Ancient society

by Lewis Henry Morgan

Wherever the relationship of wife is found in the collateral line, that of husband must be recognized in the lineal, and conversely.[455] When this system of consanguinity and affinity first came into use the relationships, which are still preserved, could have been none other than those which actually existed, whatever may have afterwards occurred in marriage usages.

From the evidence embodied in this system of consanguinity the deduction is made that the consanguine family, as defined, existed among the ancestors of the Polynesian tribes when the system was formed. Such a form of the family is necessary to render an interpretation of the system possible. Moreover, it furnishes an interpretation of every relationship with reasonable exactness.

The following observation of Mr. Oscar Peschel is deserving of attention: “That at any time and in any place the children of the same mother have propagated themselves sexually, for any long period, has been rendered especially incredible, since it has been established that even in the case of organisms devoid of blood, such as the plants, reciprocal fertilization of the descendants of the same parents is to a great extent impossible.”[456] It must be remembered that the consanguine group united in the marriage relation was not restricted to own brothers and sisters; but it included collateral brothers and sisters as well. The larger the group recognizing the marriage relation, the less the evil of close interbreeding.

From general considerations the ancient existence of such a family was probable. The natural and necessary relations of the consanguine family to the punaluan, of the punaluan to the syndyasmian, and of the syndyasmian to the monogamian, each presupposing its predecessor, lead directly to this conclusion. They stand to each other in a logical sequence, and together stretch across several ethnical periods from savagery to civilization.

In like manner the three great systems of consanguinity, which are connected with the three radical forms of the family, stand to each other in a similarly connected series, running parallel with the former, and indicating not less plainly a similar line of human progress from savagery to civilization. There are reasons for concluding that the remote ancestors of the Aryan, Semitic, and Uralian families possessed a system identical with the Malayan when in the savage state, which was finally modified into the Turanian after the establishment of the gentile organization, and then overthrown when the monogamian family appeared, introducing the Aryan system of consanguinity.

Notwithstanding the high character of the evidence given, there is still other evidence of the ancient existence of the consanguine family among the Hawaiians which should not be overlooked.

Its antecedent existence is rendered probable by the condition of society in the Sandwich Islands when it first became thoroughly known. At the time the American missions were established upon these Islands (1820), a state of society was found which appalled the missionaries. The relations of the sexes and their marriage customs excited their chief astonishment. They were suddenly introduced to a phase of ancient society where the monogamian family was unknown, where the syndyasmian family was unknown; but in the place of these, and without understanding the organism, they found the punaluan family, with own brothers and sisters not entirely excluded, in which the males were living in polygyny, and the females in polyandry. It seemed to them that they had discovered the lowest level of human degradation, not to say of depravity. But the innocent Hawaiians, who had not been able to advance themselves out of savagery, were living, no doubt respectably and modestly for savages, under customs and usages which to them had the force of laws. It is probable that they were living as virtuously in their faithful observance, as these excellent missionaries were in the performance of their own. The shock the latter experienced from their discoveries expresses the profoundness of the expanse which separates civilized from savage man. The high moral sense and refined sensibilities, which had been a growth of the ages, were brought face to face with the feeble moral sense and the coarse sensibilities of a savage man of all these periods ago. As a contrast it was total and complete. The Rev. Hiram Bingham, one of these veteran missionaries, has given us an excellent history of the Sandwich Islands, founded upon original investigations, in which he pictures the people as practicing the sum of human abominations. “Polygamy, implying plurality of husbands and wives,” he observes, “fornication, adultery, incest, infant murder, desertion of husband and wives, parents and children; sorcery, covetousness, and oppression extensively prevailed, and seem hardly to have been forbidden by their religion.”[457] Punaluan marriage and the punaluan family dispose of the principal charges in this grave indictment, and leave the Hawaiians a chance at a moral character. The existence of morality, even among savages, must be recognized, although low in type; for there never could have been a time in human experience when the principle of morality did not exist. Wakea, the eponymous ancestor of the Hawaiians, according to Mr. Bingham, is said to have married his eldest daughter. In the time of these missionaries brothers and sisters married without reproach. “The union of brother and sister in the highest ranks,” he further remarks, “became fashionable, and continued until the revealed will of God was made known to them.”[458] It is not singular that the intermarriage of brothers and sisters should have survived from the consanguine family into the punaluan in some cases, in the Sandwich Islands, because the people had not attained to the gentile organization, and because the punaluan family was a growth out of the consanguine not yet entirely consummated. Although the family was substantially punaluan, the system of consanguinity remained unchanged, as it came in with the consanguine family, with the exception of certain marriage relationships.

It is not probable that the actual family, among the Hawaiians, was as large as the group united in the marriage relation. Necessity would compel its subdivision into smaller groups for the procurement of subsistence, and for mutual protection; but each smaller family would be a miniature of the group. It is not improbable that individuals passed at pleasure from one of these subdivisions into another in the punaluan as well as consanguine family, giving rise to that apparent desertion by husbands and wives of each other, and by parents of their children, mentioned by Mr. Bingham. Communism in living must, of necessity, have prevailed both in the consanguine and in the punaluan family, because it was a requirement of their condition. It still prevails generally among savage and barbarous tribes.

A brief reference should be made to the “Nine Grades of Relations of the Chinese.” An ancient Chinese author remarks as follows: “All men born into the world have nine ranks of relations. My own generation is one grade, my father’s is one, that of my grandfather’s is one, that of my grandfather’s father is one, and that of my grandfather’s grandfather is one; thus, above me are four grades: My son’s generation is one, that of my grandson’s is one, that of my grandson’s son is one, and that of my grandson’s grandson is one; thus, below me are four grades; including myself in the estimate, there are, in all nine grades. These are brethren, and although each grade belongs to a different house or family, yet they are all my relations, and these are the nine grades of relations.”

“The degrees of kindred in a family are like the streamlets of a fountain, or the branches of a tree; although the streams differ in being more or less remote, and the branches in being more or less near, yet there is but one trunk and one fountain head.”[459]