Senescence, the Last Half of Life

by G. Stanley Hall

In the modern Jewish family the authority of and respect for the father is great, more among the orthodox and conservative than the liberal and reformed wing of Judaism. The grandfather and -mother are always provided for, although their authority and influence are generally greatly diminished.

Perhaps mention should here be made of the very interesting medieval legend of Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew, although it is of Christian origin. This cobbler, past whose shop Jesus bore the Cross on the way to Calvary, reproached Him, and Jesus, turning, sentenced him to “tarry till I come,” which meant that his punishment was to remain alive on earth until the second coming of the Messiah. In some of the many forms of this tradition he is represented at the time as being of about Jesus’ age and every time he reached a hundred as being set back again to this stage of life; while in others he is described with ever increasing symptoms of age, and in Doré’s illustrations he is depicted as wandering the earth, appearing here and there and, when recognized, generally mysteriously vanishing, ever seeking death, visiting graveyards and regions smitten with plague and famine, rushing into the mêlée of battles, etc.—but all in vain. He longs with an ever increasing passion to pay the debt of nature but is unable to do so and must rove the earth until the Judgment Day, when he hopes his penalty may be remitted and that he may keep some “rendezvous with Death.”[48]

In ancient Greece we may begin with Sparta and its very unique gerousia, the council of twenty-eight old men who must be over sixty, when the duty to bear arms ceased and when by the original law of Sparta men were put to death. This council of old men at the height of its power is sometimes compared with that of the boulé in Athens but was even greater, for although it held its mandate from the people and its members were annually elected, they could depose the five ephors and the kings and even cause them to be put to death. J. P. Mahaffy[49] condemns the parochial politics of Sparta, where ignorant old men watched over and secured the closest adhesion of the state to the system of a semifabulous legislator, and compares the rigidity of the Spartan system, not based on written laws, with the effects of excessive reverence of ancestors in China in retarding progress.[50] He thinks that here we have “one of the most signal instances in history of the vast mischief done by the government of old men. All the leading patriots, nay all the leading politicians, were past their prime. There was not a single young man of ability taking part in public affairs.” This, he thinks, was more or less true of Athens in the early days, and he goes on to say that if any young orator tried to advance new ideas, the old masters, who had the ear of the assembly, were out upon him as a hireling and traitor so that he had to retire from the agora into private life, and some were thus driven into exile. He even holds that the sudden growth of the philosophic schools a little later was due to the activities that but for this diversion would have been directed to politics.

But in Greece at its best opposite influences were at work and generally predominated. In the Homeric age “the king or chief, as soon as his bodily vigor passed away, was apparently pushed aside by younger and stronger men. He might either maintain himself by extraordinary usefulness, like Nestor, or be supported by his children, if they chanced to be affectionate and dutiful; but except in these cases his lot was sad indeed.”[51] Achilles laments that nearby chiefs are ill-treating the aged Peleus, and we see Laertes, the father of Ulysses, exiled to a barren farm in the country and spending the later years of his life in poverty and hardship. Hence when we see princes who had sons that might return any day to avenge them treated in such a way, we must infer that unprotected old age commanded very little veneration among the Homeric Greeks, so that worn-out men received scant consideration. Among friends and neighbors in peace and in good humor they were treated with consideration, but with the first clash of interests all this vanished. Interference of the gods to protect their weakness was no longer believed in. Thus the exact prescription of the conduct of the young toward the elders in Sparta was an exception, and their treatment of old age as illustrated by the well-worn story of an old man coming into the theater at Athens and looking in vain for a seat until he came near the Spartan embassy, which at once rose and made room for him, was suggestive. It was well added that while the Athenians applauded this act it is doubtful if they imitated it. Probably the disparagement of old age prompted Athenian gentlemen to resort to every means to prolong their youth. Zeus came to rule the turbulent and self-willed lesser gods on Olympus, who were perpetually trying to evade and thwart him, by occasionally terrifying them, and he seemed to be able to count on no higher principle of loyalty.

The Greeks loved wealth because it gave pleasure, and perhaps in this fact we have one key to another horror that old age had for them. Mimnermus tells us to enjoy the delights of love, for “when old age with its pains comes upon us it mars even the fair, wretched cares besiege the mind; nor do we delight in beholding the rays of the sun but are hateful to boys and despised among women, so sore a burden have the gods made old age.” “When youth has fled, short-lived as a dream, forthwith this burdensome and hideous old age looms over us hateful and dishonored, which changes the fashion of man’s countenance, marring his sight and his mind with its mist.” Pindar asks why those who must of necessity meet the fate of death should desire “to sit in obscurity vainly brooding through a forgotten old age without sharing a single blessing.” He and Aeschylus take a somewhat less unfavorable view of age, although even Pindar calls it “detested.” Sophocles is the only dramatist who, at least in one passage, welcomes its approach, although there are nowhere bitterer words concerning it than those of the chorus of Œdipus at Coloneus, “That is the final lot of man, even old age, hateful, impotent, unsociable, friendless, wherein all evil of evil dwells.” Thus, in general, Greek writers take a very gloomy view of it, never calling it beautiful, peaceful, or mellow, but rather dismal and oppressive. The best they say of it is that it brings wisdom.

R. W. Livingstone[52] says:

When youth wore away, he [the Greek] felt that what made life most worth living was gone. In part perhaps it was that old age had terrors for the Greeks which we do not feel. They were without eyeglasses, ear-trumpets, bath-chairs, and an elaborate system of apéritifs, which modern science has devised to assist our declining years. Yet even with these consolations it may be doubted whether the Greek would have faced old age with pleasure. At least to judge from Greek literature, he lamented its minor discomforts less than the loss of youth’s intense capacity for action and enjoyment. People who prize beauty and health so highly can hardly think otherwise when age comes.

Again, old men in Greece had to contend with the younger generation upon even terms and without the large allowance conceded them by modern sentiment and good manners. At Athens legal proceedings of children to secure the property of their parents were very common—and that, too, without medical evidence of incapacity. Aristophanes complains of the treatment of older men by the newer generation and in his Wasps makes an old man say that his only chance of respect or even safety is to retain the power of acting as a juryman, so exacting homage from the accused and supporting himself by his pay without depending on his children. When he comes home with his fee they are glad to see him. Indeed, thus he might support a second wife and younger children and not be dependent for his daily bread upon his son’s steward. In the tragedies the old kings are represented as acquiescing, though not without complaint, in the weakness of their position and submitting to insults from foes and rivals. There seems no such thing as patient submission for an aged sovereign. Nor did his own excellence nor the score of former battles secure for him the allegiance of his people when his vigor had passed. This was all because in spite of the modicum of respect that all must yield to old age at its best, the violent nature of the Periclean politics and the warlike temper of early days made vigor in their leaders a necessity. The nation was strong, always seeking to advance and enlarge, and its maxim seemed to be that of Hesiod, “Work for youth; counsel for maturity; prayers for old age.” The Greeks, realizing the danger of relying too much upon experience as the source of wisdom, saw that when the maturity of age is passed and the power of decision begins to wane, trusting to the leadership of the old may be dangerous. By a law often relied on, old men could be brought into court by their children and be found incapable of managing their property, which was then transferred to their heirs; and this helps to explain why sometimes old people, beginning to feel their uselessness, committed suicide rather than become an encumbrance.

Plato[53] makes one of his characters say:

I and a few other people of my own age are in the habit of frequently meeting together. On these occasions most of us give way to lamentations and regret the pleasures of youth, and call up the memory of love affairs, drinking parties, and similar proceedings. They are grievously discontented at the loss of what they consider great privileges and describe themselves as having lived well in those days whereas now they can hardly be said to live at all. Some also complain of the manner in which their relations insult their infirmities or make this a ground for reproaching old age with the many miseries it occasions them.