Ancient society

by Lewis Henry Morgan

A brief reference to our own system of consanguinity will bring into notice the principles which underlie all systems.

Relationships are of two kinds: First, by consanguinity or blood; second, by affinity or marriage. Consanguinity is also of two kinds, lineal and collateral. Lineal consanguinity is the connection which subsists among persons of whom one is descended from the other. Collateral consanguinity is the connection which exists between persons who are descended from common ancestors, but not from each other. Marriage relationships exist by custom.

Not to enter too specially into the subject, it may be stated generally that in every system of consanguinity, where marriage between single pairs exists, there must be a lineal and several collateral lines, the latter diverging from the former. Each person is the centre of a group of kindred, the Ego from whom the degree of relationship of each person is reckoned, and to whom the relationship returns. His position is necessarily in the lineal line, and that line is vertical. Upon it may be inscribed, above and below him, his several ancestors and descendants in a direct series from father to son, and these persons together will constitute his right lineal male line. Out of this trunk line emerge the several collateral lines, male and female, which are numbered outwardly. It will be sufficient for a perfect knowledge of the system to recognize the main lineal line, and a single male and female branch of the first five collateral lines, including those on the father’s side, and on the mother’s side, and proceeding in each case from the parent to one only of his or her children, although it will include but a small portion of the kindred of Ego, either in the ascending or descending series. An attempt to follow all the divisions and branches of the several collateral lines, which increase in number in the ascending series in a geometrical ratio, would not render the system more intelligible.

The first collateral line, male, consists of my brother and his descendants; and the first, female, of my sister and her descendants. The second collateral line, male, on the father’s side, consists of my father’s brother and his descendants; and the second, female, of my father’s sister and her descendants: the second, male, on the mother’s side, is composed of my mother’s brother and his descendants; and the second, female, of my mother’s sister and her descendants. The third collateral line, male, on the father’s side, consists of my grandfather’s brother and his descendants; and the third, female, of my grandfather’s sister and her descendants: on the mother’s side the same line, in its male and female branches, is composed of my grandmother’s brother and sister and their descendants respectively. It will be noticed, in the last case, that we have turned out of the lineal line on the father’s side into that on the mother’s side. The fourth collateral line, male and female, commences with great-grandfather’s brother and sister, and great-grandmother’s brother and sister: and the fifth collateral line, male and female, with great-great-grandfather’s brother and sister; and with great-great-grandmother’s brother and sister, and each line and branch is run out in the same manner as the third. These five lines, with the lineal, embrace the great body of our kindred, who are within the range of practical recognition.

An additional explanation of these several lines is required. If I have several brothers and sisters, they, with their descendants, constitute as many lines, each independent of the other, as I have brothers and sisters; but altogether they form my first collateral line in two branches, a male and a female. In like manner, the several brothers and sisters of my father, and of my mother, with their respective descendants, make up as many lines, each independent of the other, as there are brothers and sisters; but they all unite to form the second collateral line in two divisions, that on the father’s side, and that on the mother’s side; and in four principal branches, two male, and two female. If the third collateral line were run out fully, in its several branches, it would give four general divisions of ancestors, and eight principal branches; and the number of each would increase in the same ratio in each successive collateral line.

With such a mass of divisions and branches, embracing such a multitude of consanguinei, it will be seen at once that a method of arrangement and of description which maintained each distinct and rendered the whole intelligible would be no ordinary achievement. This task was perfectly accomplished by the Roman civilians, whose method has been adopted by the principal European nations, and is so entirely simple as to elicit admiration.[447] The development of the nomenclature to the requisite extent must have been so extremely difficult that it would probably never have occurred except under the stimulus of an urgent necessity, namely, the need of a code of descents to regulate the inheritance of property.

To render the new form attainable, it was necessary to discriminate the relationships of uncle and aunt on the father’s side and on the mother’s side by concrete terms, an achievement made in a few only of the languages of mankind. These terms finally appeared among the Romans in patruus and amita, for uncle and aunt on the father’s side, and in avunculus and matertera for the same on the mother’s side. After these were invented, the improved Roman method of describing consanguinei became established.[448] It has been adopted, in its essential features, by the several branches of the Aryan family, with the exception of the Erse, the Scandinavian, and the Slavonic.

The Aryan system necessarily took the descriptive form when the Turanian was abandoned, as in the Erse. Every relationship in the lineal and first five collateral lines, to the number of one hundred and more, stands independent, requiring as many descriptive phases, or the gradual invention of common terms.

It will be noticed that the two radical forms—the classificatory and the descriptive—yield nearly the exact line of demarkation between the barbarous and civilized nations. Such a result might have been predicted from the law of progress revealed by these several forms of marriage and of the family.

Systems of consanguinity are neither adopted, modified, nor laid aside at pleasure. They are identified in their origin with organic movements of society which produced a great change of condition. When a particular form had come into general use, with its nomenclature invented and its methods settled, it would, from the nature of the case, be very slow to change. Every human being is the centre of a group of kindred, and therefore every person is compelled to use and to understand the prevailing system. A change in any one of these relationships would be extremely difficult. This tendency to permanence is increased by the fact that these systems exist by custom rather than legal enactment, as growths rather than artificial creations, and therefore a motive to change must be as universal as the usage. While every person is a party to the system, the channel of its transmission is the blood. Powerful influences thus existed to perpetuate the system long after the conditions under which each originated had been modified or had altogether disappeared. This element of permanence gives certainty to conclusions drawn from the facts, and has preserved and brought forward a record of ancient society which otherwise would have been entirely lost to human knowledge.