The Basis of Social Relations: A Study in Ethnic Psychology

by Daniel G. Brinton

By the general term “Law” I mean that restraint exercised by the group on the individual which in its last recourse is backed by physical force. It makes no difference whether the sentiment of the group is laid down by the High Chancellor in his ermine or by “Judge Lynch” in his shirt-sleeves; nor whether the group is the House of Lords or a gang of thieves, the underlying principle—that of the forcible constraint of the individual by the community—remains the same. To borrow Blackstone’s definition, it is the “rule of conduct” which the group chooses to establish for its own ends. Law, therefore, is essentially a part of the ethnic mind, not conceivable except as a group-product, and if at times, apparently, the expression of one mouth (autocracy), yet voluntarily accepted by the group.

The body of concrete laws developed in a community, whether under conditions of freedom or restraint, constitute its government. Under either condition, the government is rightly regarded as the most significant product of the ethnic mind as revealing, educating, and moulding ethnic or national character. For any permanently accepted government, though it may have been instituted by force, must be mainly in unison with the ethnic traits.

The law stretches its hand over all the activities of the individual, mental or physical, fostering some and repressing others, marking the limit to all. Personal actions, the acquisition of property, the expression of opinions, all are by common consent of every community absolutely subjected to the ethnic mind, the will of the group, and the physical power of the group stands ready to compel obedience to this will.

Distinctly the ethnic and not the individual will; for in laws we have frequent examples of the contrast between the two, when no individual approves a law which all approve. There is not an American writer who would be willing to have the expression of his thoughts gagged by government; and not one but approves of the law of libel.

In no relation of human life has the influence of law as a moulder of ethnic mental unity been more observable from earliest times than in that of Marriage.

It is my own opinion, based on a long study of the subject, that physical fidelity, la fidélité du corps, as Manon Lescaut expressed it, of either sex to the other never was, and is not now, what is termed a “natural” trait of human character. The native desire for sexual variety is equally strong in both sexes and has been so from the beginning.

Marriage laws, it should be borne in mind, have been everywhere and in all time framed by the males alone, and they all reveal the intention of the framers to preserve a right of property in the female, to limit her sexual freedom, while their own remains unrestricted.

Collateral interests, such as the extent of the food-supply, the rules of transmission of property, the purity of castes or classes, and the like, have frequently entered into the bearing of marriage laws; but the first and continued aim remains the prevention of feminine infidelity and the retention of masculine independence.

For this reason, the woman, even in the most advanced states to-day, is deprived of civic rights and kept in economic dependence; she is allowed no part in either the making or the execution of the laws, and her position is ranked with that of minors or adults of undeveloped minds.

Government, therefore, with few exceptions, differs from language in this, that it is the exclusive production of the male ethnic mind, and must be considered to express the masculine traits only.