In this disintegration of the larger unit, the existence of kinship by blood would be acknowledged [pg 015] only where the relationship was obvious and well known. And it would no longer be sufficient merely to prove membership of a kindred; as those outside certain limits would claim exemption from the responsibilities entailed by closer relationship.
The change of tribesmen into citizens.
So, too, in the matter of religious observance: the reverence of the individual for the Prytaneum and common hearth of the state would undergo a change into a less personal sentiment; the rites connected therewith would be delegated to an official priest; and it is with the head of each family, surrounded by those who are really conscious of their connection by blood in common descent from much more immediate ancestors, that the true tribal feeling would longest survive, though, of course, on much narrower lines.
The privileges of citizenship were, it will be seen, as carefully guarded as those of the tribe, but in a more perfunctory and arbitrary manner; whilst the intimate connection of the members of the family with the hearth and the graves of their ancestors stands out in strong relief.
By the time of Hesiod, besides the violation of the universal sanctity of a guest or suppliant, the chief sins are against members of the same household, defrauding orphans, or insulting an aged parent.[28] Behaviour to other than blood-relations is regulated by expediency, by what you may expect in return from your neighbours.[29]
Whether the family is to be regarded as the chief factor in the composition of the city, or how much of [pg 016] its composition the city owes to direct inheritance from the tribal system, must, as has been said, be left unsolved. Some small light may perhaps be shed upon the problem as this inquiry proceeds.
The study of the family introductory to the history of the tribe.
At any rate, if the true basis of the organisation of the family and the kindred, as found in historic times in Greece, could once be established, material assistance ought to have been gained for rightly understanding the structure of that earlier society, whatever it was, from which the rules, that govern those within the bond of kinship, were survivals.