Ancient society

by Lewis Henry Morgan

It was founded upon the marriage of one man with several wives; followed, in general, by the seclusion of the wives.

V. The Monogamian Family.

It was founded upon marriage between single pairs, with an exclusive cohabitation.

Three of these forms, namely, the first, second, and fifth, were radical; because they were sufficiently general and influential to create three distinct systems of consanguinity, all of which still exist in living forms. Conversely, these systems are sufficient of themselves to prove the antecedent existence of the forms of the family and of marriage, with which they severally stand connected. The remaining two, the syndyasmian and the patriarchal, were intermediate, and not sufficiently influential upon human affairs to create a new, or modify essentially the then existing system of consanguinity. It will not be supposed that these types of the family are separated from each other by sharply defined lines; on the contrary, the first passes into the second, the second into the third, and the third into the fifth by insensible gradations. The propositions to be elucidated and established are, that they have sprung successively one from the other, and that they represent collectively the growth of the idea of the family.

In order to explain the rise of these several forms of the family and of marriage, it will be necessary to present the substance of the system of consanguinity and affinity which pertains to each. These systems embody compendious and decisive evidence, free from all suspicion of design, bearing directly upon the question. Moreover, they speak with an authority and certainty which leave no room to doubt the inferences therefrom. But a system of consanguinity is intricate and perplexing until it is brought into familiarity. It will tax the reader’s patience to look into the subject far enough to be able to test the value and weight of the evidence it contains. Having treated at length, in a previous work, the “Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family,”[446] I shall confine the statements herein to the material facts, reduced to the lowest number consistent with intelligibility, making reference to the other work for fuller details, and for the general Tables. The importance of the main proposition as a part of the history of man, namely, that the family has been a growth through several successive forms, is a commanding reason for the presentation and study of these systems, if they can in truth establish the fact. It will require this and the four succeeding chapters to make a brief general exhibition of the proof.

The most primitive system of consanguinity yet discovered is found among the Polynesians, of which the Hawaiian will be used as typical. I have called it the Malayan system. Under it all consanguinei, near and remote, fall within some one of the following relationships; namely, parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, brother, and sister. No other blood relationships are recognized. Beside these are the marriage relationships. This system of consanguinity came in with the first form of the family, the consanguine, and contains the principal evidence of its ancient existence. It may seem a narrow basis for so important an inference: but if we are justified in assuming that each relationship as recognized was the one which actually existed, the inference is fully sustained. This system prevailed very generally in Polynesia, although the family among them had passed out of the consanguine into the punaluan. It remained unchanged because no motive sufficiently strong, and no alteration of institutions sufficiently radical had occurred to produce its modification. Intermarriage between brothers and sisters had not entirely disappeared from the Sandwich Islands when the American missions, about fifty years ago, were established among them. Of the ancient general prevalence of this system of consanguinity over Asia there can be no doubt, because it is the basis of the Turanian system still prevalent in Asia. It also underlies the Chinese.

In course of time, a second great system of consanguinity, the Turanian, supervened upon the first, and spread over a large part of the earth’s surface. It was universal among the North American aborigines, and has been traced sufficiently among those of South America to render probable its equally universal prevalence among them. Traces of it have been found in parts of Africa; but the system of the African tribes in general approaches nearer the Malayan. It still prevails in South India among the Hindus who speak dialects of the Dravidian language, and also, in a modified form, in North India, among the Hindus who speak dialects of the Gaura language. It also prevails in Australia in a partially developed state, where it seems to have originated either in the organization into classes, or in the incipient organization into gentes, which led to the same result. In the principal tribes of the Turanian and Ganowánian families, it owes its origin to punaluan marriage in the group and to the gentile organization, the latter of which tended to repress consanguine marriages. It has been shown how this was accomplished by the prohibition of intermarriage in the gens, which permanently excluded own brothers and sisters from the marriage relation. When the Turanian system of consanguinity came in, the form of the family was punaluan. This is proven by the fact that punaluan marriage in the group explains the principal relationships under the system; showing them to be those which would actually exist in virtue of this form of marriage. Through the logic of the facts we are enabled to show that the punaluan family was once as wide-spread as the Turanian system of consanguinity. To the organization into gentes and the punaluan family, the Turanian system of consanguinity must be ascribed. It will be seen in the sequel that this system was formed out of the Malayan, by changing those relationships only which resulted from the previous intermarriage of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, and which were, in fact, changed by the gentes; thus proving the direct connection between them. The powerful influence of the gentile organization upon society, and particularly upon the punaluan group, is demonstrated by this change of systems.

The Turanian system is simply stupendous. It recognizes all the relationships known under the Aryan system, besides an additional number unnoticed by the latter. Consanguinei, near and remote, are classified into categories; and are traced, by means peculiar to the system, far beyond the ordinary range of the Aryan system. In familiar and in formal salutation, the people address each other by the term of relationship, and never by the personal name, which tends to spread abroad a knowledge of the system as well as to preserve, by constant recognition, the relationship of the most distant kindred. Where no relationship exists, the form of salutation is simply “my friend.” No other system of consanguinity found among men approaches it in elaborateness of discrimination or in the extent of special characteristics.

When the American aborigines were discovered, the family among them had passed out of the punaluan into the syndyasmian form; so that the relationships recognized by the system of consanguinity were not those, in a number of cases, which actually existed in the syndyasmian family. It was an exact repetition of what had occurred under the Malayan system, where the family had passed out of the consanguine into the punaluan, the system of consanguinity remaining unchanged; so that while the relationships given in the Malayan system were those which actually existed in the consanguine family, they were untrue to a part of those in the punaluan family. In like manner, while the relationships given in the Turanian system are those which actually existed in the punaluan family, they were untrue to a part of those in the syndyasmian. The form of the family advances faster of necessity than systems of consanguinity, which follow to record the family relationships. As the establishment of the punaluan family did not furnish adequate motives to reform the Malayan system, so the growth of the syndyasmian family did not supply adequate motives to reform the Turanian. It required an institution as great as the gentile organization to change the Malayan system into the Turanian; and it required an institution as great as property in the concrete, with its rights of ownership and of inheritance, together with the monogamian family which it created, to overthrow the Turanian system of consanguinity and substitute the Aryan.

In further course of time a third great system of consanguinity came in, which may be called, at pleasure, the Aryan, Semitic, or Uralian, and probably superseded a prior Turanian system among the principal nations, who afterwards attained civilization. It is the system which defines the relationships in the monogamian family. This system was not based upon the Turanian, as the latter was upon the Malayan; but it superseded among civilized nations a previous Turanian system, as can be shown by other proofs.