In the Lower Status of barbarism we find intermarriage within the gens prohibited, and the obligation not to marry those accounted as kin as strong as a religious duty.
Although during the latter ages of savagery the idea of property was slightly developed, it is thought that it lay nascent until the latter part of the first period of barbarism. Indeed, until the first stage of barbarism was reached, the idea of personal possession had gained only a slight foothold in the mental constitution of mankind. Egoism, selfishness, or the desire to better one’s individual condition at the expense of the rest of the gens was unknown. All lands were controlled by the group, and as the property of early society consisted for the most part of personal effects and proprietary rights in communal houses and gardens, one of the most fruitful causes for dissensions in more advanced stages of society was avoided. Under primitive conditions, quarrels arising over disputed ownership within the gens were unknown, and liberty, equality, and fraternity, the cardinal virtues and principles of early society were able to flourish undisturbed by the as yet unheard of vices inherent in the excessive desire for property.
In reference to some of the small uncivilized communities which he visited, Mr. Wallace says that each man respects the rights of his fellow,
and any infraction of these rights rarely or never takes place. In such a community all are nearly equal. There are none of those wide distinctions of education and ignorance, wealth and poverty, master and servant, which are the product of our civilization; there is none of that widespread division of labour, which, while it increases wealth, produces also conflicting interests; there is not that severe competition and struggle for existence or for wealth which the dense population of civilized countries inevitably creates.[94]
Under the archaic rule of the gens, at the death of a male, whether married or single, his possessions descended to his sister’s children; while at the death of a female, her property, including her personal effects, was distributed among her sisters and her children and the children of her daughters, but the children of her sons were not included among her heirs. The sons’ children belonged to the gentes of their respective mothers, and as descent and all the relationships to which rights of succession were attached were traced only in the female line, and as property until the middle of the Second Status of barbarism was strictly confined to the gens in which it originated, children could receive nothing from their fathers. Wives and husbands, as they belonged to separate gentes, received nothing from one another. In later times, when tribal honours were confined within certain families or groups, as descent and property rights were all traced in the female line, each male was dependent upon his female blood relations, not only for his common inherited privileges in the gens, but for any civil or military distinction to which he might attain.
Where female kinship prevails, a Rajah’s son may become a hodman, taking the state of his mother—while the son of the Rajah’s sister mounts the throne.[95]
Among the Rocch tribe, a people among which descent is traced in the female line, a man goes on marriage to live with his wife and her mother, of whose family he is a subordinate member.[96]
A Rocch man goes, on his marriage, like the beena husband of Ceylon, to live with his wife and her mother; on his marriage, all his property is made over to his wife, and on her death her heirs are her daughters.[97]
For the same reason that wives and husbands were debarred from sharing in each other’s property, their bodies, or more properly speaking, their bones, were separated at death, as were also the bones of father and child. The bones of the children always rested beside those of the mother. It was impious to mix the bones of unrelated persons. To such an extent was the Motherright recognized under archaic usages that the child belonged exclusively to the mother and her relations, the father having no recognized proprietary right to his offspring. Indeed, so lightly was the paternal relation regarded that the father was supposed to have little if any interest in his own children.
Although the bond between a man and his offspring was weak, toward his sister’s children, as they belonged to the same gens with himself, a considerable degree of manly interest was manifested; indeed, it has been stated that about the same solicitude was evinced by him for their welfare, as was shown at a later time by fathers for the members of their own household.