This threshold rite clearly goes back to the beginning of family life.
The facts already presented are proof of this. The rite includes the
proffer of blood at the foundation of the family as a family. It is a
part of the marriage ceremonial among primitive peoples. It is also the
means by which one is adopted from without into a family circle or
group. It marks every stage of the progress of family life, from one
pair to a community and to an empire, in its civil and religious
relations. It is a form of covenanting between its participants, and
between them and God; and thus it has sanctity as a religious rite.
A fair induction from these recognized facts, in their sweep and
significance, would seem to indicate, as the origin of this primitive
rite, the covenant union between the first pair in their instituting of
the family relation. When was the first covenant made between two human
beings? When was the first outpouring of blood in loving sacrifice? By
what act was the first appeal made to the Author and Source of life for
power for the transmission of life, by two persons who thereby entered
into covenant with each other and with him? The obvious answer to these
questions is an answer to the question, What was the origin of the rite
of the Threshold Covenant?
Life and its transmission must have been a sacred mystery to the first
thinkers about God and his human workers. Blood was early recognized as
life, its outpouring as the pledge and gift of life, and its interchange
as a life covenant between those who shared its substance. In view of
this truth, a covenant union by blood that looked to the transmission of
life must have been in itself, to a thoughtful and reverent person, an
appeal to the Author of life to be a party to that covenant union, in
order to give it efficiency.
When first a twain were made one in a covenant of blood, the threshold
altar of the race was hallowed as a place where the Author of life met
and blessed the loving union. And from this beginning there was the
natural development of religious rites and ceremonies, in the family, in
the temple, and in the domain, as shown alike in the history of the
human race and in the main teachings of both the Old Testament and the
New.