Ancient society

by Lewis Henry Morgan

Speaking of the people of Yucatan generally Herrera further remarks that “formerly they were wont to marry at twenty years of age, and afterwards came to twelve or fourteen, and having no affection for their wives were divorced for every trifle.”[474] The Mayas of Yucatan were superior to the Aztecs in culture and development; but where marriages were regulated on the principle of necessity, and not through personal choice, it is not surprising that the relation was unstable, and that separation was at the option of either party. Moreover, polygamy was a recognized right of the males among the Village Indians, and seems to have been more generally practiced than among the less advanced tribes. These glimpses at institutions purely Indian as well as barbarian reveal in a forcible manner the actual condition of the aborigines in relative advancement. In a matter so personal as the marriage relation, the wishes or preferences of the parties were not consulted. No better evidence is needed of the barbarism of the people.

We are next to notice some of the influences which developed this family from the punaluan. In the latter there was more or less of pairing from the necessities of the social state, each man having a principal wife among a number of wives, and each woman a principal husband among a number of husbands; so that the tendency in the punaluan family, from the first, was in the direction of the syndyasmian.

The organization into gentes was the principal instrumentality that accomplished this result; but through long and gradual processes. Firstly. It did not at once break up intermarriage in the group, which it found established by custom; but the prohibition of intermarriage in the gens excluded own brothers and sisters, and also the children of own sisters, since all of these were of the same gens. Own brothers could still share their wives in common, and own sisters their husbands; consequently the gens did not interfere directly with punaluan marriage, except to narrow its range. But it withheld permanently from that relation all the descendants in the female line of each ancestor within the gens, which was a great innovation upon the previous punaluan group. When the gens subdivided, the prohibition followed its branches, for long periods of time, as has been shown was the case among the Iroquois. Secondly. The structure and principles of the organization tended to create a prejudice against the marriage of consanguinei, as the advantages of marriages between unrelated persons were gradually discovered through the practice of marrying out of the gens. This seems to have grown apace until a public sentiment was finally arrayed against it which had become very general among the American aborigines when discovered.[475] For example, among the Iroquois none of the blood relatives enumerated in the Table of Consanguinity were marriageable. Since it became necessary to seek wives from other gentes they began to be acquired by negotiation and by purchase. The gentile organization must have led, step by step, as its influence became general, to a scarcity of wives in place of their previous abundance; and as a consequence, have gradually contracted the numbers in the punaluan group. This conclusion is reasonable, because there are sufficient grounds for assuming the existence of such groups when the Turanian system of consanguinity was formed. They have now disappeared although the system remains. These groups must have gradually declined, and finally disappeared with the general establishment of the syndyasmian family. Fourthly. In seeking wives, they did not confine themselves to their own, nor even to friendly tribes, but captured them by force from hostile tribes. It furnishes a reason for the Indian usage of sparing the lives of female captives, while the males were put to death. When wives came to be acquired by purchase and by capture, and more and more by effort and sacrifice, they would not be as readily shared with others. It would tend, at least, to cut off that portion of the theoretical group not immediately associated for subsistence; and thus reduce still more the size of the family and the range of the conjugal system. Practically, the group would tend to limit itself, from the first, to own brothers who shared their wives in common, and to own sisters who shared their husbands in common. Lastly. The gentes created a higher organic structure of society than had before been known, with processes of development as a social system adequate to the wants of mankind until civilization supervened. With the progress of society under the gentes, the way was prepared for the appearance of the syndyasmian family.

The influence of the new practice, which brought unrelated persons into the marriage relation, must have given a remarkable impulse to society. It tended to create a more vigorous stock physically and mentally. There is a gain by accretion in the coalescence of diverse stocks which has exercised great influence upon human development. When two advancing tribes, with strong mental and physical characters, are brought together and blended into one people by the accidents of barbarous life, the new skull and brain would widen and lengthen to the sum of the capabilities of both. Such a stock would be an improvement upon both, and this superiority would assert itself in an increase of intelligence and of numbers.

It follows that the propensity to pair, now so powerfully developed in the civilized races, had remained unformed in the human mind until the punaluan custom began to disappear. Exceptional cases undoubtedly occurred where usages would permit the privilege; but it failed to become general until the syndyasmian family appeared. This propensity, therefore, cannot be called normal to mankind, but is, rather, a growth through experience, like all the great passions and powers of the mind.

Another influence may be adverted to which tended to retard the growth of this family. Warfare among barbarians is more destructive of life than among savages, from improved weapons and stronger incentives. The males, in all periods and conditions of society, have assumed the trade of fighting, which tended to change the balance of the sexes, and leave the females in excess. This would manifestly tend to strengthen the conjugal system created by marriages in the group. It would, also, retard the advancement of the syndyasmian family by maintaining sentiments of low grade with respect to the relations of the sexes, and the character and dignity of woman.

On the other hand, improvement in subsistence, which followed the cultivation of maize and plants among the American aborigines, must have favored the general advancement of the family. It led to localization, to the use of additional arts, to an improved house architecture, and to a more intelligent life. Industry and frugality, though limited in degree, with increased protection of life, must have accompanied the formation of families consisting of single pairs. The more these advantages were realized, the more stable such a family would become, and the more its individuality would increase. Having taken refuge in a communal household, in which a group of such families succeeded the punaluan group, it now drew its support from itself, from the household, and from the gentes to which the husbands and wives respectively belonged. The great advancement of society indicated by the transition from savagery into the Lower Status of barbarism, would carry with it a corresponding improvement in the condition of the family, the course of development of which was steadily upward to the monogamian. If the existence of the syndyasmian family were unknown, given the punaluan toward one extreme, and the monogamian on the other, the occurrence of such an intermediate form might have been predicted. It has had a long duration in human experience. Springing up on the confines of savagery and barbarism, it traversed the Middle and the greater part of the Later Period of barbarism, when it was superseded by a low form of the monogamian. Overshadowed by the conjugal system of the times, it gained in recognition with the gradual progress of society. The selfishness of mankind, as distinguished from womankind, delayed the realization of strict monogamy until that great fermentation of the human mind which ushered in civilization.

Two forms of the family had appeared before the syndyasmian and created two great systems of consanguinity, or rather two distinct forms of the same system; but this third family neither produced a new system nor sensibly modified the old. Certain marriage relationships appear to have been changed to accord with those in the new family; but the essential features of the system remained unchanged. In fact, the syndyasmian family continued for an unknown period of time enveloped in a system of consanguinity, false in the main, to existing relationships, and which it had no power to break. It was for the sufficient reason that it fell short of monogamy, the coming power able to dissolve the fabric. Although this family has no distinct system of consanguinity to prove its existence, like its predecessors, it has itself existed over large portions of the earth within the historical period, and still exists in numerous barbarous tribes.

In speaking thus positively of the several forms of the family in their relative order, there is danger of being misunderstood. I do not mean to imply that one form rises complete in a certain status of society, flourishes universally and exclusively wherever tribes of mankind are found in the same status, and then disappears in another, which is the next higher form. Exceptional cases of the punaluan family may have appeared in the consanguine, and vice versâ; exceptional cases of the syndyasmian may have appeared in the midst of the punaluan, and vice versâ; and exceptional cases of the monogamian in the midst of the syndyasmian, and vice versâ. Even exceptional cases of the monogamian may have appeared as low down as the punaluan, and of the syndyasmian as low down as the consanguine. Moreover, some tribes attained to a particular form earlier than other tribes more advanced; for example, the Iroquois had the syndyasmian family while in the Lower Status of barbarism, but the Britons, who were in the Middle Status, still had the punaluan. The high civilization on the shores of the Mediterranean had propagated arts and inventions into Britain far beyond the mental development of its Celtic inhabitants, and which they had imperfectly appropriated. They seem to have been savages in their brains, while wearing the art apparel of more advanced tribes. That which I have endeavored to substantiate, and for which the proofs seem to be adequate, is, that the family began in the consanguine, low down in savagery, and grew, by progressive development, into the monogamian, through two well-marked intermediate forms. Each was partial in its introduction, then general, and finally universal over large areas; after which it shaded off into the next succeeding form, which, in turn, was at first partial, then general, and finally universal in the same areas. In the evolution of these successive forms the main direction of progress was from the consanguine to the monogamian. With deviations from uniformity in the progress of mankind through these several forms, it will generally be found that the consanguine and punaluan families belong to the status of savagery—the former to its lowest, and the latter to its highest condition—while the punaluan continued into the Lower Status of barbarism; that the syndyasmian belongs to the Lower and to the Middle Status of barbarism, and continued into the Upper; and that the monogamian belongs to the Upper Status of barbarism, and continued to the period of civilization.

It will not be necessary, even if space permitted, to trace the syndyasmian family through barbarous tribes in general upon the partial descriptions of travelers and observers. The tests given may be applied by each reader to cases within his information. Among the American aborigines in the Lower Status of barbarism it was the prevailing form of the family at the epoch of their discovery. Among the Village Indians in the Middle Status, it was undoubtedly the prevailing form, although the information given by the Spanish writers is vague and general. The communal character of their joint-tenement houses is of itself strong evidence that the family had not passed out of the syndyasmian form. It had neither the individuality nor the exclusiveness which monogamy implies.