Odysseus pretends he was in this position, and relates how his proud brothers allotted him but a small gift (παῦρα δόσαν) and a house as his portion.[224]
Isaeus mentions that, only on the acquiescence of the true son, was admission granted to a bastard into the phratria. Even then he was not apparently taken into his father's family, but allotted a farm (χωρίον ἕν) by his brother and, as it were, launched into the world to start a family of his own, without any further claim upon the property of his father.[225]
His introduction and admission to a phratria and deme, as a descendant of an old family, so far removed the stigma of his birth as to give him the title of citizen, and thus afforded him the qualification for holding land. Yet the knowledge of his real parentage bereft him of the right of sharing equally with the rest of his father's sons, and compelled him to be satisfied with the bare means of subsistence wherewith to found and continue a house of his own.[226]
Gifts of land to new citizens.
When citizenship was conferred upon a beneficent stranger, it was the custom at the same time to assign him and his descendants a house and some land. We hear of grants on such occasions consisting of a κλῆρος in the plain, a house, and a garden free of taxes; a half-κλῆρος in the plain, a house and a garden of half the area of the preceding grant, &c. In the fourth century B.C. a similar grant takes the form [pg 097] of so many plethra as a patrimony or ever. Sometimes, as at Sparta in the second century B.C., the estate was allotted to the newly-made citizen only on condition of residence within the borders of the State.[227]
§ 3. The Householder In India: The Guest.
Dependence of sons during their father's life.
Sir Henry S. Maine in his Early Law and Custom[228] quotes Narada in illustration of the composition of the early Indian family. A son “is of age and independent in case his parents be dead: during their lifetime he is dependent, even though he be grown old.”
Further information on this subject is afforded by the Ordinances of Manu, where the position of the first-born with regard to his younger brothers is given at some length.[229]