		sitt abi	GM i " f i " a i " y
7	GF	avus	GF		jidd	GF my
8	GM	avia	GM		sitti	GM i " y
9	fa	pater	fa		abi	fa my
10	mo	mater	mo		ummi	mo i " y
11	son	filius	son		ibni	son i " y
12	dau	filia	dau		ibneti b, binti	dau i " y
13	GS	nepos	GS		ibn ibni	son of son my
14	GD	neptis	GD		ibnet ibni	dau of son my
15	gt-GS	pronepos	gt-GS		ibn ibn ibni	son of son of son my
16	g " t GM	proneptis	g " t GD		bint bint binti	dau of dau of dau my
17	gt-GS's son	abnepos	g " t gt-GS		ibn ibn ibn ibni	son of son of son of son my
18	g " t G " S dau	abneptis	g " t g " t GD		bint bint bint binti	dau of dau of dau of dau my
19	g " t G " S GS	atnepos	gt-GS's GS		ibn ibn ibn ibn ibni	son of son of son of son of son my
20	g " t G " S GD	atneptis	g " t G " S GD		bintbintbintbintbinti	dau of dau of dau of dau of dau my
21	g " t G " S gt-GS	trinepos	g " t G " S gt-GS		ibn ibn ibn ibn ibn ibni	sonofsonofsonofsonofsonofsonmy
22	g " t G " S g " t GD	trinepos	g " t G " S g " t GD		ibnibnibnibnibnibni	dauofdauofdauofdauofdauofdaumy
23	bros	fratres	bros		ahwati	bros my
24	strs	sorores	strs		ahwati	strs m " y
25	bro	frater	bro		akhi	bro m " y
	(FirstCollateralLine)
26	bro's son	fratris filius	son of bro		ibn akhi	son of bro my
27	br " os son's wife	fratris filii uxor	wife of son of bro		amrat ibn akhi	wife of son of bro my
28	br " os dau	fratris filia	dau of bro		bint akhi	dau of bro my
29	br " os dau's husb	fratris filiae vir	husbofdauofbro		zoj bint akhi	husb of dau of bro my
30	br " os GS	fratris nepos	GS	of bro	ibn ibn akhi	son of son of bro my
31	br " os GD	fra " tris neptis	GD	i " f b "	bint ibn akhi	dau of son of bro my
32	br " os gt-GS	fra " tris pronepos	gt-GS	i " f b "	ibn ibn ibn akhi	son of son of son of bro my
33	br " os g " t GD	fratrisproneptis	gt-GD	i " f b "	bint bint bint akhi	dau of dau of dau of bro my
34	str	soror	str		akhti	str my
35	str's son	sororis filius	son of str		ibn akhti	son of str my
36	st " r's son's wife	sororisfiliiuxor	wife of son of str		amrÂt ibn akhti	wife of son of str my
37	st " r's son's dau	sor " oris filia	dau of str		bint akhti	dau of str my
38	st " r's dau's husb	sor " oris filiae vir	husbofdauofstr		zoj bint akhti	husb of dau of str my
39	st " r's GS	sor " oris nepos	str's GS		ibn akhti	son of str my
40	st " r's GD	sor " oris neptis	st " r's GD		bint akhti	dau of str my
41	st " r's gt-GS	sor " oris pronepos	st " r's gt-GS		ibn ibn akhti	son of son of str my
42	st " r's gt-GD	sororis proneptis	st " r's GD		bint bint akhti	dau of dau of str my
	(SecondCollateralLine)
43	fa's bro	patruus	pat uncle		ammi	pat uncle my
44	fa " s bro's wife	patrui uxor	wife of	pat uncle	amrÂt ammi	wife of	pat uncle my
45	fa " s bro " s son	pat " rui filius	son of	p " t un " cle	ibn ammi	son of	p " t un " cle m " y
46	fa " s bro " s son's wife	pat " rui filii uxor	wife of son of	p " t un " cle	amrÂtibn ammi	wife of son of	p " t un " cle m " y
47	fa " s bro " s dau	pat " rui filia	dau of	p " t un " cle	bint ammi	dau of of	p " t un " cle m " y
48	fa " s bro " s dau's husb	pat " rui filiae vir	husb of dau of	p " t un " cle	zÔj bint ammi	husb of dau of	p " t un " cle m " y
49	fa " s bro " s GS	pat " rui nepos	GS of of	p " t un " cle	ibn bint ammi	son of son of	p " t un " cle m " y
50	fa " s bro " s GD	pat " rui neptis	GD of	p " t un " cle	bint bint ammi	dau of dau of	p " t un " cle m " y
51	fa " s bro " s gt-GS	pat " rui pronepos	gt-GS of	p " t un " cle	ibn ibn ibn ammi	son of son of son of	p " t un " cle m " y
52	fa " s bro " s gt-GD	pat " rui proneptis	gt-GD of	p " t un " cle	bint bint bint ammi	dau of dau of dau of	p " t un " cle m " y
53	fa's str	amita	pat aunt		ammeti	pat aunt my
54	fa " s str's husb	amitae vir	husb of	pat aunt	arÂt ammeti	husb of	pat aunt my
55	fa " s st " r's son	ami " tae filius	son of	p " t au " nt	ibn ammeti	son of	p " t au " nt m " y
56	fa " s st " r's son's wife	ami " tae filii uxor	wifeofsonof	p " t au " nt	amrÂt ibn ammeti	wife of son of	p " t au " nt m " y
57	fa " s st " r's dau	ami " tae filia	dau of	p " t au " nt	bint ammeti	dau of	p " t au " nt m " y
58	fa " s st " r's dau's husb	ami " tae filiae vir	husbofdauof	p " t au " nt	zÔj bint ammeti	husb of dau of	p " t au " nt m " y
59	fa " s st " r's GS	ami " tae nepos	GS of	p " t au " nt	ibn ibn ammeti	GS of	p " t au " nt m " y
60	fa " s st " r's GD	ami " tae neptis	GD of	p " t au " nt	bint bint ammeti	dau of dau of	p " t au " nt m " y
61	fa " s st " r's gt-GS	ami " tae pronepos	gt-GS of	p " t au " nt	ibn ibn ibn ammeti	son of son of son of	p " t au " nt m " y
62	fa " s st " r's gt-GD	ami " tae proneptis	gt- GDof	p " t au " nt	bint bint bint ammeti	dau of dau of dau of	p " t au " nt m " y
63	mo's bro	avunculus	mat uncle		khÂli	mat uncle my
64	mo " 's bro's wife	avunculi uxor	wife of	mat uncle	amrat khÂli	wife of	mat uncle my
65	mo " 's br " o's son	avu " nculi filius	son of	m " at un " cle	ibn khÂli	son of	m " at un " cl m " y
66	mo " 's br " o's son's wife	avu " nculi filiiuxor	wife of son of	m " at un " cle	amrat ibn khÂli	wife of son of	m " at un " cl m " y
67	mo " 's br " o's dau	avu " nculi filia	dau of	m " at un " cle	bint khÂli	dau of	m " at un " cl m " y
68	mo " 's br " o's dau's husb	avu " nculi filiae vir	husb of dau of	m " at un " cle	zÔj bint khÂli	husb of dau of	m " at un " cl m " y
69	mo " 's br " o's GS	avu " nculi nepos	GS of	m " at un " cle	ibn ibn khÂli	son of son of	m " at un " cl m " y
70	mo " 's br " o's GD	avu " nculi neptis	GD of	m " at un " cle	bint bint khÂli	dau of dau of	m " at un " cl m " y
71	mo " 's br " o's gt-GS	avu " nculi pronepos	gt-GS of	m " at un " cle	ibn ibn ibn khÂli	son of son of son of	m " at un " cl m " y
72	mo " 's br " o's gt-GD	avu " nculi proneptis	gt-GD of	m " at un " cle	bint bint bint khÂli	dau of dau of dau of	m " at un " cl m " y
73	mo's str	matertera	mat aunt		khÂleti	mat aunt my
74	mo " s str's husb	materterae vir	husb of	mat aunt	zÔj khÂleti	husb of	mat aunt my
75	mo " s st " r's son	mater " terae filius	son of	m " at a " nt	ibn khÂleti	son of	m " at a " nt m " y
76	mo " s st " r's son's wife	mater " terae filiiuxor	wife of son of	m " at a " nt	amrÂt ibn khÂleti	wife of son of	m " at a " nt m " y
77	mo " s st " r's dau	mater " terae filia	dau of	m " at a " nt	bint khÂleti	dau of	m " at a " nt m " y
78	mo " s st " r's dau's husb	mater " terae filiae vir	husb of dau of	m " at a " nt	zÔj bint khÂleti	husb of dau of	m " at a " nt m " y
79	mo " s st " r's GS	mater " terae nepos	GS of	m " at a " nt	ibn ibn khÂleti	son of son of	m " at a " nt m " y
80	mo " s st " r's GD	mater " terae neptis	GD of	m " at a " nt	bint bint khÂleti	dau of dau of	m " at a " nt m " y
81	mo " s st " r's gt-GS	mater " terae pronepos	gt-GS of	m " at a " nt	ibn ibn ibn khÂleti	son of son of son of	m " at a " nt m " y
82	mo " s st " r's gt-GD	mater " terae proneptis	gt-GD of	m " at a " nt	bint bint bint khÂleti	dau of dau of dau of	m " at a " nt m " y
	(Third Collateral Line).
83	fa's fa's bro	patruus magnus	gt pat uncle		amm abi	pat uncle of fa my
84	fa " s fa " s bro's son	patrui magni filius	son of	gt pat uncle	ibn ammi abi	son of	pat uncle of fa my
85	fa " s fa " s br " o's GS	pat " rui ma " gni nepos	GS of	g " tp " at u " cle	ibn ibn ammi abi	son of son of	p " at un " cl o " f f " a i " y
86	fa " s fa " s br " o's gt-GS	pat " rui ma " gni pronepos	gt-GS of	g " tp " at u " cle	ibn ibn ibn ammi abi	son of son of son of	p " at un " cl o " f f " a i " y
87	fa " s fa " s str	amita magna	gt pat aunt		ammet ?bi	pat aunt of fa my
88	fa " s fa " s str's dau	amitae magnae filia	dau of	gt pat aunt	bint ammet ?bi	dau of	pat aunt of fa my
89	fa " s fa " s st " r's GD	ami " tae ma " nae neptis	GD of	gt pat aunt	bint bint ammet ?bi	dau of dau of	p " at a " nt o " f f " a i " y
90	fa " s fa " s st " r's gt-GD	ami " tae ma " nae proneptis	gt-GD of	g " t p " at u " nt	bintbintbintammet?bi	dau of dau of dau of	p " at a " nt o " f f " a i " y
91	mo's mo's bro	avunculus magnus	gt mat uncle		khÂl ?mmi	mat uncle of mo my
92	mo " s mo " s bro's son	avunculi magni filius	son of	gt mat uncle	ibn khÂl ?mmi	son of	mat uncle of mo my
93	mo " s mo " s br " o's GS	avun " culima " gni nepos	GS of	g " tm " atn "	ibn ibn khÂl ?mmi	son of son of	m " atun " clo " fm " m " y
94	mo " s mo " s br " o's gt-GS	avun " culima " gni pronepos	gt-GS of	g " tm " atn "	ibn ibn ibn khÂl ?mmi	son of son of son of	m " atun " clo " fm " m " y
95	mo " s mo " s str	matertera magna	gt mat aunt		khÂlet ?mmi	mat aunt of mo my
96	mo " s mo " s str's dau	materterae magnae filia	dau of	gt mat aunt	bint khÂlet ?mmi	dau of	mat aunt of mo my
97	mo " s mo " s st " r's GD	mater " teraema " nae neptis	GD of	g " tm " atn "	bint bint khÂlet ?mmi	dau of dau of	m " atu " nto " fm " m " y
98	mo " s mo " s st " r's gt-GD	mater " teraema " nae proneptis	gt-GD of	g " tm " atn "	bintbintbintkhÂlet?mmi	dau of dau of dau of	m " atu " nto " fm " m " y
	(Fourth Collateral Line).
99	fa's fa's fa's bro	patruus major	pat gt-gt-uncle		amm jiddi	pat uncle of GF my
100	fa " sfa " sfa " s bro's son	patrui majoris filius	son of	pat gt-gt-uncle	ibn amm jiddi	son of	pat uncle of GF my
101	fa " sfa " sfa " s br " o's GS	patrui majoris nepos	GS of	p " at " tg " tun "	ibn ibn amm jiddi	son of son of	p " at un " cl o " f f " a ii " y
102	fa " sfa " sfa " s br " o's gt-GS	patrui majoris pronepos	gt-GS of	p " at " tg " tun "	ibn ibn ibn amm jiddi	son of son of son of	p " at un " cl o " f f " a ii " y
103	fa " sfa " sfa " s str	amita major	pat gt-gt aunt		ammet jiddi	pat aunt of GF my
104	fa " sfa " sfa " s str's dau	amitae majoris filia	dau of	pat gt-gt-aunt	bint ammet jiddi	dau of	pat aunt of GF my
105	fa " sfa " sfa " s str's GD	ami " taemaj " oris neptis	GD of	p " at " tg " tau "	bint bint ammet jiddi	dau of dau of	p " ata " no " fG " Fm "
106	fa " sfa " sfa " s str's gt-GD	ami " taemaj " oris proneptis	gt-GD of	p " at " tg " tau "	bintbintbintammetjiddi	dau of dau of dau of	p " ata " no< CHAPTER VI. - SEQUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE FAMILY. Sequence in part Hypothetical.—Relation of these Institutions in the Order of their Origination.—Evidence of their Origination in the Order named.—Hypothesis of Degradation considered.—The Antiquity of Mankind. It remains to place in their relations the customs and institutions which have contributed to the growth of the family through successive forms. Their articulation in a sequence is in part hypothetical; but there is an intimate and undoubted connection between them. This sequence embodies the principal social and domestic institutions which have influenced the growth of the family from the consanguine to the monogamian.494 They are to be understood as originating in the several branches of the human family substantially in the order named, and as existing generally in these branches while in the corresponding status. First Stage of Sequence. I. Promiscuous Intercourse. II. Intermarriage of Brothers and Sisters, own and collateral, in a Group: Giving,— III. The Consanguine Family. (First Stage of the Family): Giving,— IV. The Malayan System of Consanguinity and Affinity. Second Stage of Sequence. V. The Organization upon the basis of Sex, and the Punaluan Custom, tending to check the intermarriage of brothers and sisters: Giving,— VI. The Punaluan Family. (Second Stage of the Family): Giving,— VII. The Organization into Gentes, which excluded brothers and sisters from the marriage relation: Giving,— VIII. The Turanian and GanowÁnian System of Consanguinity and Affinity. Third Stage of Sequence. IX. Increasing Influence of Gentile Organisation and improvement in the arts of life, advancing a portion of mankind into the Lower Status of barbarism: Giving,— X. Marriage between Single Pairs, but without an exclusive cohabitation: Giving,— XI. The Syndyasmian Family. (Third Stage of the Family.) Fourth Stage of Sequence. XII. Pastoral life on the plains in limited areas: Giving,— XIII. The Patriarchal Family. (Fourth, but exceptional Stage of the Family.) Fifth Stage of Sequence. XIV. Rise of Property, and settlement of lineal succession to estates: Giving,— XV. The Monogamian Family. (Fifth Stage of the Family): Giving— XVI. The Aryan, Semitic and Uralian system of Consanguinity and Affinity; and causing the overthrow of the Turanian. A few observations upon the foregoing sequence of customs and institutions, for the purpose of tracing their connection and relations, will close this discussion of the growth of the family. Like the successive geological formations, the tribes of mankind may be arranged, according to their relative conditions, into successive strata. When thus arranged, they reveal with some degree of certainty the entire range of human progress from savagery to civilization. A thorough study of each successive stratum will develop whatever is special in its culture and characteristics, and yield a definite conception of the whole, in their differences and in their relations. When this has been accomplished, the successive stages of human progress will be definitely understood. Time has been an important factor in the formation of these strata; and it must be measured out to each ethnical period in no stinted measure. Each period anterior to civilization necessarily represents many thousands of years. Promiscuous Intercourse.—This expresses the lowest conceivable stage of savagery—it represents the bottom of the scale. Man in this condition could scarcely be distinguished from the mute animals by whom he was surrounded. Ignorant of marriage, and living probably in a horde, he was not only a savage, but possessed a feeble intellect and a feebler moral sense. His hope of elevation rested in the vigor of his passions, for he seems always to have been courageous; in the possession of hands physically liberated, and in the improvable character of his nascent mental and moral powers. In corroboration of this view, the lessening volume of the skull and its increasing animal characteristics, as we recede from civilized to savage man, deliver some testimony concerning the necessary inferiority of primitive man. Were it possible to reach this earliest representative of the species, we must descend very far below the lowest savage now living upon the earth. The ruder flint implements found over parts of the earth’s surface, and not used by existing savages, attest the extreme rudeness of his condition after he had emerged from his primitive habitat, and commenced, as a fisherman, his spread over continental areas. It is with respect to this primitive savage, and with respect to him alone, that promiscuity may be inferred. It will be asked whether any evidence exists of this antecedent condition. As an answer, it may be remarked that the consanguine family and the Malayan system of consanguinity presuppose antecedent promiscuity. It was limited, not unlikely, to the period when mankind were frugivorous and within their primitive habitat, since its continuance would have been improbable after they became fishermen and commenced their spread over the earth in dependence upon food artificially acquired. Consanguine groups would then form, with intermarriage in the group as a necessity, resulting in the formation of consanguine families. At all events, the oldest form of society which meets us in the past through deduction from systems of consanguinity is this family. It would be in the nature of a compact on the part of several males for the joint subsistence of the group, and for the defense of their common wives against the violence of society. In the second place, the consanguine family is stamped with the marks of this supposed antecedent state. It recognized promiscuity within defined limits, and those not the narrowest, and it points through its organism to a worse condition against which it interposed a shield. Between the consanguine family and the horde living in promiscuity, the step, though a long one, does not require an intermediate condition. If such existed, no known trace of it remains. The solution of this question, however, is not material. It is sufficient, for the present at least, to have gained the definite starting-point far down in savagery marked out by the consanguine family, which carries back our knowledge of the early condition of mankind well toward the primitive period. There were tribes of savages and even of barbarians known to the Greeks and Romans who are represented as living in promiscuity. Among them were the Auseans of North Africa, mentioned by Herodotus,495 the Garamantes of Æthiopia, mentioned by Pliny,496 and the Celts of Ireland, mentioned by Strabo.497 The latter repeats a similar statement concerning the Arabs.498 It is not probable that any people within the time of recorded human observation have lived in a state of promiscuous intercourse like the gregarious animals. The perpetuation of such a people from the infancy of mankind would evidently have been impossible. The cases cited, and many others that might be added, are better explained as arising under the punaluan family, which, to the foreign observer, with limited means of observation, would afford the external indications named by these authors. Promiscuity may be deduced theoretically as a necessary condition antecedent to the consanguine family; but it lies concealed in the misty antiquity of mankind beyond the reach of positive knowledge. II. Intermarriage of Brothers and Sisters, own and collateral, in a Group.—In this form of marriage the family had its birth. It is the root of the institution. The Malayan system of consanguinity affords conclusive evidence of its ancient prevalence. With the ancient existence of the consanguine family established, the remaining forms can be explained as successive derivations from each other. This form of marriage gives (III.) the consanguine family and (IV.) the Malayan system of consanguinity, which disposes of the third and fourth members of the sequence. This family belongs to the Lower Status of savagery. V. The Punaluan Custom.—In the Australian male and female classes united in marriage, punaluan groups are found. Among the Hawaiians, the same group is also found, with the marriage custom it expresses. It has prevailed among the remote ancestors of all the tribes of mankind who now possess or have possessed the Turanian system of consanguinity, because they must have derived it from punaluan ancestors. There is seemingly no other explanation of the origin of this system. Attention has been called to the fact that the punaluan family included the same persons found in the previous consanguine, with the exception of own brothers and sisters, who were theoretically if not in every case excluded. It is a fair inference that the punaluan custom worked its way into general adoption through a discovery of its beneficial influence. Out of punaluan marriage came (VI.) the punaluan family, which disposes of the sixth member of the sequence. This family originated, probably, in the Middle Status of savagery. VII. The Organization into Gentes.—The position of this institution in the sequence is the only question here to be considered. Among the Australian classes, the punaluan group is found on a broad and systematic scale. The people are also organized in gentes. Here the punaluan family is older than the gens, because it rested upon the classes which preceded the gentes. The Australians also have the Turanian system of consanguinity, for which the classes laid the foundation by excluding own brothers and sisters from the punaluan group united in marriage. They were born members of classes who could not intermarry. Among the Hawaiians, the punaluan family was unable to create the Turanian system of consanguinity. Own brothers and sisters were frequently involved in the punaluan group, which the custom did not prevent, although it tended to do so. This system requires both the punaluan family and the gentile organization to bring it into existence. It follows that the latter came in after and upon the former. In its relative order it belongs to the Middle Status of savagery. VIII. and IX. These have been sufficiently considered. X. and XI. Marriage between Single Pairs, and the Syndyasmian Family.—After mankind had advanced out of savagery and entered the Lower Status of barbarism, their condition was immensely improved. More than half the battle for civilization was won. A tendency to reduce the groups of married persons to smaller proportions must have begun to manifest itself before the close of savagery, because the syndyasmian family became a constant phenomenon in the Lower Status of barbarism. The custom which led the more advanced savage to recognize one among a number of wives as his principal wife, ripened in time into the practice of pairing, and in making this wife a companion and associate in the maintenance of a family. With the growth of the propensity to pair came an increased certainty of the paternity of children. But the husband could put away his wife, and the wife could leave her husband, and each seek a new mate at pleasure. Moreover, the man did not recognize, on his part, the obligations of the marriage tie, and therefore had no right to expect its recognition by his wife. The old conjugal system, now reduced to narrower limits by the gradual disappearance of the punaluan groups, still environed the advancing family, which it was to follow to the verge of civilization. Its reduction to zero was a condition precedent to the introduction of monogamy. It finally disappeared in the new form of hetÆrism, which still follows mankind in civilization as a dark shadow upon the family. The contrast between the punaluan and syndyasmian families was greater than between the latter and the monogamian. It was subsequent in time to the gens, which was largely instrumental in its production. That it was a transitional stage of the family between the two is made evident by its inability to change materially the Turanian system of consanguinity, which monogamy alone was able to overthrow. From the Columbia River to the Paraguay, the Indian family was syndyasmian in general, punaluan in exceptional areas, and monogamian perhaps in none. XII. and XIII. Pastoral Life and the Patriarchal Family.—It has been remarked elsewhere that polygamy was not the essential feature of this family, which represented a movement of society to assert the individuality of persons. Among the Semitic tribes, it was an organization of servants and slaves under a patriarch for the care of flocks and herds, for the cultivation of lands, and for mutual protection and subsistence. Polygamy was incidental. With a single male head and an exclusive cohabitation, this family was an advance upon the syndyasmian, and therefore not a retrograde movement. Its influence upon the human race was limited; but it carries with it a confession of a state of society in the previous period against which it was designed to form a barrier. XIV. Rise of Property and the establishment of lineal succession to Estates.—Independently of the movement which culminated in the patriarchal family of the Hebrew and Latin types, property, as it increased in variety and amount, exercised a steady and constantly augmenting influence in the direction of monogamy. It is impossible to overestimate the influence of property in the civilization of mankind. It was the power that brought the Aryan and Semitic nations out of barbarism into civilization. The growth of the idea of property in the human mind commenced in feebleness and ended in becoming its master passion. Governments and laws are instituted with primary reference to its creation, protection and enjoyment. It introduced human slavery as an instrument in its production; and, after the experience of several thousand years, it caused the abolition of slavery upon the discovery that a freeman was a better property-making machine. The cruelty inherent in the heart of man, which civilization and Christianity have softened without eradicating, still betrays the savage origin of mankind, and in no way more pointedly than in the practice of human slavery, through all the centuries of recorded history. With the establishment of the inheritance of property in the children of its owner, came the first possibility of a strict monogamian family. Gradually, though slowly, this form of marriage, with an exclusive cohabitation, became the rule rather than the exception; but it was not until civilization had commenced that it became permanently established. XV. The Monogamian Family.—As finally constituted, this family assured the paternity of children, substituted the individual ownership of real as well as personal property for joint ownership, and an exclusive inheritance by children in the place of agnatic inheritance. Modern society reposes upon the monogamian family. The whole previous experience and progress of mankind culminated and crystallized in this pre-eminent institution. It was a slow growth, planting its roots far back in the period of savagery—a final result toward which the experience of the ages steadily tended. Although essentially modern, it was the product of a vast and varied experience. XVI. The Aryan, Semitic and Uralian systems of consanguinity, which are essentially identical, were created by the monogamian family. Its relationships are those which actually existed under this form of marriage and of the family. A system of consanguinity is not an arbitrary enactment, but a natural growth. It expresses, and must of necessity express, the actual facts of consanguinity as they appeared to the common mind when the system was formed. As the Aryan system establishes the antecedent existence of a monogamian family, so the Turanian establishes the antecedent existence of a punaluan family, and the Malayan the antecedent existence of a consanguine family. The evidence they contain must be regarded as conclusive, because of its convincing character in each case. With the existence established of three kinds of marriage, of three forms of the family, and of three systems of consanguinity, nine of the sixteen members of the sequence are sustained. The existence and relations of the remainder are warranted by sufficient proof. The views herein presented contravene, as I am aware, an assumption which has for centuries been generally accepted. It is the hypothesis of human degradation to explain the existence of barbarians and of savages, who were found, physically and mentally, too far below the conceived standard of a supposed original man. It was never a scientific proposition supported by facts. It is refuted by the connected series of inventions and discoveries, by the progressive development of the social system, and by the successive forms of the family. The Aryan and Semitic peoples descended from barbarous ancestors. The question then meets us, how could these barbarians have attained to the Upper Status of barbarism, in which they first appear, without previously passing through the experience and acquiring the arts and development of the Middle Status; and, further than this, how could they have attained to the Middle Status without first passing through the experience of the Lower. Back of these is the further question, how a barbarian could exist without a previous savage. This hypothesis of degradation leads to another necessity, namely; that of regarding all the races of mankind without the Aryan and Semitic connections as abnormal races—races fallen away by degeneracy from their normal state. The Aryan and Semitic nations, it is true, represent the main streams of human progress, because they have carried it to the highest point yet attained; but there are good reasons for supposing that before they became differentiated into Aryan and Semitic tribes, they formed a part of the indistinguishable mass of barbarians. As these tribes themselves sprang remotely from barbarous, and still more remotely from savage ancestors, the distinction of normal and abnormal races falls to the ground. This sequence, moreover, contravenes some of the conclusions of that body of eminent scholars who, in their speculations upon the origin of society, have adopted the patriarchal family of the Hebrew and Latin types as the oldest form of the family, and as producing the earliest organized society. The human race is thus invested from its infancy with a knowledge of the family under paternal power. Among the latest, and holding foremost rank among them, is Sir Henry Maine, whose brilliant researches in the sources of ancient law, and in the early history of institutions, have advanced so largely our knowledge of them. The patriarchal family, it is true, is the oldest made known to us by ascending along the lines of classical and Semitic authorities; but an investigation along these lines is unable to penetrate beyond the Upper Status of barbarism, leaving at least four entire ethnical periods untouched, and their connection unrecognized. It must be admitted, however, that the facts with respect to the early condition of mankind have been but recently produced, and that judicious investigators are justly careful about surrendering old doctrines for new. Unfortunately for the hypothesis of degradation, inventions and discoveries would come one by one; the knowledge of a cord must precede the bow and arrow, as the knowledge of gunpowder preceded the musket, and that of the steam-engine preceded the railway and the steamship; so the arts of subsistence followed each other at long intervals of time, and human tools passed through forms of flint and stone before they were formed of iron. In like manner institutions of government are a growth from primitive germs of thought. Growth, development and transmission, must explain their existence among civilized nations. Not less clearly was the monogamian family derived, by experience, through the syndyasmian from the punaluan, and the still more ancient consanguine family. If, finally, we are obliged to surrender the antiquity of the monogamian family, we gain a knowledge of its derivation, which is of more importance, because it reveals the price at which it was obtained. The antiquity of mankind upon the earth is now established by a body of evidence sufficient to convince unprejudiced minds. The existence of the race goes back definitely to the glacial period in Europe, and even back of it into the anterior period. We are now compelled to recognize the prolonged and unmeasured ages of man’s existence. The human mind is naturally and justly curious to know something of the life of man during the last hundred thousand or more years, now that we are assured his days have been so long upon the earth. All this time could not have been spent in vain. His great and marvelous achievements prove the contrary, as well as imply the expenditure of long protracted ethnical periods. The fact that civilization was so recent suggests the difficulties in the way of human progress, and affords some intimation of the lowness of the level from which mankind started on their career. The foregoing sequence may require modification, and perhaps essential change in some of its members; but it affords both a rational and a satisfactory explanation of the facts of human experience, so far as they are known, and of the course of human progress, in developing the ideas of the family and of government in the tribes of mankind. NOTE. - MR. J. F. McLENNAN’S “PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE.” As these pages are passing through the press, I have obtained an enlarged edition of the above-named work. It is a reprint of the original, with several Essays appended; and is now styled “Studies in Ancient History Comprising a Reprint of Primitive Marriage.” In one of these Essays, entitled “The Classificatory System of Relationships,” Mr. McLennan devotes one section (41 pages) to an attempted refutation of my explanation of the origin of the classificatory system; and another (36 pages) to an explanation of his own of the origin of the same system. The hypothesis first referred to is contained in my work on the “Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family” (pp. 479-486). The facts and their explanation are the same, substantially, as those presented in preceding chapters of this volume (Chaps. II. and III., Part III.). “Primitive Marriage” was first published in 1865, and “Systems of Consanguinity,” etc., in 1871. Having collected the facts which established the existence of the classificatory system of consanguinity, I ventured to submit, with the Tables, an hypothesis explanatory of its origin. That hypotheses are useful, and often indispensable to the attainment of truth, will not be questioned. The validity of the solution presented in that work, and repeated in this, will depend upon its sufficiency in explaining all the facts of the case. Until it is superseded by one better entitled to acceptance on this ground, its position in my work is legitimate, and in accordance with the method of scientific inquiry. Mr. McLennan has criticised this hypothesis with great freedom. His conclusion is stated generally as follows (Studies, etc., p. 371): “The space I have devoted to the consideration of the solution may seem disproportioned to its importance; but issuing from the press of the Smithsonian Institution, and its preparation having been aided by the United States Government, Mr. Morgan’s work has been very generally quoted as a work of authority, and it seemed worth while to take the trouble necessary to show its utterly unscientific character.” Not the hypothesis alone, but the entire work is covered by the charge. That work contains 187 pages of “Tables of Consanguinity and Affinity,” exhibiting the systems of 139 tribes and nations of mankind representing four-fifths, numerically, of the entire human family. It is singular that the bare facts of consanguinity and affinity expressed by terms of relationship, even when placed in tabular form, should possess an “utterly unscientific character.” The body of the work is taken up with the dry details of these several systems. There remains a final chapter, consisting of 43 out of 590 pages, devoted to a comparison of these several systems of consanguinity, in which this solution or hypothesis appears. It was the first discussion of a large mass of new material, and had Mr. McLennan’s charge been limited to this chapter, there would have been little need of a discussion here. But he has directed his main attack against the Tables; denying that the systems they exhibit are systems of consanguinity and affinity, thus going to the bottom of the subject.499 Mr. McLennan’s position finds an explanation in the fact, that as systems of consanguinity and affinity they antagonize and refute the principal opinions and the principal theories propounded in “Primitive Marriage.” The author of “Primitive Marriage” would be expected to stand by his preconceived opinions. As systems of consanguinity, for example: (1.) They show that Mr. McLennan’s new terms, “Exogamy and Endogamy” are of questionable utility—that as used in “Primitive Marriage,” their positions are reversed, and that “endogamy” has very little application to the facts treated in that work, while “exogamy” is simply a rule of a gens, and should be stated as such. (2.) They refute Mr. McLennan’s phrase, “kinship through females only,” by showing that kinship through males was recognized as constantly as kinship through females by the same people. (3.) They show that the Nair and Tibetan polyandry could never have been general in the tribes of mankind. (4.) They deny both the necessity and the extent of “wife stealing” as propounded in “Primitive Marriage.” An examination of the grounds, upon which Mr. McLennan’s charge is made, will show not only the failure of his criticisms, but the insufficiency of the theories on which these criticisms are based. Such an examination leads to results disastrous to his entire work, as will be made evident by the discussion of the following propositions, namely: I. That the principal terms and theories employed in “Primitive Marriage” have no value in Ethnology. II. That Mr. McLennan’s hypothesis to account for the origin of the classificatory system of relationship does not account for its origin. III. That Mr. McLennan’s objections to the hypothesis presented in “Systems of Consanguinity,” etc., are of no force. These propositions will be considered in the order named. I. That the principal terms and theories employed in “Primitive Marriage” have no value in Ethnology. When this work appeared it was received with favor by ethnologists, because as a speculative treatise it touched a number of questions upon which they had long been working. A careful reading, however, disclosed deficiencies in definitions, unwarranted assumptions, crude speculations and erroneous conclusions. Mr. Herbert Spencer in his “Principles of Sociology” (Advance Sheets, Popular Science Monthly, Jan., 1877, p. 272), has pointed out a number of them. At the same time he rejects the larger part of Mr. McLennan’s theories respecting “Female Infanticide,” “Wife Stealing,” and “Exogamy and Endogamy.” What he leaves of this work, beyond its collocation of certain ethnological facts, it is difficult to find. It will be sufficient under this head to consider three points. I. Mr. McLennan’s use of the terms “Exogamy” and “Endogamy.” “Exogamy” and “endogamy”—terms of his own coinage—imply, respectively, an obligation to “marry out,” and an obligation to “marry in,” a particular group of persons. These terms are applied so loosely and so imprecisely by Mr. McLennan to the organized groups made known to him by the authors he cites, that both his terms and his conclusions are of little value. It is a fundamental difficulty with “Primitive Marriage” that the gens and the tribe, or the groups they represent, are not distinguished from each other as members of an organic series, so that it might be known of which group “exogamy” or “endogamy” is asserted. One of eight gentes of a tribe, for example, may be “exogamous” with respect to itself, and “endogamous” with respect to the seven remaining gentes. Moreover, these terms, in such a case, if correctly applied, are misleading. Mr. McLennan seems to be presenting two great principles, representing distinct conditions of society which have influenced human affairs. In point of fact, while “endogamy” has very little application to conditions of society treated in “Primitive Marriage,” “exogamy” has reference to a rule or law of a gens—an institution—and as such the unit of organization of a social system. It is the gens that has influenced human affairs, and which is the primary fact. We are at once concerned to know its functions and attributes, with the rights, privileges and obligations of its members. Of these material circumstances Mr. McLennan makes no account, nor does he seem to have had the slightest conception of the gens as a governing institution of ancient society. Two of its rules are the following: (1.) Intermarriage in the gens is prohibited. This is Mr. McLennan’s “exogamy”—restricted as it always is to a gens, but stated by him without any reference to a gens. (2.) In the archaic form of the gens descent is limited to the female line, which is Mr. McLennan’s “kinship through females only,” and which is also stated by him without any reference to a gens. Let us follow this matter further. Seven definitions of tribal system, and of tribe are given (Studies, etc., 113-115). “Exogamy Pure.—I. Tribal (or family) system.—Tribes separate. All the members of each tribe of the same blood, or feigning themselves to be so. Marriage prohibited between the members of the tribe. “2. Tribal system.—Tribe a congeries of family groups, falling into divisions, clans, thums, etc. No connubium between members of same division: connubium between all the divisions. “3. Tribal system.—Tribe a congeries of family groups. * * * No connubium between persons whose family name points them out as being of the same stock. “4. Tribal system.—Tribe in divisions. No connubium between members of the same divisions: connubium between some of the divisions; only partial connubium between others. * * * “5. Tribal system.—Tribe in divisions. No connubium between persons of the same stock: connubium between each division and some other. No connubium between some of the divisions. Caste. “Endogamy Pure. 6. Tribal (or family) system.—Tribes separate. All the members of each tribe of the same blood, or feigning themselves to be so. Connubium between members of the tribe: marriage without the tribe forbidden and punished. “7. Tribal system indistinct.” * * * The italics are mine. Seven definitions of the tribal system ought to define the group called a tribe, with sufficient distinctness to be recognized. The first definition, however, is a puzzle. There are several tribes in a tribal system, but no term for the aggregate of tribes. They are not supposed to form a united body. How the separate tribes fall into a tribal system or are held together does not appear. All the members of each tribe are of the same blood, or pretend to be, and therefore cannot intermarry. This might answer for a description of a gens; but the gens is never found alone, separate from other gentes. There are several gentes intermingled by marriage in every tribe composed of gentes. But Mr. McLennan could not have used tribe here as equivalent to gens, nor as a congeries of family groups. As separate bodies of consanguinei held together in a tribal system, the bodies undefined and the system unexplained, we are offered something altogether new. Definition 6 is much the same. It is not probable that a tribe answering to either of these definitions ever existed in any part of the earth; for it is neither a gens, nor a tribe composed of gentes, nor a nation formed by the coalescence of tribes. Definitions 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th are somewhat more intelligible. They show in each case a tribe composed of gentes, or divisions based upon kin. But it is a gentile rather than a tribal system. As marriage is allowed between the clans, thums, or divisions of the same tribe, “exogamy” cannot be asserted of the tribe in either case. The clan, thum, or division is “exogamous,” with respect to itself, but “endogamous” with respect to the other clans, thums, or divisions. Particular restrictions are stated to exist in some instances. When Mr. McLennan applies the terms “exogamy” or “endogamy” to a tribe, how is it to be known whether it is one of several separate tribes in a tribal system, whatever this may mean, or a tribe defined as a congeries of family groups? On the next page (116) he remarks: “The separate endogamous tribes are nearly as numerous, and they are in some respects as rude, as the separate exogamous tribes.” If he uses tribe as a congeries of family groups, which is a tribe composed of gentes, then “exogamy” cannot be asserted of the tribe. There is not the slightest probability that “exogamy” ever existed in a tribe composed of gentes in any part of the earth. Wherever the gentile organization has been found intermarriage in the gens is forbidden. It gives what Mr. McLennan calls “exogamy.” But, as an equally general rule, intermarriage between the members of a gens and the members of all the other gentes of the same tribe is permitted. The gens is “exogamous,” and the tribe is essentially “endogamous.” In these cases, if in no others, it was material to know the group covered by the word tribe. Take another illustration (p. 42): “If it can be shown, firstly, that exogamous tribes exist, or have existed; and, secondly, that in ruder times the relations of separate tribes were uniformly, or almost uniformly, hostile, we have found a set of circumstances in which men could get wives only by capturing them.” Here we find the initial point of Mr. McLennan’s theory of wife stealing. To make the “set of circumstances” (namely, hostile and therefore independent tribes), tribe as used here must refer to the larger group, a tribe composed of gentes. For the members of the several gentes of a tribe are intermingled by marriage in every family throughout the area occupied by the tribe. All the gentes must be hostile or none. If the term is applied to the smaller group, the gens, then the gens is “exogamous,” and the tribe, in the given case, is seven-eighths “endogamous,” and what becomes of the “set of circumstances” necessitating wife stealing? The principal cases cited in “Primitive Marriage” to prove “exogamy” are the Khonds, Kalmucks, Circassians, Yurak Samoyeds, certain tribes of India and Australia, and certain Indian tribes of America, the Iroquois among the number (pp. 75-100). The American tribes are generally composed of gentes. A man cannot marry a woman of the same gens with himself; but he may marry a woman of any other gens of his own tribe. For example, a man of the Wolf gens of the Seneca tribe of the Iroquois is prohibited from marrying a woman of the same gens, not only in the Seneca tribe, but also in either of the five remaining Iroquois tribes. Here we have Mr. McLennan’s “exogamy,” but restricted, as it always is, to the gens of the individual. But a man may marry a woman in either of the seven remaining Seneca gentes. Here we have “endogamy” in the tribe, practiced by the members of each gens in the seven remaining Seneca gentes. Both practices exist side by side at the same time, in the same tribe, and have so existed from time immemorial. The same fact is true of the American Indian tribes in general. They are cited, nevertheless, by Mr. McLennan, as examples of “exogamous tribes”; and thus enter into the basis of his theories. With respect to “endogamy,” Mr. McLennan would probably refrain from using it in the above case: firstly, because “exogamy” and “endogamy” fail here to represent two opposite principles as they exist in his imagination; and, secondly, because there is, in reality, but one fact to be indicated, namely, that intermarriage in the gens is prohibited. American Indians generally can marry in their own or in a foreign tribe as they please, but not in their gens. Mr. McLennan was able to cite one fair case of “endogamy,” that of the Mantchu Tartars (p. 116), “who prohibited marriage between persons whose family names are different.” A few other similar cases have been found among existing tribes. If the organizations, for example, of the Yurak Samoyeds of Siberia (82), the Magars of Nepaul (83), the Munnieporees, Koupooees, Mows, Muram and Murring tribes of India (87), were examined upon the original evidence, it is highly probable that they would be found exactly analogous to the Iroquois tribes; the “divisions” and “thums” being gentes. Latham, speaking of the Yurak or Kasovo group of the Samoyeds, quotes from Klaproth, as follows: “This division of the kinsmanship is so rigidly observed that no Samoyed takes a wife from the kinsmanship to which he himself belongs. On the contrary, he seeks her in one of the other two.”500 The same author, speaking of the Magars, remarks: “There are twelve thums. All individuals belonging to the same thum are supposed to be descended from the same male ancestor; descent from the same great mother being by no means necessary. So husband and wife must belong to different thums. With one and the same there is no marriage. Do you wish for a wife? If so, look to the thum of your neighbor; at any rate look beyond your own. This is the first time I have had occasion to mention this practice. It will not be the last: on the contrary, the principle it suggests is so common as to be almost universal.”501 The Murring and other tribes of India are in divisions, with the same rule in respect to marriage. In these cases it is probable that we have tribes composed of gentes, with intermarriage in the gens prohibited. Each gens is “exogamous” with respect to itself, and “endogamous” with respect to the remaining gentes of the tribe. They are cited by Mr. McLennan, nevertheless, as examples of “exogamous” tribes. The principal Australian tribes are known to be organized in gentes, with intermarriage in the gens prohibited. Here again the gens is “exogamous” and the tribe “endogamous.” Where the gens is “exogamous” with respect to itself, and “endogamous” with respect to the remaining gentes of the same tribe, of what use is this pair of terms to mark what is but a single fact—the prohibition of intermarriage in the gens? “Exogamy” and “endogamy” are of no value as a pair of terms, pretending as they do to represent or express opposite conditions of society. They have no application in American ethnology, and probably none in Asiatic or European. “Exogamy,” standing alone and applied to the small group (the gens), of which only it can be asserted, might be tolerated. There are no “exogamous” tribes in America, but a plenty of “exogamous” gentes: and when the gens is found, we are concerned with its rules, and these should always be stated as rules of a gens. Mr. McLennan found the clan, thum, division, “exogamous,” and the aggregate of clans, thums, divisions, “endogamous”; but he says nothing about the “endogamy.” Neither does he say the clan, division, or thum is “exogamous,” but that the tribe is “exogamous.” We might suppose he intended to use tribe as equivalent to clan, thum, and division; but we are met with the difficulty that he defines a “tribe [as] a congeries of family groups, falling into divisions, clans, thums, etc.” (114), and immediately (116) he remarks that “the separate endogamous tribes are nearly as numerous, and they are in some respects as rude, as the separate exogamous tribes.” If we take his principal definitions, it can be said without fear of contradiction that Mr. McLennan has not produced a single case of an “exogamous” tribe in his volume. There is another objection to this pair of terms. They are set over against each other to indicate opposite and dissimilar conditions of society. Which of the two is the ruder, and which the more advanced? Abundant cautions are here thrown out by Mr. McLennan. “They may represent a progression from exogamy to endogamy, or from endogamy to exogamy” (115); “they may be equally archaic” (116); and “they are in some respects” equally rude (116); but before the discussion ends, “endogamy” rises to the superior position, and stands over toward civilization, while “exogamy” falls back in the direction of savagery. It became convenient in Mr. McLennan’s speculations for “exogamy” to introduce heterogeneity, which “endogamy” is employed to expel, and bring in homogeneity; so that “endogamy” finally gets the better of “exogamy” as an influence for progress. One of Mr. McLennan’s mistakes was his reversal of the positions of these terms. What he calls “endogamy” precedes “exogamy” in the order of human progress, and belongs to the lowest condition of mankind. Ascending to the time when the Malayan system of consanguinity was formed, and which preceded the gens, we find consanguine groups in the marriage relation. The system of consanguinity indicates both the fact and the character of the groups, and exhibits “endogamy” in its pristine force. Advancing from this state of things, the first check upon “endogamy” is found in the punaluan group, which sought to exclude own brothers and sisters from the marriage relation, while it retained in that relation first, second, and more remote cousins, still under the name of brothers and sisters. The same thing precisely is found in the Australian organization upon sex. Next in the order of time the gens appeared, with descent in the female line, and with intermarriage in the gens prohibited. It brought in Mr. McLennan’s “exogamy.” From this time forward “endogamy” may be dismissed as an influence upon human affairs. According to Mr. McLennan, “exogamy” fell into decay in advancing communities; and when descent was changed to the male line it disappeared in the Grecian and Roman tribes (p. 220). So far from this being the case, what he calls “exogamy” commenced in savagery with the gens, continued through barbarism, and remained into civilization. It existed as completely in the gentes of the Greeks and Romans in the time of Solon and of Servius Tullius as it now exists in the gentes of the Iroquois. “Exogamy” and “endogamy” have been so thoroughly tainted by the manner of their use in “Primitive Marriage,” that the best disposition which can now be made of them is to lay them aside. 2. Mr. McLennan’s phrase: “the system of kinship through females only.” “Primitive Marriage” is deeply colored with this phrase. It asserts that this kinship, where it prevailed, was the only kinship recognized; and thus has an error written on its face. The Turanian, GanowÁnian and Malayan systems of consanguinity show plainly and conclusively that kinship through males was recognized as constantly as kinship through females. A man had brothers and sisters, grandfathers and grandmothers, grandsons and granddaughters, traced through males as well as through females. The maternity of children was ascertainable with certainty, while their paternity was not; but they did not reject kinship through males because of uncertainty, but gave the benefit of the doubt to a number of persons—probable fathers being placed in the category of real fathers, probable brothers in that of real brothers, and probable sons in that of real sons. After the gens appeared, kinship through females had an increased importance, because it now signified gentile kin, as distinguished from non-gentile kin. This was the kinship, in a majority of cases, made known to Mr. McLennan by the authors he cites. The children of the female members of the gens remained within it, while the children of its male members were excluded. Every member of the gens traced his or her descent through females exclusively when descent was in the female line, and through males exclusively when descent was in the male line. Its members were an organized body of consanguinei bearing a common gentile name. They were bound together by affinities of blood, and by the further bond of mutual rights, privileges, and obligations. Gentile kin became, in both cases, superior to other kin; not because no other kin was recognized, but because it conferred the rights and privileges of a gens. Mr. McLennan’s failure to discover this difference indicates an insufficient investigation of the subject he was treating. With descent in the female line, a man had grandfathers and grandmothers, mothers, brothers and sisters, uncles, nephews and nieces, and grandsons and granddaughters in his gens; some own and some collateral; while he had the same out of his gens with the exception of uncles; and in addition, fathers, aunts, sons and daughters, and cousins. A woman had the same relatives in the gens as a man, and sons and daughters in addition, while she had the same relatives out of the gens as a man. Whether in or out of the gens, a brother was recognized as a brother, a father as a father, a son as a son, and the same term was applied in either case without discrimination between them. Descent in the female line, which is all that “kinship through females only” can possibly indicate, is thus seen to be a rule of a gens, and nothing more. It ought to be stated as such, because the gens is the primary fact, and gentile kinship is one of its attributes. Prior to the gentile organization, kinship through females was undoubtedly superior to kinship through males, and was doubtless the principal basis upon which the lower tribal groups were organized. But the body of facts treated in “Primitive Marriage” have little or no relation to that condition of mankind which existed prior to the gentile system. 3. There is no evidence of the general prevalence of the Nair and Tibetan polyandry. These forms of polyandry are used in Mr. McLennan’s speculations as though universal in practice. He employs them in his attempted explanation of the origin of the classificatory system of relationship. The Nair polyandry is where several unrelated persons have one wife in common (p. 146). It is called the rudest form. The Tibetan polyandry is where several brothers have one wife in common. He then makes a rapid flight through the tribes of mankind to show the general prevalence of one or the other of these forms of polyandry, and fails entirely to show their prevalence. It does not seem to have occurred to Mr. McLennan that these forms of polyandry are exceptional, and that they could not have been general even in the Neilgherry Hills or in Tibet. If an average of three men had one wife in common (twelve husbands to one wife was the Nair limit, p. 147), and this was general through a tribe, two-thirds of the marriageable females would be without husbands. It may safely be asserted that such a state of things never existed generally in the tribes of mankind, and without better evidence it cannot be credited in the Neilgherry Hills or in Tibet. The facts in respect to the Nair polyandry are not fully known. “A Nair may be one in several combinations of husbands; that is, he may have any number of wives” (p. 148). This, however, would not help the unmarried females to husbands, although it would increase the number of husbands of one wife. Female infanticide cannot be sufficiently exaggerated to raise into general prevalence these forms of polyandry. Neither can it be said with truth that they have exercised a general influence upon human affairs. The Malayan, Turanian and GanowÁnian systems of consanguinity and affinity, however, bring to light forms of polygyny and polyandry which have influenced human affairs, because they were as universal in prevalence as these systems were, when they respectively came into existence. In the Malayan system, we find evidence of consanguine groups founded upon brother and sister marriages, but including collateral brothers and sisters in the group. Here the men lived in polygyny, and the women in polyandry. In the Turanian and GanowÁnian system we find evidence of a more advanced group—the punaluan in two forms. One was founded on the brotherhood of the husbands, and the other on the sisterhood of the wives; own brothers and sisters being now excluded from the marriage relation. In each group the men were polygynous, and the women polyandrous. Both practices are found in the same group, and both are essential to an explanation of their system of consanguinity. The last-named system of consanguinity and affinity presupposes punaluan marriage in the group. This and the Malayan exhibit the forms of polygyny and polyandry with which ethnography is concerned; while the Nair and Tibetan forms of polyandry are not only insufficient to explain the systems, but are of no general importance. These systems of consanguinity and affinity, as they stand in the Tables, have committed such havoc with the theories and opinions advanced in “Primitive Marriage” that I am constrained to ascribe to this fact Mr. McLennan’s assault upon my hypothesis explanatory of their origin; and his attempt to substitute another, denying them to be systems of consanguinity and affinity. II. That Mr. McLennan’s hypothesis to account for the origin of the classificatory system does not account for its origin. Mr. McLennan sets out with the statement (p. 372) that “the phenomena presented in all the forms [of the classificatory system] are ultimately referable to the marriage law; and that accordingly its origin must be so also.” This is the basis of my explanation; it is but partially that of his own. The marriage law, under which he attempts to explain the origin of the Malayan system, is that found in the Nair polyandry; and the marriage-law under which he attempts to explain the origin of the Turanian and GanowÁnian system is that indicated by the Tibetan polyandry. But he has neither the Nair nor Tibetan system of consanguinity and affinity, with which to explain or to test his hypothesis. He starts, then, without any material from Nair or Tibetan sources, and with forms of marriage-law that never existed among the tribes and nations possessing the classificatory system of relationship. We thus find at the outset that the explanation in question is a mere random speculation. Mr. McLennan denies that the systems in the Tables (Consanguinity, pp. 298-382; 523-567) are systems of consanguinity and affinity. On the contrary, he asserts that together they are “a system of modes of addressing persons.” He is not unequivocal in his denial, but the purport of his language is to that effect. In my work of Consanguinity I pointed out the fact that the American Indians in familiar intercourse and in formal salutation addressed each other by the exact relationship in which they stood to each other, and never by the personal name; and that the same usage prevailed in South India and in China. They use the system in salutation because it is a system of consanguinity and affinity—a reason paramount. Mr. McLennan wishes us to believe that these all-embracing systems were simply conventional, and formed to enable persons to address each other in salutation, and for no other purpose. It is a happy way of disposing of these systems, and of throwing away the most remarkable record in existence respecting the early condition of mankind. Mr. McLennan imagines there must have been a system of consanguinity somewhere entirely independent of the system of addresses; “for it seems reasonable to believe,” he remarks (p. 373), “that the system of blood-ties and the system of addresses would begin to grow up together, and for some little time would have a common history.” A system of blood-ties is a system of consanguinity. Where, then, is the lost system? Mr. McLennan neither produces it nor shows its existence. But I find he uses the systems in the Tables as systems of consanguinity and affinity, so far as they serve his hypothesis, without taking the trouble to modify the assertion that they are simply “modes of addressing persons.” That savage and barbarous tribes the world over, and through untold ages, should have been so solicitous concerning the proper mode of addressing relations as to have produced the Malayan, Turanian and GanowÁnian systems, in their fullness and complexity, for that purpose and no other, and no other systems than these two—that in Asia, Africa, Polynesia, and America they should have agreed, for example, that a given person’s grandfather’s brother should be addressed as grandfather, that brothers older than one’s self should be addressed as elder brothers, and those younger as younger brothers, merely to provide a conventional mode of addressing relatives—are coincidences so remarkable and for so small a reason, that it will be quite sufficient for the author of this brilliant conception to believe it. A system of modes of addressing persons would be ephemeral, because all conventional usages are ephemeral. They would, also, of necessity, be as diverse as the races of mankind. But a system of consanguinity is a very different thing. Its relationships spring from the family and the marriage-law, and possess even greater permanence than the family itself, which advances while the system remains unchanged. These relationships expressed the actual facts of the social condition when the system was formed, and have had a daily importance in the life of mankind. Their uniformity over immense areas of the earth, and their preservation through immense periods of time, are consequences of their connection with the marriage-law. When the Malayan system of consanguinity was formed, it may be supposed that a mother could perceive that her own son and daughter stood to her in certain relationships that could be expressed by suitable terms; that her own mother and her mother’s own mother stood to her in certain other relationships; that the other children of her own mother stood to her in still other relationships; and that the children of her own daughter stood to her in still others—all of which might be expressed by suitable terms. It would give the beginning of a system of consanguinity founded upon obvious blood-ties. It would lay the foundation of the five categories of relations in the Malayan system, and without any reference to marriage-law. When marriage in the group and the consanguine family came in, of both of which the Malayan system affords evidence, the system would spread over the group upon the basis of these primary conceptions. With the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group, the resulting system of consanguinity and affinity would be Malayan. Any hypothesis explanatory of the origin of the Malayan system must fail if these facts are ignored. Such a form of marriage and of the family would create the Malayan system. It would be a system of consanguinity and affinity from the beginning, and explainable only as such. If these views are correct, it will not be necessary to consider in detail the points of Mr. McLennan’s hypothesis, which is too obscure for a philosophical discussion, and utterly incapable of affording an explanation of the origin of these systems. III. That Mr. McLennan’s objections to the hypothesis presented in “Systems of Consanguinity,” etc., are of no force. The same misapprehension of the facts, and the same confusion of ideas which mark his last Essay, also appear in this. He does not hold distinct the relationships by consanguinity and those by marriage, when both exist between the same persons; and he makes mistakes in the relationships of the systems also. It will not be necessary to follow step by step Mr. McLennan’s criticisms upon this hypothesis, some of which are verbal, others of which are distorted, and none of which touch the essence of the questions involved. The first proposition he attempts to refute is stated by him as follows: “The Malayan system of relationships is a system of blood-relationships. Mr. Morgan assumes this, and says nothing of the obstacles to making the assumption” (p. 342). It is in part a system of blood-relationships, and in part of marriage-relationships. The fact is patent. The relationships of father and mother, brother and sister, elder or younger, son and daughter, uncle and aunt, nephew and niece and cousin, grandfather and mother, grandson and daughter; and also of brother-in-law and sister-in-law, son-in-law and daughter-in-law, besides others, are given in the Tables and were before Mr. McLennan. These systems speak for themselves, and could say nothing else but that they are systems of consanguinity and affinity. Does Mr. McLennan suppose that the tribes named had a system other or different from that presented in the Tables? If he did, he was bound to produce it, or to establish the fact of its existence. He does neither. Two or three of his special points may be considered. “And indeed,” he remarks (p. 346), “if a man is called the son of a woman who did not bear him, his being so called clearly defies explanation on the principle of natural descents. The reputed relationship is not, in that case, the one actually existing as near as the parentage of individuals could be known; and accordingly Mr. Morgan’s proposition is not made out.” On the face of the statement the question involved is not one of parentage, but of marriage-relationship. A man calls his mother’s sister his mother, and she calls him her son, although she did not bear him. This is the case in the Malayan, Turanian and GanowÁnian systems. Whether we have consanguine or punaluan marriages, a man’s mother’s sister is the wife of his reputed father. She is his step-mother as near as our system furnishes an analogue; and among ourselves a step-mother is called mother, and she calls her step-son, son. It defies explanation, it is true, as a blood-relationship, which it does not pretend to be, but as a marriage-relationship, which it pretends to be, this is the explanation. The reasoning of Mr. McLennan is equally specious and equally faulty in a number of cases. Passing from the Malayan to the Turanian system, he remarks (p. 354): “It follows from this that a man’s son and his sister’s daughter, while reputed brother and sister, would have been free, when the ‘tribal organization’ had been established, to intermarry, for they belonged to different tribes of descent.” From this he branches out in an argument of two or three pages to prove that “Mr. Morgan’s reason, then, is insufficient.” If Mr. McLennan had studied the Turanian or the GanowÁnian system of consanguinity with very moderate attention, he would have found that a “man’s son and his sister’s daughter” are not “reputed brother and sister.” On the contrary, they are cousins. This is one of the most obvious as well as important differences between the Malayan and Turanian systems, and the one which expresses the difference between the consanguine family of the Malayan, and the punaluan family of the Turanian system. The general reader will hardly take the trouble necessary to master the details of these systems. Unless he can follow the relationships with ease and freedom, a discussion of the system will be a source of perplexity rather than of pleasure. Mr. McLennan uses the terms of relationship freely, but without, in all cases, using them correctly. In another place (p. 360), Mr. McLennan attributes to me a distinction between marriage and cohabitation which I have not made; and follows it with a rhetorical flourish quite equal to the best in “Primitive Marriage.” Finally, Mr. McLennan plants himself upon two alleged mistakes which vitiate, in his opinion, my explanation of the origin of the classificatory system. “In attempting to explain the origin of the classificatory system, Mr. Morgan made two radical mistakes. His first mistake was, that he did not steadily contemplate the main peculiarity of the system—its classification of the connected persons; that he did not seek the origin of the system in the origin of the classification” (p. 360). What is the difference in this case, between the system and the classification? The two mean the same thing, and cannot by any possibility be made to mean anything different. To seek the origin of one is to seek the origin of the other. “The second mistake, or rather I should say error, was to have so lightly assumed the system to be a system of blood ties” (p. 361). There is no error here, since the persons named in the Tables are descended from common ancestors, or connected by marriage with some one or more of them. They are the same persons who are described in the Table showing the Aryan, Semitic, and Uralian systems (Consanguinity, pp. 79-127). In each and all of these systems they are bound to each other in fact by consanguinity and affinity. In the latter each relationship is specialized; in the former they are classified in categories; but in all alike the ultimate basis is the same, namely, actual consanguinity and affinity. Marriage in the group in the former, and marriage between single pairs in the latter, produced the difference between them. In the Malayan, Turanian and GanowÁnian systems, there is a solid basis for the blood-relationships they exhibit in the common descent of the persons; and for the marriage-relationships we must look to the form of marriage they indicate. Examination and comparison show that two distinct forms of marriage are requisite to explain the Malayan and Turanian systems; whence the application, as tests of consanguine marriage in one case, and a punaluan marriage in the other. While the terms of relationship are constantly used in salutation, it is because they are terms of relationship that they are so used. Mr. McLennan’s attempt to turn them into conventional modes of addressing persons is futile. Although he lays great stress upon this view he makes no use of them as “modes of address” in attempting to explain their origin. So far as he makes any use of them he employs them strictly as terms of consanguinity and affinity. It was as impossible that “a system of modes of addressing persons” should have grown up independently of the system of consanguinity and affinity (p. 373), as that language should have grown up independently of the ideas it represents and expresses. What could have given to these terms their significance as used in addressing relatives, but the relationship whether of consanguinity or affinity which they expressed? The mere want of a mode of addressing persons could never have given such stupendous systems, identical in minute details over immense sections of the earth. Upon the essential difference between Mr. McLennan’s explanation of the origin of the classificatory system, and the one presented in this volume—whether it is a system of modes of addressing persons, or a system of consanguinity and affinity—I am quite content to submit the question to the judgment of the reader. [Pg 522] [Pg 523]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Clyx.com