INTRODUCTION. (continued 2)

To begin with, it is clear that the distinction, being common to all the Aryans, was not developed subsequently to their dispersion, but is pre-historic—indeed, pro-ethnic. Hence it follows that the distinction was not the work of any legislator or of any individual; it could not have been a law enacted by a lawgiver and enforced by the State under pains and penalties, for the simple reason that the Aryans, previous to their dispersion, were not organised into a State, and had no government to issue or execute laws. But before Law, Custom was, and "Kin and Custom go together and imply each other, as do Law and State. Law is the enactment of the State—Custom is the habit of the Kin. And as Custom precedes Law, so the State is preceded by kin or sib associations. The earliest form of the State is modelled on that of the sib associations out of which it is developed, and the first laws promulgated by the State are but the old customs committed to writing."^[125]

In what pro-ethnic Aryan custom, then, are we to seek the origin of the clear and deep-cut line between the Near and the Remote Kin? The answer is furnished by what is known among the Slavonians as the house community, and to Anglo-Indian lawyers as "the joint undivided family." As it exists now in India, the joint undivided family consists, or may consist, of the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons of a man (deceased), who, on the death of their common ancestor, do not separate, but continue to live on the undivided estate and worship their deceased ancestor as their house-spirit. The family, as defined by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,^[126] is "joint in food, worship, and estate."

Now, the relatives whom the earliest Aryan codes, the laws of the Twelve Tables, the laws of Solon, of Menu, the Gortyn Code, &c., specify as a man's heirs-at-law are in every case precisely those relatives who belonged, or might at some time have belonged, to the same joint undivided family as the deceased. It is worth while to note that at different times a man might belong to four different joint undivided families: he might be born into a family which still united in worshipping the spirit of his great-grandfather: and thus his cousins, his first cousins once removed, and his second cousins once removed, would dwell in the same household with him. His grandfather might then die and become a house-spirit: in that event, his grand-uncle (and descendants) would have to set up a family of his own, for they only can belong to a joint undivided family who are descended from a common house-father. Now, my grand-uncle, being the brother of my grandfather, is not descended from my grandfather, therefore cannot worship his spirit, therefore cannot belong to the joint undivided family which worships my grandfather's spirit. On the other hand, the family, of which my (deceased) grandfather is the house-spirit, includes my grandfather's descendants to the third generation, i.e., includes not only my cousins, but also their sons. This (cousins' sons) is the limit of the second joint undivided family to which it is possible for a man to belong. Thirdly, when my father becomes a house-spirit, and is worshipped by his children's children, I dwell in the same household as my nephews and grand-nephews. Finally, when I am gathered to my fathers, I dwell, in the spirit, with my sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons.

Here we obviously have the key to the order of succession prescribed by the earliest Aryan codes: my own descendants (if any) are called first, because they constitute the joint undivided family, with which, at the time of dying, I am presumably dwelling. My father's descendants come next, because that was the family I had previously belonged to; and on the same principle my grandfather's descendants, and then those of my great-grandfather were called.

So long as the joint undivided family was a living institution, so long there was no need (as there was no thought) of specifying who a man's heirs were, and so long a man could be in no doubt as to who his Near Kin were—they were those who had been brought up in the same family as himself. It was only when this unwieldy form of family came to be disintegrated by the advance of civilisation that it became necessary to specify the order of succession, and to determine who were a man's Near Kin; and, as we have seen, the earliest laws on this subject are but the old customs reduced to writing.

Two facts of importance in the history of Aryan marriage have now been shown. The first, inferred from the domum deductio and from the existence of marriage by capture and by purchase, is that amongst the undispersed Aryans a man customarily abstained from marrying a woman belonging to his own family group. The second is that the family groups in which the Aryans lived, if not originally, certainly for some time before their dispersion, were joint undivided families. The Aryan was averse to marrying women of his Near Kin; the difficult question now arises, whether he was equally averse to marrying into his Remote Kin? The "prohibited degrees" of historic times do not help us much in answering this question. The Athenians had lost the Aryan aversion to marriages within the near kin: they married their cousins, and even half-sisters. There is no evidence to show that the Romans ever abstained from marrying their Remote Kin. Rossbach maintains that the prohibition extended only to first cousins; Klenze, Walter, Burchardy, Göttling, and Gerlach make it go as far as the extreme limit of the Near Kin, i.e., to second cousins once removed—no writer on Roman law or marriage supports a wider prohibition; and the jus osculi^[127] (which, by the way, was accorded by men to men as well as by women to men) extended only to the near kin. The Hindoos, again, were averse to marriage between any persons of the same name.

Does the Hindoo system come down from pro-ethnic times, or is it a development peculiar among Aryan nations to the Hindoos? Many savages have a much wider circle of prohibited degrees than civilised peoples possess, and amongst civilised peoples themselves the number of prohibited degrees has even in historic times diminished. We thus seem to get a sort of law of diminishing degrees, which would point to the Hindoo system as that which was known to the pro-ethnic Aryans. But though some savages have more prohibited degrees than civilised men have, other savages have few or none. The downward movement, therefore, from the maximum to the minimum number of prohibited degrees which is observable in historic times must have been preceded in pre-historic ages by an upward movement from the minimum to the maximum; and, as far as the evidence at present goes, though the upward movement may, in pro-ethnic times, have proceeded as far as the Remote Kin, it may equally well only have reached to the limits of the Near Kin; while, after the Aryan dispersion, the movement may have continued upwards amongst the Hindoos, downwards amongst the Athenians, and, for a long time, have ceased to move in any direction amongst the conservative Romans.

A more important point to notice is that, if we believe the Hindoo system to date from pro-ethnic times, we must also assume that the Hindoo system of naming is pro-ethnic, i.e., we must assume that each Aryan had two names, one distinguishing him personally from other people, the other indicating what kin he belonged to; and in this event, the Near and the Remote Kin must, in pro-ethnic times, have had a common name. There is, however, very little evidence to show that this was the case: gentile names are found among the Hindoos and the Romans alone of Aryan peoples. It is, of course, possible that, before the dispersion, the Aryans had gentile names, and that, after the dispersion, all the Aryans, with the exception of the Romans and the Hindoos, lost them entirely. On the other hand, if there was a time when gentile names had not yet been invented, if they have had a history and growth, we must consider it as at least possible that gentile names had not been evolved at the time of the dispersion, and were only developed subsequently by the Romans and Hindoos.

Whether the undispersed Aryans had gentile names, and at the same time an aversion to marriages between persons of the same name, is a question on which it were vain to pronounce confidently. We may more safely consider both these equally possible alternatives, together with the consequences which flow from each. Let us assume that marriage was, amongst the Aryans as amongst the Hindoos, prohibited between persons of the same gentile name: is there anything in the social organisation presupposed by this prohibition incompatible with the patriarchal system? According to Mr. D. M‘Lennan there is: not only are there "numerous societies of which the patriarchal theory does not even attempt to give any account," but "in the societies upon contemplation of which it was formed, a most serious difficulty for it is presented by the tribes, which consist of several clans, each clan considered separate in blood from all the others. The patriarchal theory, of course, involves that the clans are all of the same blood."^[128] Mr. M‘Lennan's difficulty seems to be this: where inheritance (of family name, property, sacra, &c.) is confined to the male line, the descendants of a common ancestor must all have the same family or gentile name; persons having different names cannot be descended from the same ancestor—that is to say, different gentes or clans cannot have a common origin. A tribe, therefore, which consists of several clans cannot consist of descendants of a common ancestor. Yet, these clans believe they have an ancestor, however remote, in common. If their belief is incorrect (if the gentes have not a common origin), how did the error arise? If, on the other hand, the different gentes of the same tribe have a common origin, how came they to have different names?

The source of this difficulty plainly is the assumption that the original ancestor of the tribe had a family name, which was inherited by all his descendants. It is impossible to disprove or to prove this assumption. We may, however, note that the Teutons (according to Dr. Taylor^[129]) rejoiced in only one name a-piece. An Athenian added to his own name his father's. And—to set assumption against assumption—we may conjecture that as patronymics are formed from personal names, so gentile names were developed out of patronymics. At first, a man's sons bore nothing in their names to indicate from what father they were sprung. In course of time the sons of Anchises were known as Anchisiadæ; and as long as the family group consisted only of parents and children, this system of nomenclature would suffice. It might even continue into times when the family group included three generations: Iulus, as well as his father, Æneas, might be an Anchisiades. And here we may note that if all the members of a joint undivided family bore the surname Anchisiades, an aversion to marriage in the near kin would forbid the marriage of any two Anchisiadæ. When, however, owing to natural growth, the joint undivided family of Anchises becomes so large that it is necessary for his younger (married) sons to go out into the world and start joint undivided families of their own, leaving Æneas and his children in possession of the old home, it is obvious that persons who once had belonged to the same joint undivided family, and therefore had possessed the same family name, and had been prohibited to intermarry, would now belong to different families, and (being named after the respective house-fathers of the newly formed families) would have different patronymics, and would be allowed to marry persons whom previously they were forbidden to wed. In these circumstances an extension both of prohibited degrees and of the family name might very naturally be the ultimate result. Iulus, who for years had worshipped Anchises as house-spirit, and had consequently been an Anchisiades, might, when Æneas became his house-spirit, come to be known as an Ænæades, but on the other hand the old patronymic might stick to him and to his children for ever. In the same way, the aversion to marrying women who belonged to the same joint undivided family might cease when they ceased to belong to the same family, but it might continue. Hence a continual tendency to extend the family name, and to enlarge the number of prohibited degrees.

The transition from the system of naming by patronymics to that of gentile names would not be made in a day or in a generation, and during the transition the usage would fluctuate: the descendants of Æneas might choose to be known as Ænæadæ rather than as the sons of Anchises, while the children of Æneas' brothers might retain the name of Anchisiadæ, because their fathers were less distinguished than their grandfather. The period of this fluctuation in usage may be assumed to have been long enough to allow of the requisite diversity of gentile names, while the fact that the number of gentes is always fixed, however far back they can be historically traced, shows that the fluctuation at last hardened into unyielding custom.

It was pointed out in the last paragraph but one that second cousins once removed (the great-grandchildren of a common house-father) might at one time belong to the same joint undivided family, and subsequently to different families, and that they might wish to continue, after their separation, to consider each other as relatives. Language afforded them no means of indicating their relationship, for there was no word in the original Aryan language for "cousin," much less for "second cousin." And before patronymics had been stereotyped into gentile names, it might seem that the Aryan system of naming at that time afforded no means of binding these relatives together either. But a certain Athenian custom may perhaps be taken, both as evidence of the existence of the desire in question, and as an indication of the means taken for gratifying it. At Athens it was the custom to name a child after its grandfather; and if we assume this practice to have obtained in Aryan times, we have here a ready means for indicating the fact that second cousins are related without the aid of a gentile name; for if I and my first cousin are both named after our common grandfather, then our children (who are second cousins once removed) will have the same patronymic, and therefore will be related, and thence again prohibited to marry. This may be illustrated by an imaginary pedigree, which will also serve to show how—when once patronymics, such as "John's son," became stereotyped into true family or gentile names, such as "Johnson"—all the gentes of a tribe might be descended from a common ancestor. Thus:—

John.

Will, John's son.

John, Will's son. Tom, Will's son.

Will, John's son. Harry, John's son. Will, Tom's son. Jack, Tom's son.

John Wilson. Frank Wilson. John Harrison. Bill Harrison. Tom Wilson. Dick Wilson. Tom Jackson. Richard Jackson.

We may now sum up. The oldest form of family organisation historically traceable amongst the Aryans is that of the joint undivided family. The pro-ethnic Aryans were probably averse to marriages between members of the same joint undivided family. They may also have been averse to marriages between second cousins once removed, even when those second cousins had ceased to dwell in the same joint household. If so, then, as language afforded no term even for "cousins," the memory of the relationship may have been kept up in one of three ways. As the members of a genos at Athens had no common family name, and as they were notoriously related, not by blood, but merely by the possession of a joint-worship, so amongst the Aryans a joint-worship may have served as the mark of kinship (as it does among the Hindoos still). Or the remote kin may have been enabled to claim kindred by means of a patronymic system, which survived at Athens. Or, third, gentile names may have been developed out of patronymics even in pro-ethnic times, in which case marriage would be prohibited, as amongst the Hindoos, between all persons of the same family name.

But there is nothing in this patriarchal organisation of the family and of the tribe which compels us to assume that it was evolved out of some earlier non-patriarchal form of family. The warrant for such an assumption, if to be found, must be sought elsewhere. Let us seek. Analogy will not help us. The patriarchal system may, elsewhere in the world, have been evolved out of the matriarchate; but, as the late Mr. M‘Lennan warned us, we may not assume that marriage has everywhere had the same history. The widest survey of the various forms of human marriage (Westermarck's) that has yet been made warrants no presumption in favour of the priority of the matriarchate. If the matriarchate was a pro-ethnic Aryan institution, it is on Aryan ground that traces of it must be discovered. Such traces are said to be discernible.

There are traces amongst some Aryan peoples of the levirate. The levirate is said to indicate polyandry, and polyandry to presuppose the matriarchate. This is a perfectly legitimate line of argument, but before resorting to polyandry for an explanation of the Aryan levirate, it is worth while to inquire whether there is anything in known Aryan customs capable of supplying an explanation. According to Aryan custom, the estate of a man who leaves no son passes to the next of kin, i.e., his brother, or it may be a more distant relative. If the deceased leaves no son, but a daughter, then according to Athenian law, according to the Gortyn Code, and probably also according to Aryan custom, the next of kin (whether brother or not) must not only take the estate, but also marry the heiress, if any (whether wife or daughter of the deceased). According to the Gortyn Code, if the next of kin is married, he must put away his wife; if the heiress is already married, she must leave her husband. Now, if the obligation to raise up seed to the deceased extended only to his brothers, the Tibetan form of polyandry would afford an explanation which, whether correct or not, would, at any rate, account for all the facts. But inasmuch as the obligation is binding on all the near kin, and extends to the daughter as well as the wife of the deceased, it cannot be explained by the hypothesis of the Tibetan form of polyandry or any other form short of incest in every degree possible, not only amongst the members of the same joint undivided family, but also with the women who have married out of that family into some other. In truth, so far from mutterrecht being the source of the Aryan custom, that custom bears on its face the marks of the rudest and most savage application of the agnatic theory. The provisions of the Gortyn Code which require that the next of kin shall marry the heiress, even if the marriage necessitate divorce on both sides, show that the mother was held absolutely incapable of transmitting rights—only a kinsman could do that. A devotion to the principle of agnation so strong as to over-ride the innate Aryan aversion to endogamous marriages, so strong even in the days of civilised Athens as to afford the Orestes of Æschylus with the defence that the mother whom he had killed was not of his blood, cannot be explained as a survival from times when kinship was counted exclusively through the female line. The savage practice must have its roots in some equally crude and savage theory. What the Aryan theory was we can hardly hope to discover, but we may conjecture that it was at least as barbarous as that which leads savages to eat their dead kinsmen, and European peasants to eat corpse-cakes, in the belief that thereby "the virtues and advantages of the departed ... and the living strength of the deceased passed over ... into the kinsman who consumed them, and so were retained within the kindred" (Mr. E. S. Hartland in Folk Lore, III. ii. 149). The Leichen-nudeln of the Bavarian peasant, or the beans of the primitive Italian funeral feasts, would, when eaten, qualify the next of kin to wed the heiress and to raise up seed to the dead kinsman.

Before leaving the subject of the levirate we may note that the joint undivided family survived in historic times at Athens and in Sparta, and that in both places brothers lived on the joint-estate as well after the death as during the life of their father. In Sparta, if one only of the brothers had a son, that son was naturally heir to the joint-estate, and was considered the son of all. Amongst the Hindoos, too, Vasishtha says (xvii. 10), "If amongst many brothers who are begotten by one father, one have a son, they all have offspring through that son" (cf. Vishnu, xv. 42).^[130] Now, a casual observer, ignorant of the nature and constitution of the joint undivided family, might thus easily draw the mistaken inference that the wife of one brother was common to them all; and this may be the origin of Cæsar's statement with regard to the polyandry of the ancient Britons, and of Polybius' with regard to the Spartans. Or, again, it is possible that the joint undivided family may in these instances have given rise to this form of polyandry. It is thus not safe to infer that where polyandry is, the matriarchate must previously have been.

There remains the argument from totems. Unfortunately their very existence in Europe is questioned, and this is not the place to discuss the question. It is safer not to meddle in European totems at present. Their appearance in Greek mythology, however, may fittingly here be made the subject of a brief allusion. The value, to the anthropologist, of ancient Roman customs and beliefs is that they show us the Italians at a much lower stage of civilisation than that in which the Vedas show us the Hindoos or the Homeric poems the Greeks. They show us an Aryan people having no mythology, and they warrant the inference that myths were unknown to the pro-ethnic Aryans. The Greek myths about the amours of Zeus in animal form cannot go back, therefore, to Aryan times. They may be the peculiar invention of the early Greeks, or it may be that the families which claimed to be descended from animals were pre-Hellenic, and that, when they joined the immigrating Greeks, they learnt the worship of Zeus, and were aided in their conversion by identifying Zeus with their animal ancestor.

Against the instances of polyandry and the survivals of totemism, which may or may not show that the matriarchate was known to Aryan peoples, we may fairly set the evidence of comparative philology. The original Aryan language possessed terms for grandfather, father, son, and grandson; and these are just the direct ascendants and descendants who could compose a joint undivided family. There was a word for the paternal uncle, whom the children brought up in such a family would know; there is none for the maternal uncle, with whom they would not dwell. There were special designations for husband's father, husband's mother, husband's brother, husband's sister, and even for husband's brothers' wives—just the words which would be required if the wife left her own family to dwell in that of her husband. There were none for wife's father, mother, &c., which would be required if the husband became a member of his wife's family. And this—which is inconsistent with the matriarchal system—is in accord with the evidence afforded by wedding customs, viz., that the wife left father and mother, and was brought, by the domum deductio, to her husband's home.

Still, it would be as unjustifiable to say that the matriarchate could never have established itself on Aryan ground, as it is to say that the agnatic family must have been developed out of the system of "maternal rights" and "female descent." The list of prohibited degrees varies among early Aryan peoples from the minimum possible for a civilised people (as at Athens) to the maximum possible even for savages (as amongst the Hindoos). There may have been a similar variation in the organisation of the family. Nor can we say with confidence that the pro-ethnic Aryans were more uniform than their descendants. The different languages evolved out of the common Aryan tongue existed as dialects from the beginning, and in the beginning there may have been differences in social organisation. But whereas we can certainly trace the joint undivided family and the principle of agnation as far back as modern science enables us to trace the Aryans at all, the evidence for the existence of the matriarchate at any time amongst any Aryan people is inferior both in amount and in value.

XII. Conclusion.

After writing a hundred pages as though one knew something, it is a relief to confess one's ignorance. So I shall do myself the pleasure of concluding with a list of Romane Questions which are too hard for me. Why they kept the temple of the goddesse Horta open alwaies I own to me is a mystery yet. I cannot even conjecture what is the reason that Quintus Metellus forbad to observe auspices after the moneth Sextilis, nor why they thought Aruspices ought to have their lanterns and lampes alwaies open, nor why obsserve they the vultures most of any other fowles in taking of presages. White, as a mourning colour, which is prescribed in R. Q. 26, may be paralleled in the customs of Gambreion, in Asia Minor, and in Argos, but the explanation is beyond me. The origin of the proverb Sardi venales, and of the interesting custom associated with it (R. Q. 53), can scarcely be said to be explained either by Festus (p. 322) or by Cicero (VII. Fam., 24). Nor do I know why boys were named on the ninth, whereas girls were named on the eighth day of birth. And why did the Romans of old time invariably, when they went out to supper, take with them their young sonnes, even when they were but in their very infancie and childhood?

ROMANE QVESTIONS,

THAT IS TO SAY,

AN ENQUIRIE INTO THE

CAUSES OF MANIE FASHIONS AND CUSTOMES OF ROME.

A Treatise fit for them who are conversant in the reading of Romane histories and antiquities, giving a light to many places otherwise obscure and hard to be understood.