Ancient society

by Lewis Henry Morgan

The last four forms of the family have existed within the historical period; but the first, the consanguine, has disappeared. Its ancient existence, however, can be deduced from the Malayan system of consanguinity. We have then three radical forms of the family, which represent three great and essentially different conditions of life, with three different and well-marked systems of consanguinity, sufficient to prove the existence of these families, if they contained the only proofs remaining. This affirmation will serve to draw attention to the singular permanence and persistency of systems of consanguinity, and to the value of the evidence they embody with respect to the condition of ancient society.

Each of these families ran a long course in the tribes of mankind, with a period of infancy, of maturity, and of decadence. The monogamian family owes its origin to property, as the syndyasmian, which contained its germ, owed its origin to the gens. When the Grecian tribes first came under historical notice, the monogamian family existed; but it did not become completely established until positive legislation had determined its status and its rights. The growth of the idea of property in the human mind, through its creation and enjoyment, and especially through the settlement of legal rights with respect to its inheritance, are intimately connected with the establishment of this form of the family. Property became sufficiently powerful in its influence to touch the organic structure of society. Certainty with respect to the paternity of children would now have a significance unknown in previous conditions. Marriage between single pairs had existed from the Older Period of barbarism, under the form of pairing during the pleasure of the parties. It had tended to grow more stable as ancient society advanced, with the improvement of institutions, and with the progress of inventions and discoveries into higher successive conditions; but the essential element of the monogamian family, an exclusive cohabitation, was still wanting. Man far back in barbarism began to exact fidelity from the wife, under savage penalties, but he claimed exemption for himself. The obligation is necessarily reciprocal, and its performance correlative. Among the Homeric Greeks, the condition of woman in the family relation was one of isolation and marital domination, with imperfect rights and excessive inequality. A comparison of the Grecian family, at successive epochs, from the Homeric age to that of Pericles, shows a sensible improvement, with its gradual settlement into a defined institution. The modern family is an unquestionable improvement upon that of the Greeks and Romans; because woman has gained immensely in social position. From standing in the relation of a daughter to her husband, as among the Greeks and Romans, she has drawn nearer to an equality in dignity and in acknowledged personal rights. We have a record of the monogamian family, running back nearly three thousand years, during which, it may be claimed, there has been a gradual but continuous improvement in its character. It is destined to progress still further, until the equality of the sexes is acknowledged, and the equities of the marriage relation are completely recognized. We have similar evidence, though not so perfect, of the progressive improvement of the syndyasmian family, which, commencing in a low type, ended in the monogamian. These facts should be held in remembrance, because they are essential in this discussion.

In previous chapters attention has been called to the stupendous conjugal system which fastened itself upon mankind in the infancy of their existence, and followed them down to civilization; although steadily losing ground with the progressive improvement of society. The ratio of human progress may be measured to some extent by the degree of the reduction of this system through the moral elements of society arrayed against it. Each successive form of the family and of marriage is a significant registration of this reduction. After it was reduced to zero, and not until then, was the monogamian family possible. This family can be traced far back in the Later Period of barbarism, where it disappears in the syndyasmian.

Some impression is thus gained of the ages which elapsed while these two forms of the family were running their courses of growth and development. But the creation of five successive forms of the family, each differing from the other, and belonging to conditions of society entirely dissimilar, augments our conception of the length of the periods during which the idea of the family was developed from the consanguine, through intermediate forms, into the still advancing monogamian. No institution of mankind has had a more remarkable or more eventful history, or embodies the results of a more prolonged and diversified experience. It required the highest mental and moral efforts through numberless ages of time to maintain its existence and carry it through its several stages into its present form.

Marriage passed from the punaluan through the syndyasmian into the monogamian form without any material change in the Turanian system of consanguinity. This system, which records the relationships in punaluan families, remained substantially unchanged until the establishment of the monogamian family, when it became almost totally untrue to the nature of descents, and even a scandal upon monogamy. To illustrate: Under the Malayan system a man calls his brother’s son his son, because his brother’s wife is his wife as well as his brother’s; and his sister’s son is also his son because his sister is his wife. Under the Turanian system his brother’s son is still his son, and for the same reason, but his sister’s son is now his nephew, because under the gentile organization his sister has ceased to be his wife. Among the Iroquois, where the family is syndyasmian, a man still calls his brother’s son his son, although his brother’s wife has ceased to be his wife; and so with a large number of relationships equally inconsistent with the existing form of marriage. The system has survived the usages in which it originated, and still maintains itself among them, although untrue in the main, to descents as they now exist. No motive adequate to the overthrow of a great and ancient system of consanguinity had arisen. Monogamy when it appeared furnished that motive to the Aryan nations as they drew near to civilization. It assured the paternity of children and the legitimacy of heirs. A reformation of the Turanian system to accord with monogamian descents was impossible. It was false to monogamy through and through. A remedy, however, existed, at once simple and complete. The Turanian system was dropped, and the descriptive method, which the Turanian tribes always employed when they wished to make a given relationship specific, was substituted in its place. They fell back upon the bare facts of consanguinity and described the relationship of each person by a combination of the primary terms. Thus, they said brother’s son, brother’s grandson; father’s brother, and father’s brother’s son. Each phrase described a person, leaving the relationship a matter of implication. Such was the system of the Aryan nations, as we find it in its most ancient form among the Grecian, Latin, Sanskritic, Germanic, and Celtic tribes; and also in the Semitic, as witness the Hebrew Scripture genealogies. Traces of the Turanian system, some of which have been referred to, remained among the Aryan and Semitic nations down to the historical period; but it was essentially uprooted, and the descriptive system substituted in its place.

To illustrate and confirm these several propositions it will be necessary to take up, in the order of their origination, these three systems and the three radical forms of the family, which appeared in connection with them respectively. They mutually interpret each other.

A system of consanguinity considered in itself is of but little importance. Limited in the number of ideas it embodies, and resting apparently upon simple suggestions, it would seem incapable of affording useful information, and much less of throwing light upon the early condition of mankind. Such, at least, would be the natural conclusion when the relationships of a group of kindred are considered in the abstract. But when the system of many tribes is compared, and it is seen to rank as a domestic institution, and to have transmitted itself through immensely protracted periods of time, it assumes a very different aspect. Three such systems, one succeeding the other, represent the entire growth of the family from the consanguine to the monogamian. Since we have a right to suppose that each one expresses the actual relationships which existed in the family at the time of its establishment, it reveals, in turn, the form of marriage and of the family which then prevailed, although both may have advanced into a higher stage while the system of consanguinity remained unchanged.

It will be noticed, further, that these systems are natural growths with the progress of society from a lower into a higher condition, the change in each case being marked by the appearance of some institution affecting deeply the constitution of society. The relationship of mother and child, of brother and sister, and of grandmother and grandchild have been ascertainable in all ages with entire certainty; but those of father and child, and of grandfather and grandchild were not ascertainable with certainty until monogamy contributed the highest assurance attainable. A number of persons would stand in each of these relations at the same time as equally probable when marriage was in the group. In the rudest conditions of ancient society these relationships would be perceived, both the actual and the probable, and terms would be invented to express them. A system of consanguinity would result in time from the continued application of these terms to persons thus formed into a group of kindred. But the form of the system, as before stated, would depend upon the form of marriage. Where marriages were between brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in the group, the family would be consanguine, and the system of consanguinity, Malayan. Where marriages were between several sisters with each other’s husbands in a group, and between several brothers with each other’s wives in a group, the family would be punaluan, and the system of consanguinity Turanian; and where marriage was between single pairs, with an exclusive cohabitation, the family would be monogamian, and the system of consanguinity would be Aryan. Consequently the three systems are founded upon three forms of marriage; and they seek to express, as near as the fact could be known, the actual relationship which existed between persons under these forms of marriage respectively. It will be seen, therefore, that they do not rest upon nature, but upon marriage; not upon fictitious considerations, but upon fact; and that each in its turn is a logical as well as truthful system. The evidence they contain is of the highest value, as well as of the most suggestive character. It reveals the condition of ancient society in the plainest manner with unerring directness.

These systems resolve themselves into two ultimate forms, fundamentally distinct. One of these is classificatory, and the other descriptive. Under the first, consanguinei are never described, but are classified into categories, irrespective of their nearness or remoteness in degree to Ego; and the same term of relationship is applied to all the persons in the same category. Thus my own brothers, and the sons of my father’s brothers are all alike my brothers; my own sisters, and the daughters of my mother’s sisters are all alike my sisters; such is the classification under both the Malayan and Turanian systems. In the second case consanguinei are described either by the primary terms of relationship or a combination of these terms, thus making the relationship of each person specific. Thus we say brother’s son, father’s brother, and father’s brother’s son. Such was the system of the Aryan, Semitic, and Uralian families, which came in with monogamy. A small amount of classification was subsequently introduced by the invention of common terms; but the earliest form of the system, of which the Erse and Scandinavian are typical, was purely descriptive, as illustrated by the above examples. The radical difference between the two systems resulted from plural marriages in the group in one case, and from single marriages between single pairs in the other.

While the descriptive system is the same in the Aryan, Semitic, and Uralian families, the classificatory has two distinct forms. First, the Malayan, which is the oldest in point of time; and second, the Turanian and Ganowánian, which are essentially alike and were formed by the modification of a previous Malayan system.