The payment of the blood-fine by the whole family of the murderer was considered necessary to [pg 080] allay the vengeance and anger of the family of the murdered man within the same area of relationship. In Wales the members of the family who received the galanas, did so in proportion to the importance of their position in the transmission of the kindred blood, according to a classification identical with their proximity in relationship to the dead man, and their expectation of inheritance from him or succession to his place.
The mother's relations included in Greece and in Wales.
The inclusion of the mother's relatives and their liability in these circumstances, in addition to the paternal relations, follow naturally enough in Wales as in Greece when once the transmission of inheritance through a woman, in default of male heirs, had become a recognised possibility. A woman's sons might always be called upon under certain circumstances to take inheritance from her father or next of kin. They therefore quite fairly shared in the claims as well as the privileges of their position. And vice versa, in exchange for the priceless guarantee of continuity provided by a woman's offspring to her relations, they too would be prepared to undergo a part of the penalties incurred by any of those who might rank some day as their next of kin, or as their sons.
This view of the source of their recognition as members of the kindred responsible for the blood-fine in Wales is confirmed by a statement in the Venedotian Code.[186] Those women and clerks who can swear that they will never have children, and so are useless for the preservation of continuity in the [pg 081] families to which they belong, are specially exempted from contribution to the galanas, inasmuch as they have forsworn the privilege of attaining through posterity a share in the immortality on earth of their kindred.
Chapter IV. The Relation Of The Family To The Land.
Γαῖαν παμμήτειραν ἀείσομαι, ἠυθέμεθλον,
πρεσβίστην, ἣ φέρβει ἐπὶ χθονὶ πάνθ᾽, ὁπός᾽ ἐστὶν, ...