BROTHERS, SISTERS, AND NEXT OF KIN
"The members of the ancient family were united by something more
powerful than birth, affection, or physical strength; this was the
religion of the sacred fire and of dead ancestors. This caused the
ancient family to form a single body, both in this life and in the
next,"--DE COULANGES, in _The Ancient City_.
"Land belonged to the clan and the clan was settled upon the land.
A man was thus not a member of the clan because he lived upon or
even owned the land, but he lived upon the land and had interest
in it because he was a member of the clan."--HEARN, in _The Aryan
Household_.
"Three things if possessed by a man make him fit to be a chief of
kindred: that he should speak in behalf of his kin and be listened
to; that he should fight in behalf of his kin and be feared; that
he should be security on behalf of his kin and be
accepted."--WELSH TRIADS (cited by Seebohm).
"I cannot choose but think upon the time
When our two loves grew like two buds;
School parted us; we never found again
That childish world where our two spirits mingled
Like scents from varying roses that remain one sweetness.
Yet the twin habit of that earlier time
Lingered for long about the heart and tongue.
We had been natives of one happy clime
And its dear accent to our utterance clung.
And were another childhood world my share,
I would be born a little sister there."
--GEORGE ELIOT, in _Brother and Sister_.
"When love is strong it never tarries to take heed
Or know if its return exceed
Its gift; in its sweet haste no greed,
No strife belong.
It hardly asks if it be loved at all, to take
So barren seems, when it can make
Such bliss, for the beloved's sake,
Of bitter tasks."--H.H.
=Ancient Kinship Bond.=--The relation of brothers and sisters in the
family group has passed through many changes and must at times have
caused much confusion and difficulty in the home. For example, in that
state of familial association in which all the brothers of a certain
relationship were considered as husbands of all sisters within a
certain bond there must have been some heart-burnings and several
kinds of family unpleasantness. We have some hints of these from many
historical sources. In the era of complete subjection of the
individual to the community such unpleasantness may have counted only
for negligible unhappiness on the part of a few social rebels, but the
custom alluded to did not prove to work well enough to become
permanent.
Again, the form of family bond which demanded that a man take to wife
the widow of his dead brother and "raise up children to the name" of
the deceased had a long but not a permanent life. In the well-known
passage from Deuteronomy, the 25th chapter, the faithful are commanded
that "if brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no
son, the wife of the dead shall not be married without unto a
stranger: her husband's brother shall ... take her to him to wife, and
perform the duty of a husband's brother unto her. And the first-born
... shall succeed in the name of his brother that is dead, that his
name be not blotted out of Israel." The same passage shows that while
it was doubtless at first an imperative social law, there came a time
when the living brother had a choice as to whether or not he should
take to wife the widow of one who had died. Perhaps there might have
been an economic pressure that made it difficult to perform this
ancient duty. Perhaps there might have been objection from the wife or
wives already in command of the household matters. Perhaps the widow
was sometimes of a type to make the brotherly and family duty seem
very hard. At any rate, there came a time when, as the writer in
Deuteronomy says, "If the man like not to take his brother's wife" he
could refuse the family service. It cost him, however, in such cases a
severe ordeal. He could be haled before the elders on the complaint
that he "refused to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel." The
widow "could loose his shoe from his feet and spit in his face" and
say "so shall it be done unto the man that doth not build up his
brother's house."
The large requirement for the brother, thus indicated, passed outward
to the next of kin in certain circumstances. There are many deeply
interesting accounts of readjustment of family life through the taking
over by the living of duties once undertaken by the dead. The lovely
idyl of Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz, shows this widely spreading
brother-duty. Here the mother-in-law, so sweet and so wise that her
sons' wives loved her deeply, shrewdly manages a contact between Ruth
and Boaz to the lasting service of her son's inheritance of name and
land. The whole story is redolent of the finer side of ancient forms
of familial duty, the man being rich and generous enough to take on
his more remote relative's responsibilities, the young widow being
sweet and charming enough to capture the interest of the rich man even
before he knows who she is, and the mother-in-law showing
statesmanship of the highest order in managing the affair, together
with such fine character of her own that all respect and love her.
To-day we have left in law and custom but the shadow of these ancient
demands upon brothers in the family. That shadow is limited to the
purely economic aspect of brotherly responsibilities. The old law of
inheritance made the sons the preferred heirs. Only when there was no
son could the daughter inherit if at all. The responsibility of that
heir, however, was often made commensurate with his inheritance. He
must financially care for the near relatives--the father and mother
first, the sister and brother next, the uncles and aunts and cousins
not to be forgotten.
=Present Demands of Kinship.=--The existing statutes make it incumbent
upon any man in receipt of income beyond his own immediate needs to do
what is possible to prevent his near relatives from requiring aid
from the general public. The custom of all charitable organizations
when appealed to for aid for individuals, or for a family, is to ask,
"What can your relatives do for you?" The pressure upon those
connected even by marriage to help relatives privately, and so reduce
public relief, is often very severe. In those of English ancestry the
disgrace of having a near relative, even so distant as a great-uncle
or great-aunt or sister-in-law, "come upon the town" is felt keenly.
The sacrifices of many people of limited means to prevent such a
catastrophe would make a long and heavy list of discomforts and
privations. The duty of brothers, sisters, and next of kin to help
provide for the poorer members of the family connection is thus still
held firmly by social ideals. That all people, however, pay this debt
of family responsibility or that as many struggle to do it as used to
do so cannot be affirmed. On the contrary, many charitable societies
make it a serious business to discover and hold to responsibility
shirking members of families in which there is great discrepancy in
financial condition.
There is now, however, no recognized social responsibility for giving
support to poorer members of the family within one household. There is
no pressure to bring those needing material relief tinder the roof of
the well-to-do of the family circle. Even parents cannot claim
residence with adult children, although they can claim by law some
support commensurate with their children's income. It is seen now that
the duty of aid does not carry with it the obligation for personal
association. That is, on the whole, a gain, especially in cases where
there is temperamental incompatibility.
The whole relationship of brothers, sisters, and next of kin is
simplified and placed more securely on bases of affection and ethical
ideal in modern life, and people are good brothers and sisters or good
family relatives in proportion as they are unselfish and useful in all
their other social relationships. There is a real family tie, however,
which still holds. We see it in the Family Reunions, in the listing of
relationships in those devoted to genealogy, and in the patriotic
societies that indicate by membership what ancestors fought in the
Revolution or held office in Colonial days. There is the permanent tie
of blood that makes a peculiar bond unlike that of friendship and
unlike that of marriage--a tie sometimes carried to extremes, as in
the case of the woman who, angry with her husband for a breach of
etiquette, declared she "was glad that he was no relation of hers!" On
the whole, in reasonable moderation, one of the best ways we have
to-day of helping a group is by means of the generosity of the more
successful members of that group.
=Special Burdens of Women in Family Obligations.=--Brothers, usually,
marry and have their own households to take care of. The unmarried
sisters, coming from a long line of women who were supposed to work
entirely for the family, with no commercial value placed upon their
household service, feel a call to duty from ancient times to carry
family burdens. The sons, however, do not escape the parental call for
help and have often in the immediate past (when women ceased to have a
large economic value in the home and had not yet acquired the capacity
or desire for self-support) borne a heavy burden of financial aid for
unmarried sisters. The tables are well-nigh turned now, however, and
the number of self-supporting women who have relatives of varied
nearness and ages dependent or partially dependent upon them, is much
larger than that of spinsters care-free and independent. In all cases,
however, whether of men or women, those who respond loyally to the
needs of those kin to them are the unselfish and capable. The slogan
of socialism, "To all in the measure of their need; from all in the
measure of their capacity," may never be accepted by society in
general, but it is now the rule in the family relation.
=Disadvantages of the Only Child.=--In the individualistic family of
the modern monogamic type the chief need is for every child to have
brothers and sisters or at least a brother or sister. The "one-child"
plan, which places a solitary little creature as sole recipient of
money, affection, and care of the household, is one that shows poverty
of condition for the child concerned, no matter how rich the parents.
Such a child lacks a chief aid in its development. Nature sometimes
sends, even in a large family, all boys or all girls and makes
coeducation at the start difficult. Usually, however, when there are
two, three, four, or more children they are mixed in due and helpful
proportion. When the family is too large, as it so often was in the
older days, it must subdivide according to ages and tastes, and in
many old-fashioned families some brothers and sisters were near in
sympathy and love and others wide apart. In the moderate-size modern
family, however, where there is enough companionship within the home
for family good times and not enough to cause breakage into groups
within the group, we have the ideal conditions for child development.
For the only child there are happily some substitutes for this home
companionship in the "residential school," or the school with long
days of group relationship of like age and condition, but it is not
the same and seldom as good as the home circle of the right size and
variety.
The modern conditions make the old ties seem less important to many.
In the United States, where people move about so freely across the
vast spaces of our continent, and where in the large cities so many
move each year to try vainly to better themselves in hired houses, the
ties of family outside of the immediate circle seem remote and to be
easily set aside. It is not, however, a sign of advanced social spirit
which makes a young girl declare "she has no use for her relations;
she cares only for her chosen friends," and it is often of the essence
of social danger that a young man wants to give up all connection with
his family. The fact is that one can understand better how one came to
be what one is by knowing something of one's forbears and one's living
relatives.
=Permanent Value of the Family Bond.=--The feeling that one belongs to
a blood group, the feeling so old and so wonder-working in the past,
gives at least one ideal of permanence in a world of affairs whirling
in such rapid change that the common mind becomes dizzy and the common
idealism confused. On the other hand, it is cause for gratitude
unspeakable that the old bondage of the family life is relaxed, never
to be tightened again to such oppression as once prevailed. The fact
that inheritance is now seen to be so varied and so unpredictable that
one child in a family may "take back" to one ancestor and another to a
different one to ends of complete divergence of character and
capacity, shows that the old attempt to keep them together, whether
they could love each other or not, was a social mistake. To-day we are
more reasonable. We even say that fathers and mothers may not be
taken into the home of their children if it best serves the mutual
happiness for them to have separate homes. We seldom now in
enlightened families make the mistake of holding to "living together"
when living apart is clearly the wiser thing.
The old sense of family responsibility is, however, happily not lost
and in its new ways of working often gives a finer representation of
mutual aid than was common of old. The will of one rich man which
included many gifts to sisters, cousins, and nieces, and left
directions to the principal heirs to find out if there were any
relatives of the same nearness left out and if so to make them equal
sharers, is but a type of many who, with or without large means, share
generously with all their name and kin.
On the other hand, we have examples of those who, in the effort to
leave a large fortune for some specific object of education or of
public charity, wholly neglect, often with cruel indifference, the
needs of some member or members of their own family. One man of
conspicuous gift to education left a sister and her two daughters
without means for comfortable living while piling up money for his pet
scheme. Many men skimp themselves and also their wives, children, and
still more their parents and more remote kin, to hoard a monster sum
for some charity to be forever called by their name. These, however,
are unusual examples of losing sight of the near in the remote. The
average man and woman has in mind a series of concentric circles,
those nearest to be helped first, those next beyond to share next, and
the world outside to have what is left when these inner claims upon
love and generosity are fully met.
If it were not for this general tendency society-at-large would have
far more responsibility for all sorts of care of the aged, of the
incapable, of the unsuccessful, of the invalid, of the defective, of
the insane, of the "cranky" and of the lonely. Finally, without this
innate tendency to feel a sense of responsibility for those nearest
related by family ties much of the discipline toward social usefulness
would be lacking in the lives of average people. We learn the larger
duty through faithful response to the nearer and closer obligation.
For this reason the family holidays and reunions, the family birthday
celebrations which include all the relatives within reach, the
pressure of the law and of custom upon those able to care for those
less strong and competent within the kinship bond, are all socializing
influences which it is well to keep warm and consciously active.
The lovely spirit of Mrs. Hodgson Burnett's "Tembarom" when he finds a
"real relative" is duplicated by many immigrants who after years of
loneliness greet one of the family on the shores of the new country;
and the member of the eastern family "gone west" is the most
hospitable of all relatives to the visitor from the old home who has
the same family tree.
The gratitude of the ancient poet that "God has set the solitary in
families" is not a sentiment to be outgrown. Those who feel that it
is, lose something precious from the basis of human affection. The
adjustment of this old bond to the new individualistic life is not yet
made even in the Western world, while in the Eastern the vital
problems of family adjustment press in supreme unrest. The one
principle that should guide us in this as in all inheritance from the
past is surely this, that while the sacredness of personality of any
one member of any group, even of the family, shall not be wholly
sacrificed to the needs and demands of any other member, yet "they
that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak" in the old
spirit of unselfish service.
QUESTIONS ON BROTHERS, SISTERS, AND NEXT OF KIN
1. In the monogamic system of the family what, in general, has
been the legal responsibility toward blood kin?
2. Is the inherited legal and social responsibility for the care
and well-being of relatives lessened at the present time? If
so, is that for good or for ill in the wider social fabric?
3. How far should accepted obligations toward near relatives be
met in ways to bring under one roof more than the fathers and
mothers and children of a given generation?
4. Should natural kinship weigh heavily in considering
arrangements for material relief in poverty? In the care of
orphans and half-orphans? And in provisions for aid to the
aged, the sick, and those out of work?
5. What special conditions make appeal to family feeling difficult
in a population like that of the United States with many
immigrants and great mobility in industrial relations?
6. Is there any way of strengthening family feeling without
attempting return to older forms of family autonomy?