THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY
While we cannot enter into the historical evolution of the family as an
institution among the different civilized peoples, still it will be
profitable for us to consider the history of the family among some
single representative people in order that we may see the forces which
have made and unmade the family life, and incidentally also to a great
degree, the general social life of that people. We shall select the
ancient Romans as the people among whom we can thus best study in
outline the development of the family. While the family life of the
ancient Hebrews is of particular interest to us because of the close
connection of our religion and ethics with that of the Hebrews, yet in
the family life of the ancient Romans constructive and destructive
factors are more clearly marked and, therefore, the study of ancient
Roman family life is best fitted to bring out those factors. The ancient
Romans were among the earliest civilized of the Aryan peoples, and their
institutions are, therefore, of peculiar interest to us as representing
approximately the early Aryan type. What we shall say concerning Roman
family life, moreover, will apply, with some modifications and
qualifications, to the family life of other Aryan peoples, especially
the Greeks. The Greeks and the Romans, indeed, were so closely related
in their early culture that for the purpose of institutional history
they may be considered practically one people. Without any attempt,
then, to sketch the history of the family as an institution in general,
let us note some of the salient features of the family life of the
ancient Romans.
The Early Roman Family.--(1) _Ancestor Worship as the Basis of the
Early Roman Family._ What we have said thus far indicates a close
connection between the family life and religion among all peoples. This
was especially true of the early Romans. It may be said, indeed, that
ancestor worship was the constitutive principle of their family life.
Among them the family seemed to have lost in part its character as a
purely social institution and to have become specialized into a
religious institution. At any rate, the early Roman family existed very
largely for the sake of perpetuating the worship of ancestors. Of
course, ancestor worship could have had nothing to do with the origin of
the family life among the Romans. The type of their family life was
patriarchal, and we have already noticed the causes which brought about
the existence of the patriarchal family. But while ancestor worship had
nothing to do with the origin of the family, once it was thoroughly
established it became the basis of the family life and transformed the
family as an institution.
The early Romans shared certain superstitions with many primitive
peoples, which, if not the basis of ancestor worship, powerfully
reinforced it. They believed, for example, that the soul continued in
existence after death, and that persons would be unhappy unless buried
in tombs with suitable offerings, and that if left unburied, or without
suitable offerings, the souls of these persons would return to torment
the living, Inasmuch as in the patriarchal family only sons could
perform religious rites, that is, could make offerings to the departed
spirits, these superstitions acted as a powerful stimulus to preserve
the family in order that offerings might continue to be made at the
graves of ancestors.
Thus, as we have already said, among the early Romans the family was
practically a religious institution with ancestor worship as its
constitutive principle. It is supposed by de Coulanges that in the
earliest times the dead ancestors were buried beneath the hearth. At any
rate, the hearth was the place where offerings were made to the departed
ancestors, and the flame on the hearth was believed to represent the
spirit of the departed. The house under such circumstances became a
temple and the whole atmosphere of the family life was necessarily a
religious one.
(2) _The Authority in the Early Roman Family_ was vested, as in all
patriarchal families, in the father or eldest living male of the family
group. Under ancestor worship he became the living representative of the
departed ancestors, the link between the living and the dead. Here we
may note that the family was not considered as constituted simply of its
living members, but that it included also all of its dead members.
Inasmuch as the dead were more numerous and were thought to be more
powerful than the living, they were by far the more important element in
the life of the family. The position of the house father, as
representative of the departed ancestors, and as the link between the
living and the dead, naturally made his authority almost divine. Hence,
the house father was himself, then, almost a deity, having absolute
power over all persons within the group, even to the extent of life and
death. This absolute power, which was known in the early Roman family as
the "patria potestas," could not, however, be exercised arbitrarily. The
house father, as representative of the departed ancestors, was
necessarily controlled by religious scruples and traditions. It was
impossible for him to act other than for what he believed to be the will
of the ancestors. Disobedience to him was, therefore, disobedience to
the divine ancestors, and hence was sacrilegious.
(3) _Relationship in the Early Roman Family_ was determined by
community of worship, inasmuch as only descendants upon the male side
could perform religious rites, and inasmuch as married women worshiped
the household gods of their husbands' ancestors; therefore, only
descendants on the male side could worship the same ancestors and were
relatives in the full religious and legal sense. These were known as
"agnates." Later, some relationship on the mother's side came to be
recognized, but relatives on the mother's side were known as a
"cognates," and for a long time property could not pass to them. Indeed,
in the earliest times the property of the family, as we have already
implied, was kept as a unit, held in trust by the eldest living member
of the family group for the good of all the family. In other words, the
house father in earliest times did not possess the right to make a will
but the property of the family passed intact from him to his eldest male
heir.
(4) _The Marriage Ceremony among the Early Romans_ was necessarily
of a religious character. It was constituted essentially of the
induction of the bride into the worship of her husband's ancestors. But
before this could be done the bride's father had first to free her from
the worship of her household gods, in later times a certificate of
manumission being given not unlike the manumission of the slave. After
the bride had been released from the worship of her father's ancestors,
the bridegroom and his friends brought her to his father's house, where
a ceremony of adoption was practically gone through with, adopting the
bride into the family of her husband. The essence of this ceremony, as
we have already said, was the induction of the bride into the worship of
her husband's ancestors through their both making an offering on the
family hearth and eating a sacrificial meal together. After that the
wife worshiped at her husband's altar and had no claim upon the
household gods of her father.
Under such circumstances it is not surprising that marriage was
practically indissoluble. A wife who was driven out of her husband's
household or deserted was without family gods of any sort, having no
claim upon those of her husband, and became, therefore, a social
outcast. Under such circumstances it is not surprising that divorce was
practically unknown. It is said, indeed, that for five hundred and
twenty years after Rome was founded there was not a single divorce in
Rome. While this may be an exaggeration, it is historically certain that
divorce was so rare in early Rome as to be practically unknown.
In case of a failure of sons to be born there was no taking of a second
wife, as among the Hebrews. Polygyny was unknown in early Rome. The
Roman device to prevent the failure of the family succession in such
cases was adoption. Younger sons of other families were adopted if no
sons were born, and these adopted sons, taking the family name, became
the same legally as sons by birth. Inasmuch as the position of younger
sons in the patriarchal household was not an enviable one there was
never lack of candidates for the position of eldest son in some family
group in which no sons had been born.
Not only was the early Roman family life the most stable that the world
has ever known, but it must also be considered to have been of a
relatively pure type. Chastity was rigidly enforced among the women, but
of course, as in all primitive peoples, was not enforced among the men.
Still it was expected that the married men at least should remain
relatively faithful to their wives. On the whole, therefore, the early
Roman family life must be judged to have been of a singularly high and
stable type. While the position of women and children in the early Roman
family was one of subjection, the family itself was nevertheless of a
high type. But it was inevitable that it should decay, and this decay
began comparatively early. Inasmuch as the early Roman family was based
upon ancestor worship, a religion which was fitted for relatively small
isolated groups, it was inevitable that the family life should decay
with this ancestor worship. How early the decay of ancestor worship
began it is impossible to say. Perhaps the nature gods, Jupiter, Venus,
and the rest, existed alongside of ancestor worship from the earliest
times. At any rate, we find their worship growing rapidly within the
period of authentic history and undermining the domestic worship, while
at a still later period skeptical philosophy undermined both religions.
Along with the decay of ancestor worship went many economic and
political changes which marked the dissolution of the patriarchal
family. Let us see what some of the steps in this decadence were.
(5) _The Decadence,_ (a) One of the earliest steps toward the
breaking down of the patriarchal family which we find is the limiting of
the power of the house father. This took place very early--as soon as
the Council of Elders, or Senate, was formed to look after matters of
collective interest. Gradually the paternal power diminished, until it
was confined to matters concerning the family group proper.
(b) A second step was when the right to make a will was conceded. This
right, as we have seen, did not exist in the earliest Roman times, but
with the development of property and of a more complex economic life the
house father was given the right to divide his property among his
children, at first only on the male side, but later among any of his
children, and still later to bequeath it to whom he pleased.
(c) Thus women came to be given the right to hold property, a thing
which was unknown in the earliest times; and becoming property holders,
their other rights in many respects began to increase. Originally the
wife had no right to divorce her husband, but in the second century B.C.
women also gained the right of divorcing their husbands.
(d) The rights of children were increased along with the rights of
women, particularly of younger children.
(e) The right of plebeians to intermarry with the noble families became
recognized. All of these changes we should perhaps regard as good in
themselves, but they nevertheless marked the disintegration of the
patriarchal family. The decay of the family life did not stop with these
changes, however, but went on to the decay of the family bonds
themselves.
Later Roman Family Life.--By the beginning of the Christian era the
relations between the sexes had become very loose. Men not only
frequently divorced their wives, but women frequently divorced their
husbands. Indeed, a complete revolution passed over the Roman family.
Marriage became a private contract, whereas, as we have seen, in the
beginning it was a religious bond. Many loose forms of marriage were
developed, which amounted practically to temporary marriages. In all
cases it was easy for a husband or wife to divorce each other for very
trivial causes. Among certain classes of Roman society the instability
of the family became so great that we find Seneca saying that there were
women who reckoned their years by their husbands, and Juvenal recording
one woman as having eight husbands in five years.
Women and children achieved their practical emancipation, as we would
say. Women, especially, were free to do as they saw fit. Marriages were
formed and dissolved at pleasure among certain classes, and among all
classes the instability of the family life had become very great.
Along with all this, of course, went a growth of vice. It is not too
much to say that the Romans of the first and second centuries A.D.
approached as closely to a condition of promiscuity as any civilized
people of which we have knowledge.
_Causes of the Decadence_. When we examine the causes of this great
revolution in Roman family life from the austere morals and stable
family of the early Romans to the laxity and promiscuity of the later
Romans, we find that these causes can perhaps be grouped under four or
five principal heads, (1) First among all the causes we must put the
destruction of the domestic religion, namely, ancestor worship, through
the growth of nature worship and skeptical philosophy. The destruction
of the domestic religion necessarily shattered the foundations of the
Roman family, since, as we have already seen, there was the closest
connection between the family life of the early Romans and ancestor
worship. But it is not probable that ancestor worship was destroyed
merely through the growth of nature worship and of skeptical philosophy.
As we have already seen, it was a religion which was mainly adapted to
isolated groups. Changes in economic and political conditions,
therefore, were to some extent prior to the decay of the domestic
religion.
(2) Changes in economic conditions, that is, in the form of industry,
were, then, among the more important causes of the decay of the early
Roman family. The patriarchal family, as we have already seen, belonged
essentially to the pastoral stage of industry, and as soon as settled
agricultural life, commerce, and manufacturing industry developed, this
destroyed the isolated patriarchal groups, and so also in time affected
even the religion which was their basis. Again, the increase of
population going along with the changes in the methods in obtaining a
living destroyed the old conditions under which the family had been the
political unit.
(3) We have therefore as a third cause the breaking up of old political
conditions. Family groups were welded into small cities and the
authority of the patriarch was destroyed. Legislation designed to meet
the new social conditions often profoundly affected the whole family
group, and weakened family bonds.
(4) The growth of divorce and of vice may be put down as a fourth cause
of the decay of the Roman family. Some may say that this was an effect
of the decay of the Roman family rather than a cause, but it was also a
cause as well as an effect, for it is a peculiarity of social life that
what is at one stage an effect reacts to become a cause at a later
stage; and this was certainly the case with the growth of divorce and
vice in Rome, in its effect upon the Roman family. Moreover, much of
this came from Greece through imitation. The family life had decayed in
Greece much earlier than it had in Rome, and when Rome conquered Greece
it annexed its vices also. While the most radical social changes do not
usually come about merely through imitation, yet the imitation of a
foreign people is frequently, in the history of a particular nation, one
of the most potent causes in bringing about social changes. It was
certainly so in the case of the growth of divorce and vice in Rome.
To sum up and to generalize: we may say that the causes of the decay of
the Roman family life were very complex, and that this is true of nearly
all important social changes. It is impossible to reduce the causes of
these changes to any single principle or set of causes. While we have
seen that changes in economic conditions were undoubtedly very
influential in bringing about the profound changes in the Roman family,
still we have no ground for regarding the economic changes as
determinative of all the rest. We know as yet little of the development
of industry in antiquity. What little we do know, however, furnishes
good ground for claiming that changes in the methods of getting a living
are among the most influential causes of social change in general; but
there is nothing which warrants the sweeping generalization of Karl Marx
and his followers, "that the method of the production of the material
life determines the social, political, and spiritual life process in
general." On the contrary, the evolution of the Roman family clearly
shows moral and psychological factors at work quite independent of
economic causes. The decay of ancestor worship, for example, cannot be
wholly attributed to the change in the method of getting a living. The
very growth of population and accompanying changes in political
conditions probably had quite as much to do with the undermining of
ancestor worship. Moreover, while religion may not be an original
determining cause of social forms, it is, nevertheless, as we have
already seen, especially that which gives them stability and permanency,
so much so that the life history of a culture is frequently the life
history of a religion. The decay of religious ideas and beliefs,
therefore, from any cause, frequently proves the important element
working for social change in all societies. So, too, changes in
political conditions, especially changes in law through new legislation,
frequently prove a profound modifying influence in societies. Lastly,
there are certain moral causes inherent in the individual, oftentimes
involving perverted expressions of instinct, which lead to profound
social changes. Such was the vice which Rome copied very largely from
Greece, but which proved the final solvent in its family life.
In general we may say, then, that there is no single principle which
will explain the evolution of the family from the earliest times down to
the present. Any attempt to reduce the evolution of the family to a
single principle, or to show that it has been controlled by a single set
of causes, must inevitably end in failure. The economic determinism of
Marx and his followers, the ideological conceptions of Hegel, the
geographical influences of Buckle and his school, and like explanations,
are all found wanting when they are applied to the actual history of the
family. It is not different with the theories of recent sociologists,
who would strive to explain all social changes through a single
principle. Professor Giddings' principle of "Consciousness of Kind" and
Tarde's principle of "Imitation" will not go further in explaining the
changes in the family life than some of the older principles that we
have just mentioned. Human life is, indeed, too complex to be explained
in terms of any single principle or any single set of causes. The family
in particular is an organic structure which responds first to one set of
stimuli and then to another. Now it is modified by economic conditions,
now by religious ideas, now by legislation, now by imitation, and so on
through the whole set of possible stimuli which may impinge upon and
modify the activity of a living organism. So it is with all
institutions.
The Influence of Christianity upon the Family.--While we cannot study
further the evolution of the family in any detail, still it is
necessary, in order to avoid too great discontinuity, to notice in a few
sentences the influence of Christianity upon the family in Western
civilization.
Early Christianity, as we have already seen, found the family life of
the Greco-Roman world demoralized. The reconstruction of the family
became, therefore, one of the first tasks of the new religion, and while
other circumstances may have aided the church in this work, still on the
whole it was mainly the influence of the early church that reconstituted
the family life. From the first the church worked to abolish divorce,
and fought as evil such vices as concubinage and prostitution, that came
to flourish to such an extent in the Pagan world. Only very slowly did
the early leaders of the church win the mass of the people to accepting
their views as to the permanency of the marriage bond. In order to aid
in making this bond more stable the early church recognized marriage as
one of the sacraments, and, as implied, steadily opposed the idea of the
later Roman Law that marriage was simply a private contract. The result
was, eventually, that marriage came to be regarded again as a religious
bond, and the family life took on once more the aspect of great
stability. After the church had come fully into power in the Western
world, legal divorce ceased to be recognized and legal separation was
substituted in its stead. Thus the church succeeded in reconstituting
the family life upon a stable basis, but the family after being
reconstituted, was of a semipatriarchal type. Nothing was more natural
than this, for the church had no model to go by except the paternal
family of the Hebrew and Greek and Roman civilization. Nevertheless, the
place of women and children in this semipatriarchal religious family
established by the church was higher on the whole than in the ancient
patriarchal family. The church put an end to the exposure of children,
which had been common in Rome, and protected childhood in many ways. It
also exalted the place of woman in the family, though leaving her
subject to her husband. The veneration of the Virgin tended particularly
to give women an honored place socially and religiously. Only by the
advocacy and practice of ascetic doctrines may the early church be said
to have detracted from the social valuation of the family. On the whole
the reconstituting of the family by the church must be regarded as its
most striking social work. But the thing for us to note particularly is
that the type of the family life created by the church was what we might
call a semipatriarchal type, in which the importance of husband and
father was very much out of proportion to all the rest of the members of
the family group. It was this semipatriarchal family which persisted
down to the nineteenth century.
SELECT REFERENCES
_For brief reading:_
DE COULANGES, _The Ancient City_, Chaps. I-X.
LECKY, _History of European Morals_, Chap. V.
SCHMIDT, _Social Results of Early Christianity_, Chap. II.
_For more extended reading:_
HEARN, _The Aryan Household._
HOWARD, _History of Matrimonial Institutions._
GROTE, _History of Greece._
MOMMSEN, _The History of Rome._
_On the early Hebrew family:_
MCCURDY, _History, Prophecy, and the Monuments_, Vol. II.
ROBERTSON SMITH, _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_.
_On the early German family:_
GUMMERE, _Germanic Origins._