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., ἀνεψίος;) 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 _sœur_, 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 ἀδελφός for φράτηρ. 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 πάππος, 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_, πάτρως, 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.

_Roman and Arabic System of Relationship._

————————————————————————————————————————+———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————+————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Description of Persons. │ Relationship in Latin. Translation. │ Relationship in Arabic. Translation.

————————————————————————————————————————+———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————+————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

1 gt-grandfather’s gt-grandfather │ tritavus gt-grandfather’s gt-g’dfather │ jidd jidd jiddi grandfather of g’dfather of g’dfather my

2 ” ” grandfather │ atavus ” ” grandfather │ jidd jidd abi ” ” ” father my

3 ” ” father │ abavus great-great-grandfather │ jidd jiddi ” ” grandfather my

4 ” ” mother │ abavia ” ” grandmother │ sitt sitti grandmother of grandmother my

5 great-grandfather │ proavus great-grandfather │ jidd abi grandfather of father my

6 ” grandmother │ proavia ” grandmother │ sitt abi grandmother ” ” ”

7 grandfather │ avus grandfather │ jidd grandfather my

8 grandmother │ avia grandmother │ sitti grandmother ”

9 father │ pater father │ abi father my

10 mother │ mater mother │ ummi mother ”

11 son │ filius son │ ibni son ”

12 daughter │ filia daughter │ ibneti b, binti daughter ”

13 grandson │ nepos grandson │ ibn ibni son of son my

14 granddaughter │ neptis granddaughter │ ibnet ibni daughter of son my

15 great-grandson │ pronepos great-grandson │ ibn ibn ibni son of son of son my

16 ” grandmother │ proneptis ” granddaughter │ bint bint binti daughter of daughter of daughter my

17 gt-grandson’s son │ abnepos ” great-grandson │ ibn ibn ibn ibni son of son of son of son my

18 ” ” daughter │ abneptis ” ” granddaughter │ bint bint bint binti dau of dau of dau of dau my

19 ” ” grandson │ atnepos gt-grandson’s grandson │ ibn ibn ibn ibn ibni son of son of son of son of son my

20 ” ” granddaughter │ atneptis ” ” granddaughter │ bint bint bint bint binti dau of dau of dau of dau of dau my

21 ” ” gt-grandson │ trinepos ” ” gt-grandson │ ibn ibn ibn ibn ibn ibni son of son of son of son of son of son my

22 ” ” ” granddaughter │ trineptis ” ” ” granddau’ter │ bint bint bint bint bint binti dau of dau of dau of dau of dau of dau my

23 brothers │ fratres brothers │ ahwati brothers my

24 sisters │ sorores sisters │ ahwâti sisters ”

25 brother │ frater brother │ akhi brother ”

(First Collateral Line) │ │

26 brother’s son │ fratris filius son of brother │ ibn akhi son of brother my

27 ” son’s wife │ fratris filii uxor wife of son of brother │ amrat ibn akhi wife of son of brother my

28 ” daughter │ fratris filia daughter of brother │ bint akhi daughter of brother my

29 ” daughter’s husband │ fratris filiae vir husband of dau’ter of brother │ zoj bint akhi husband of daughter of brother my

30 ” grandson │ fratris nepos grandson of brother │ ibn ibn ” son of son of brother my

31 ” granddaughter │ ” neptis granddaughter ” ” │ bint ibn ” daughter of son of brother my

32 ” gt-grandson │ ” pronepos gt-grandson ” ” │ ibn ibn ibn akhi son of son of son of brother my

33 ” ” granddaughter │ ” proneptis gt-granddaughter ” ” │ bint bint bint akhi dau of dau of dau of brother my

34 sister │ soror sister │ akhti sister my

35 sister’s son │ sororis filius son of sister │ ibn akhti son of sister my

36 ” son’s wife │ sororis filii uxor wife of son of sister │ amrât ibn akhti wife of son of sister my

37 ” daughter │ ” filia daughter of sister │ bint akhti daughter of sister my

38 ” daughter’s husband │ ” filiae vir husband of daughter of sister │ zoj bint akhti husband of daughter of sister my

39 ” grandson │ ” nepos sister’s grandson │ ibn akhti son of sister my

40 ” granddaughter │ ” neptis ” granddaughter │ bint akhti daughter of sister my

41 sister’s great-grandson │ sororis pronepos sister’s great-grandson │ ibn ibn akhti son of son of sister my

42 ” ” granddaughter │ ” proneptis ” ” granddaughter │ bint bint akhti daughter of daughter of sister my

(Second Collateral Line) │ │

43 father’s brother │ patruus paternal uncle │ ammi paternal uncle my

44 ” brother’s wife │ patrui uxor wife of paternal uncle│ amrât ammi wife of paternal uncle my

45 ” ” son │ ” filius son of ” ” │ ibn ammi son of ” ” ”

46 ” ” son’s wife │ ” filii uxor wife of son of ” ” │ amrât ibn ammi wife of son of ” ” ”

47 ” ” daughter │ ” filia daughter of ” ” │ bint ammi daughter of ” ” ”

48 ” ” dau’ter’s husband│ ” filiae vir husband of dau of ” ” │ zôj bint ammi husband of daughter of ” ” ”

49 ” ” grandson │ ” nepos grandson of ” ” │ ibn ibn ammi son of son of ” ” ”

50 ” ” granddaughter │ ” neptis granddaughter of ” ” │ bint bint ammi daughter of daughter of ” ” ”

51 ” ” gt-grandson │ ” pronepos gt-grandson of ” ” │ ibn ibn ibn ammi son of son of son of ” ” ”

52 ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” proneptis ” granddau’ter of ” ” │ bint bint bint ammi dau of dau of dau of ” ” ”

53 father’s sister │ amita paternal aunt │ ammeti paternal aunt my

54 ” sister’s husband │ amitae vir husband of paternal aunt │ arât ammeti husband of paternal aunt my

55 ” ” son │ ” filius son of ” ” │ ibn ammeti son of ” ” ”

56 ” ” son’s wife │ ” filii uxor wife of son of ” ” │ amrât ibn ammeti wife of son of ” ” ”

57 ” ” daughter │ ” filia daughter of ” ” │ bint ammeti daughter of ” ” ”

58 ” ” dau’ter’s husband │ ” filiae vir husband of dau of ” ” │ zôj bint ammeti husband of daughter of ” ” ”

59 ” ” grandson │ ” nepos grandson of ” ” │ ibn ibn ammeti son of son of ” ” ”

60 ” ” granddaughter │ ” neptis granddaughter of ” ” │ bint bint ammeti daughter of daughter of ” ” ”

61 ” ” gt-grandson │ ” pronepos gt-grandson of ” ” │ ibn ibn ibn ammeti son of son of son of ” ” ”

62 ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” proneptis ” granddau’ter of ” ” │ bint bint bint ammeti dau of dau of dau of ” ” ”

63 mother’s brother │ avunculus maternal uncle │ khâli maternal uncle my

64 ” brother’s wife │ avunculi uxor wife of maternal uncle │ amrat khâli wife of maternal uncle my

65 ” ” son │ ” filius son of ” ” │ ibn khâli son of ” ” ”

66 ” ” son’s wife │ ” filii uxor wife of son of ” ” │ amrat ibn khâli wife of son of ” ” ”

67 ” ” daughter │ ” filia daughter of ” ” │ bint khâli daughter of ” ” ”

68 ” ” dau’ter’s husband│ ” filiae vir husband of dau of ” ” │ zôj bint khâli husband of daughter of ” ” ”

69 ” ” grandson │ ” nepos grandson of ” ” │ ibn ibn khâli son of son of ” ” ”

70 ” ” granddaughter │ ” neptis granddaughter of ” ” │ bint bint khâli daughter of daughter of ” ” ”

71 ” ” gt-grandson │ ” pronepos gt-grandson of ” ” │ ibn ibn ibn khâli son of son of son of ” ” ”

72 ” ” gt-granddaughter │ ” proneptis ” granddau’ter of ” ” │ bint bint bint khâli dau of dau of dau of ” ” ”

73 mother’s sister │ matertera maternal aunt │ khâleti maternal aunt my

74 ” sister’s husband │ materterae vir husband of maternal aunt │ zôj khâleti husband of maternal aunt my

75 ” ” son │ ” filius son of ” ” │ ibn khâleti son of ” ” ”

76 ” ” son’s wife │ ” filii uxor wife of son of ” ” │ amrât ibn khâleti wife of son of ” ” ”

77 ” ” daughter │ ” filia daughter of ” ” │ bint khâleti daughter of ” ” ”

78 ” ” dau’ter’s husband │ ” filiae vir husband of dau of ” ” │ zôj bint khâleti husband of daughter of ” ” ”

79 ” ” grandson │ ” nepos grandson of ” ” │ ibn ibn khâleti son of son of ” ” ”

80 ” ” granddaughter │ ” neptis granddaughter of ” ” │ bint bint khâleti daughter of daughter of ” ” ”

81 ” ” gt-grandson │ ” pronepos gt-grandson of ” ” │ ibn ibn ibn khâleti son of son of son of ” ” ”

82 ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” proneptis ” granddau’ter of ” ” │ bint bint bint khâleti dau of dau of dau of ” ” ”

(Third Collateral Line). │ │

83 father’s father’s brother │ patruus magnus great paternal uncle │ amm ăbi paternal uncle of father my

84 ” ” brother’s son │ patrui magni filius son of gt pat uncle │ ibn ammi ăbi son of paternal uncle of father my

85 ” ” ” grandson │ ” ” nepos grandson of ” ” ” │ ibn ibn ammi ăbi son of son of ” ” ” ” ”

86 ” ” ” gt-grandson │ ” ” pronepos gt-grandson of ” ” ” │ ibn ibn ibn ammi ăbi son of son of son of ” ” ” ” ”

87 ” ” sister │ amita magna great paternal aunt │ ammet ăbi paternal aunt of father my

88 ” ” sister’s daughter │ amitae magnae filia daughter of gt pat aunt │ bint ammet ăbi daughter of paternal aunt of father my

89 ” ” ” granddaughter │ amitae magnae neptis granddaughter of ” ” ” │ bint bint ammet ăbi dau of dau of ” ” ” ” ”

90 ” ” ” gt-granddau’ter │ ” ” proneptis gt-granddau’ter of ” ” ” │ bint bint bint ammet ăbi dau of dau of dau of ” ” ” ” ”

91 mother’s mother’s brother │ avunculus magnus great maternal uncle │ khâl ŭmmi maternal uncle of mother my

92 ” ” brother’s son │ avunculi magni filius son of gt mat uncle │ ibn khâl ŭmmi son of maternal uncle of mother my

93 ” ” ” grandson │ ” ” nepos grandson of ” ” ” │ ibn ibn khâl ŭmmi son of son of ” ” ” ” ”

94 ” ” ” gt-grandson │ ” ” pronepos gt-grandson of ” ” ” │ ibn ibn ibn khâl ŭmmi son of son of son of ” ” ” ” ”

95 ” ” sister │ matertera magna great maternal aunt │ khâlet ŭmmi maternal aunt of mother my

96 ” ” sister’s daughter │ materterae magnae filia daughter of gt mat aunt │ bint khâlet ŭmmi daughter of maternal aunt of mother my

97 ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” ” neptis granddaughter of ” ” ” │ bint bint khâlet ŭmmi dau of dau of ” ” ” ” ”

98 ” ” ” gt-granddau’ter │ ” ” proneptis gt-granddau’ter of ” ” ” │ bint bint bint khâlet ŭmmi dau of dau of dau of ” ” ” ” ”

(Fourth Collateral Line). │ │

99 father’s father’s father’s brother │ patruus major paternal great-great-uncle │ amm jiddi paternal uncle of grandfather my

100 ” ” ” brother’s son │ patrui majoris filius son of pat gt-gt-uncle │ ibn amm jiddi son of paternal uncle of g f my

101 ” ” ” ” grandson │ ” ” nepos grandson of ” ” ” ” │ ibn ibn amm jiddi son of son of ” ” ” ” ”

102 ” ” ” ” gt-g’dson │ ” ” pronepos gt-grandson of ” ” ” ” │ ibn ibn ibn amm jiddi son of son of son of ” ” ” ” ”

103 ” ” ” sister │ amita major paternal great-great aunt │ ammet jiddi paternal aunt of grandfather my

104 ” ” ” sister’s │ │

daughter │ amitae majoris filia daughter of pat gt-gt-aunt │ bint ammet jiddi daughter of paternal aunt of g f my

105 father’s father’s father’s sister’s │ │

granddaughter │ amitae majoris neptis granddau’ter of pat gt-gt-aunt │ bint bint ammet jiddi dau of dau of paternal aunt of g f my

106 father’s father’s father’s sister’s │ │

great-granddaughter │ amitae majoris proneptis gt-g’ddau’ter of pat gt-gt aunt │ bint bint bint ammet jiddi dau of dau of dau of paternal aunt of g f my

107 mother’s mother’s mother’s bro’r │ avunculus major maternal great-great uncle │ khâl sitti maternal uncle of grandmother my

108 ” ” ” bro’s son │ avunculi majoris filius son of mat gt-gt-uncle │ ibn khâl sitti son of maternal uncle of g m my

109 ” ” ” ” g’dson │ ” ” nepos grandson of ” ” ” ” │ ibn ibn khâl sitti son of son of ” ” ” ” ”

110 mother’s mother’s mother’s │ │

brother’s great-grandson │ avunculi majoris pronepos gt-grandson of mat gt-gt-uncle │ ibn ibn ibn khâl sitti son of son of son of mat uncle of g m my

111 mother’s mother’s mother’s sister │ matertera major maternal great-great aunt │ khâlet sitti maternal aunt of grandmother my

112 mother’s mother’s mother’s │ │

sister’s daughter │ materterae majoris filia daughter of mat gt-gt-aunt │ bint khâlet sitti daughter of maternal aunt of g m my

113 mother’s mother’s mother’s │ │

sister’s granddaughter │ materterae majoris neptis granddau’ter of mat gt-gt-aunt │ bint bint khâlet sitti dau of dau of maternal aunt of g m my

114 mother’s mother’s mother’s │ │

sister’s great-granddaughter │ mater. major. proneptis gt-g’ddau’ter of mat gt-gt-aunt │ bint bint bint khâlet sitti dau of dau of dau of mat aunt of g m my

(Fifth Collateral Line). │ │

115 father’s father’s father’s father’s │ │

brother │ patruus maximus paternal gt-gt-uncle │ amm jidd ăbi paternal uncle of grandfather of father my

116 father’s father’s father’s father’s │ │

brother’s son │ patrui maximi filius son of paternal gt-gt-uncle │ ibn amm jidd ăbi son of paternal uncle of g f of father my

117 father’s father’s father’s father’s │ │

grandson │ patrui maximi nepos grandson of pat gt-gt-uncle │ ibn ibn amm jidd ăbi son of son of pat uncle of g f of father my

118 father’s father’s father’s father’s │ │

great-grandson │ patrui maximi pronepos gt-grandson of pat gt-gt-uncle │ ibn ibn ibn amm jidd ăbi son of son of son of pat uncle of g f of f my

119 father’s father’s father’s father’s │ │

sister │ amita maxima paternal gt-gt-gt-aunt │ ammet jidd ăbi paternal aunt of grandfather of father my

120 father’s father’s father’s father’s │ │

sister’s daughter │ amitae maximae filia daughter of pat gt-gt-gt-aunt │ bint ammet jidd ăbi daughter of pat aunt of g f of father my

121 father’s father’s father’s father’s │ │

sister’s granddaughter │ amitae maximae neptis g’ddau’ter of pat gt-gt-gt-aunt │ bint bint ammet jidd ăbi dau of dau of pat aunt of g f of father my

122 father’s father’s father’s father’s │ │

sister’s great-granddaughter │ amitae maximae proneptis gt-g d of pat gt-gt-gt-aunt │ bint bint bint ammet jidd ăbi dau of dau of dau of pat aunt of g f of f my

123 mother’s mother’s mother’s │ │

mother’s brother │ avunculus maximus maternal gt-gt-gt-uncle │ khâl sitt ŭmmi mat uncle of grandmother of mother my

124 mother’s mother’s mother’s │ │

mother’s brother’s son │ avunculi maximi filius son of maternal gt-gt-gt-uncle │ ibn khâl sitt ŭmmi son of mat uncle of g m of mother my

125 mother’s mother’s mother’s │ │

mother’s brother’s grandson │ avunculi maximi nepos g’dson of mat gt-gt-gt-uncle │ ibn ibn khâl sitt ŭmmi son of son of mat uncle of g m of mother my

126 mother’s mother’s mother’s │ │

mother’s brother’s gt-grandson │ avunculi maximi pronepos gt-g’dson of pat gt-gt-gt-uncle │ ibn ibn ibn khâl sitt ŭmmi s of s of s of mat uncle of g m of m my

127 mother’s mother’s mother’s │ │

mother’s sister │ matertera maxima maternal gt-gt-gt-aunt │ khâlet sitt ŭmmi mat aunt of grandmother of mother my

128 mother’s mother’s mother’s │ │

mother’s sister’s daughter │ materterae maximae filia daughter of mat gt-gt-gt-aunt │ bint khâlet sitt ŭmmi daughter of mat aunt of g m of mother my

129 mother’s mother’s mother’s │ │

mother’s sister’s granddaughter │ mater. maximae neptis g’ddau’ter of mat gt-gt-gt-aunt │ bint bint khâlet sitt ŭmmi dau of dau of mat aunt of g m of m my

130 mother’s mother’s mother’s │ │

mother’s sister’s gt-g’ddaughter │ mater. maximae proneptis gt-g d of mat gt-gt-gt-aunt │ bint bint bint khâlet sitt ŭmmi d of d of d of mat aunt of g m of m my

(Marriage Relationships) │ │

131 husband │ vir b, maritus husband │ zoji husband my

132 husband’s father │ socer father-in-law │ ammi uncle my

133 ” mother │ socrus mother-in-law │ amrât ammi wife of uncle my

134 ” grandfather │ socer magnus great father-in-law │ jidd zoji grandfather of husband my

135 ” grandmother │ socrus magnus ” mother-in-law │ sitt zoji grandmother ” ” ”

136 wife │ uxor b, marita wife │ amrâti wife

137 wife’s father │ socer father-in-law │ ammi uncle my

138 ” mother │ socrus mother-in-law │ amrât ammi wife of uncle my

139 ” grandfather │ socer magnus great father-in-law │ jidd amrâti grandfather of wife my

140 ” grandmother │ socrus magnus ” mother-in-law │ sitt amrâti grandmother ” ” ”

│ │

141 step-father │ vitricus step-father │ ammi uncle my

142 ” mother │ noverca ” mother │ khâleti aunt my

143 ” son │ privignus ” son │ karŭti step-son my

144 ” daughter │ privigna ” daughter │ karŭteti ” daughter my

145 son-in-law │ gener son-in-law │ khatan b, saha son-in-law

146 daughter-in-law │ nurus daughter-in-law │ kinnet daughter-in-law

147 brother-in-law (_husband’s bro’r_) │ lever brother-in-law │ ibn ămmi son of uncle my

148 ” ” ” (_sister’s husband_) │ maritus sororis ” ” ” │ zôj akhti husband of sister my

149 ” ” ” (_wife’s brother_) │ uxoris frater brother of wife │ ibn ămmi son of uncle my

150 sister-in-law (_wife’s sister_) │ ” soror sister of wife │ bint ămmi daughter of uncle my

151 ” ” ” (_husband’s sist’r_) │ gloss sister-in-law │ bint ămmi ” ” ” ”

152 ” ” ” (_brother’s wife_) │ fratria ” ” ” │ amrât akhi wife of brother my

153 widow │ vidua widow │ armelet widow

154 widower │ viduus widower │ armel widower

155 relations by father’s side │ agnati agnates │

156 ” ” mother’s side │ cognati cognates │

157 ” ” marriage │ affines marriage relations │

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.—1. 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.

PART IV.

GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF PROPERTY.

CHAPTER I.

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE.

PROPERTY IN THE STATUS OF SAVAGERY.—SLOW RATE OF

PROGRESS.—FIRST RULE OF INHERITANCE.—PROPERTY DISTRIBUTED

AMONG THE GENTILES.—PROPERTY IN THE LOWER STATUS OF

BARBARISM.—GERM OF SECOND RULE OF INHERITANCE.—DISTRIBUTED

AMONG AGNATIC KINDRED.—IMPROVED CHARACTER OF MAN.—PROPERTY IN

MIDDLE STATUS.—RULE OF INHERITANCE IMPERFECTLY KNOWN.—AGNATIC

INHERITANCE PROBABLE.

It remains to consider the growth of property in the several ethnical

periods, the rules that sprang up with respect to its ownership and

inheritance, and the influence which it exerted upon ancient society.

The earliest ideas of property were intimately associated with the

procurement of subsistence, which was the primary need. The objects

of ownership would naturally increase in each successive ethnical

period with the multiplication of those arts upon which the means of

subsistence depended. The growth of property would thus keep pace

with the progress of inventions and discoveries. Each ethnical period

shows a marked advance upon its predecessor, not only in the number

of inventions, but also in the variety and amount of property which

resulted therefrom. The multiplicity of the forms of property would

be accompanied by the growth of certain regulations with reference to

its possession and inheritance. The customs upon which these rules

of proprietary possession and inheritance depend, are determined and

modified by the condition and progress of the social organization.

The growth of property is thus closely connected with the increase

of inventions and discoveries, and with the improvement of social

institutions which mark the several ethnical periods of human progress.

I. _Property in the Status of Savagery._

In any view of the case, it is difficult to conceive of the condition

of mankind in this early period of their existence, when divested of

all they had gained through inventions and discoveries, and through

the growth of ideas embodied in institutions, usages and customs.

Human progress from a state of absolute ignorance and inexperience was

slow in time, but geometrical in ratio. Mankind may be traced by a

chain of necessary inferences back to a time when, ignorant of fire,

without articulate language, and without artificial weapons, they

depended, like the wild animals, upon the spontaneous fruits of the

earth. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, they advanced through savagery,

from gesture language and imperfect sounds to articulate speech; from

the club, as the first weapon, to the spear pointed with flint, and

finally to the bow and arrow; from the flint-knife and chisel to the

stone axe and hammer; from the ozier and cane basket to the basket

coated with clay, which gave a vessel for boiling food with fire; and,

finally, to the art of pottery, which gave a vessel able to withstand

the fire. In the means of subsistence, they advanced from natural

fruits in a restricted habitat to scale and shell fish on the coasts of

the sea, and finally to bread roots and game. Rope and string-making

from filaments of bark, a species of cloth made of vegetable pulp, the

tanning of skins to be used as apparel and as a covering for tents, and

finally the house constructed of poles and covered with bark, or made

of plank split by stone wedges, belong, with those previously named,

to the Status of Savagery. Among minor inventions may be mentioned the

fire-drill, the moccasin and the snow-shoe.

Before the close of this period, mankind had learned to support

themselves in numbers in comparison with primitive times; they had

propagated themselves over the face of the earth, and come into

possession of all the possibilities of the continents in favor of

human advancement. In social organization, they had advanced from the

consanguine horde into tribes organized in gentes, and thus became

possessed of the germs of the principal governmental institutions. The

human race was now successfully launched upon its great career for the

attainment of civilization, which even then, with articulate language

among inventions, with the art of pottery among arts, and with the

gentes among institutions, was substantially assured.

The period of savagery wrought immense changes in the condition of

mankind. That portion, which led the advance, had finally organized

gentile society and developed small tribes with villages here and

there which tended to stimulate the inventive capacities. Their rude

energies and ruder arts had been chiefly devoted to subsistence.

They had not attained to the village stockade for defense, nor to

farinaceous food, and the scourge of cannibalism still pursued them.

The arts, inventions and institutions named represent nearly the sum

of the acquisitions of mankind in savagery, with the exception of the

marvelous progress in language. In the aggregate it seems small, but it

was immense potentially; because it embraced the rudiments of language,

of government, of the family, of religion, of house architecture and

of property, together with the principal germs of the arts of life.

All these their descendants wrought out more fully in the period of

barbarism, and their civilized descendants are still perfecting.

But the property of savages was inconsiderable. Their ideas concerning

its value, its desirability and its inheritance were feeble. Rude

weapons, fabrics, utensils, apparel, implements of flint, stone and

bone, and personal ornaments represent the chief items of property in

savage life. A passion for its possession had scarcely been formed in

their minds, because the thing itself scarcely existed. It was left to

the then distant period of civilization to develop into full vitality

that “greed of gain” (_studium lucri_), which is now such a commanding

force in the human mind. Lands, as yet hardly a subject of property,

were owned by the tribes in common, while tenement houses were owned

jointly by their occupants. Upon articles purely personal, which were

increasing with the slow progress of inventions, the great passion

was nourishing its nascent powers. Those esteemed most valuable were

deposited in the grave of the deceased proprietor for his continued

use in the spirit-land. What remained was sufficient to raise the

question of its inheritance. Of the manner of its distribution before

the organization into gentes, our information is limited, or altogether

wanting. With the institution of the gens came in the first great rule

of inheritance, which distributed the effects of a deceased person

among his gentiles. Practically they were appropriated by the nearest

of kin; but the principle was general, that the property should remain

in the gens of the decedent, and be distributed among its members. This

principle was maintained into civilization by the Grecian and Latin

gentes. Children inherited from their mother, but took nothing from

their reputed father.

II. _Property in the Lower Status of Barbarism._

From the invention of pottery to the domestication of animals, or, as

an equivalent, the cultivation of maize and plants by irrigation, the

duration of the period must have been shorter than that of savagery.

With the exception of the art of pottery, finger weaving and the art

of cultivation, in America, which gave farinaceous food, no great

invention or discovery signalized this ethnical period. It was more

distinguished for progress in the development of institutions. Finger

weaving, with warp and woof, seems to belong to this period, and it

must rank as one of the greatest of inventions; but it cannot be

certainly affirmed that the art was not attained in savagery. The

Iroquois and other tribes of America in the same status, manufactured

belts and burden-straps with warp and woof of excellent quality

and finish; using fine twine made of filaments of elm and basswood

bark.[502] The principles of this great invention, which has since

clothed the human family, were perfectly realized; but they were

unable to extend it to the production of the woven garment. Picture

writing also seems to have made its first appearance in this period. If

it originated earlier, it now received a very considerable development.

It is interesting as one of the stages of an art which culminated

in the invention of a phonetic alphabet. The series of connected

inventions seem to have been the following: 1. Gesture Language, or

the language of personal symbols; 2. Picture Writing, or idiographic

symbols; 3. Hieroglyphs, or conventional symbols; 4. Hieroglyphs of

phonetic power, or phonetic symbols used in a syllabus; and 5. A

Phonetic Alphabet, or written sounds. Since a language of written

sounds was a growth through successive stages of development, the rise

of its antecedent processes is both important and instructive. The

characters on the Copan monuments are apparently hieroglyphs of the

grade of conventional symbols. They show that the American aborigines,

who practiced the first three forms, were proceeding independently in

the direction of a phonetic alphabet.

The invention of the stockade as a means of village defense, of a

raw-hide shield as a defense against the arrow, which had now become a

deadly missile, of the several varieties of the war-club, armed with

an encased stone or with a point of deer horn, seem also to belong to

this period. At all events they were in common use among the American

Indian tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism when discovered. The

spear pointed with flint or bone was not a customary weapon with the

forest tribes, though sometimes used.[503] This weapon belongs to

the period of savagery, before the bow and arrow were invented, and

reappears as a prominent weapon in the Upper Status of barbarism, when

the copper-pointed spear came into use, and close combat became the

mode of warfare. The bow and arrow and the war-club were the principal

weapons of the American aborigines in the Lower Status of barbarism.

Some progress was made in pottery in the increased size of the vessels

produced, and in their ornamentation;[504] but it remained extremely

rude to the end of the period. There was a sensible advance in house

architecture, in the size and mode of construction. Among minor

inventions were the air-gun for bird-shooting, the wooden mortar and

pounder for reducing maize to flour, and the stone mortar for preparing

paints; earthen and stone pipes, with the use of tobacco; bone and

stone implements of higher grades, with stone hammers and mauls, the

handle and upper part of the stone being encased in raw hide; and

moccasins and belts ornamented with porcupine quills. Some of these

inventions were borrowed, not unlikely, from tribes in the Middle

Status; for it was by this process constantly repeated that the more

advanced tribes lifted up those below them, as fast as the latter were

able to appreciate and to appropriate the means of progress.

The cultivation of maize and plants gave the people unleavened bread,

the Indian succotash and hominy. It also tended to introduce a new

species of property, namely, cultivated lands or gardens. Although

lands were owned in common by the tribe, a possessory right to

cultivated land was now recognized in the individual, or in the group,

which became a subject of inheritance. The group united in a common

household were mostly of the same gens, and the rule of inheritance

would not allow it to be detached from the kinship.

The property and effects of husband and wife were kept distinct, and

remained after their demise in the gens to which each respectively

belonged. The wife and children took nothing from the husband and

father, and the husband took nothing from the wife. Among the Iroquois,

if a man died leaving a wife and children, his property was distributed

among his gentiles in such a manner that his sisters and their

children, and his maternal uncles, would receive the most of it. His

brothers might receive a small portion. If a woman died, leaving a

husband and children, her children, her sisters, and her mother and her

sisters inherited her effects; but the greater portion was assigned to

her children. In each case the property remained in the gens. Among the

Ojibwas, the effects of a mother were distributed among her children,

if old enough to use them; otherwise, or in default of children,

they went to her sisters, and to her mother and her sisters, to the

exclusion of her brothers. Although they had changed descent to the

male line, the inheritance still followed the rule which prevailed when

descent was in the female line.

The variety and amount of property were greater than in savagery, but

still not sufficient to develop a strong sentiment in relation to

inheritance. In the mode of distribution above given may be recognized,

as elsewhere stated, the germ of the second great rule of inheritance,

which gave the property to the agnatic kindred, to the exclusion of

the remaining gentiles. Agnation and agnatic kindred, as now defined,

assume descent in the male line; but the persons included would be very

different from those with descent in the female line. The principle

is the same in both cases, and the terms seem as applicable in the

one as in the other. With descent in the female line, the agnates are

those persons who can trace their descent through females exclusively

from the same common ancestor with the intestate; in the other case,

who can trace their descent through males exclusively. It is the blood

connection of persons within the gens by direct descent, in a given

line, from the same common ancestor which lies at the foundation of

agnatic relationship.

At the present time, among the advanced Indian tribes, repugnance to

gentile inheritance has begun to manifest itself. In some it has been

overthrown, and an exclusive inheritance in children substituted in its

place. Evidence of this repugnance has elsewhere been given, among the

Iroquois, Creeks, Cherokees, Choctas, Menominees, Crows and Ojibwas,

with references to the devices adopted to enable fathers to give their

property, now largely increased in amount, to their children.

The diminution of cannibalism, that brutalizing scourge of savagery,

was very marked in the Older Period of barbarism. It was abandoned

as a common practice; but remained as a war practice, as elsewhere

explained, through this, and into the Middle Period. In this form it

was found in the principal tribes of the United States, Mexico, and

Central America. The acquisition of farinaceous food was the principal

means of extricating mankind from this savage custom.