Ancient society

by Lewis Henry Morgan

CHAPTER V. - THE MONOGAMIAN FAMILY.

This Family comparatively Modern.—The Term Familia.—Family of Ancient Germans.—Of Homeric Greeks.—Of civilized Greeks.—Seclusion of Wives.—Obligations of Monogamy not respected by the Males.—The Roman Family.—Wives under Power.—Aryan System of Consanguinity.—It came in under Monogamy.—Previous System probably Turanian.—Transition from Turanian into Aryan.—Roman and Arabic Systems of Consanguinity.—Details of the Former.—Present Monogamian Family.—Table.

The origin of society has been so constantly traced to the monogamian family that the comparatively modern date now assigned to this family bears the semblance of novelty. Those writers who have investigated the origin of society philosophically, found it difficult to conceive of its existence apart from the family as its unit, or of the family itself as other than monogamian. They also found it necessary to regard the married pair as the nucleus of a group of persons, a part of whom were servile, and all of whom were under power; thus arriving at the conclusion that society began in the patriarchal family, when it first became organized. Such, in fact, was the most ancient form of the institution made known to us among the Latin, Grecian and Hebrew tribes. Thus, by relation, the patriarchal family was made the typical family of primitive society, conceived either in the Latin or Hebrew form, paternal power being the essence of the organism.

The gens, as it appeared in the later period of barbarism, was well understood, but it was erroneously supposed to be subsequent in point of time to the monogamian family. A necessity for some knowledge of the institutions of barbarous and even of savage tribes, is becoming constantly more apparent as a means for explaining our own institutions. With the assumption made that the monogamian family was the unit of organization in the social system, the gens was treated as an aggregation of families, the tribe as an aggregation of gentes, and the nation as an aggregate of tribes. The error lies in the first proposition. It has been shown that the gens entered entire in the phratry, the phratry into the tribe, and the tribe into the nation; but the family could not enter entire into the gens, because husband and wife were necessarily of different gentes. The wife, down to the latest period, counted herself of the gens of her father, and bore the name of his gens among the Romans. As all the parts must enter into the whole, the family could not become the unit of the gentile organization. That place was held by the gens. Moreover, the patriarchal family, whether of the Roman or of the Hebrew type, was entirely unknown throughout the period of savagery, through the Older, and probably through the Middle, and far into the Later Period of barbarism. After the gens had appeared, ages upon ages, and even period upon period, rolled away before the monogamian family came into existence. It was not until after civilization commenced that it became permanently established.

Its modern appearance among the Latin tribes may be inferred from the signification of the word family, derived from familia, which contains the same element as famulus, = servant, supposed to be derived from the Oscan famel, = servus, a slave.[478] In its primary meaning the word family had no relation to the married pair or their children, but to the body of slaves and servants who labored for its maintenance, and were under the power of the pater familias. Familia in some testamentary dispositions is used as equivalent to patrimonium, the inheritance which passed to the heir.[479] It was introduced in Latin society to define a new organism, the head of which held wife and children, and a body of servile persons under paternal power. Mommsen uses the phrase “body of servants” as the Latin signification of familia.[480] This term, therefore, and the idea it represents, are no older than the iron-clad family system of the Latin tribes, which came in after field agriculture and after legalized servitude, as well as after the separation of the Greeks and Latins. If any name was given to the anterior family it is not now ascertainable.

In two forms of the family, the consanguine and punaluan, paternal power was impossible. When the gens appeared in the midst of the punaluan group it united the several sisters, with their children and descendants in the female line, in perpetuity, in a gens, which became the unit of organization in the social system it created. Out of this state of things the syndyasmian family was gradually evolved, and with it the germ of paternal power. The growth of this power, at first feeble and fluctuating, then commenced, and it steadily increased, as the new family more and more assumed monogamian characteristics, with the upward progress of society. When property began to be created in masses, and the desire for its transmission to children had changed descent from the female line to the male, a real foundation for paternal power was for the first time established. Among the Hebrew and Latin tribes, when first known, the patriarchal family of the Hebrew type existed among the former, and of the Roman type among the latter; founded in both cases upon the limited or absolute servitude of a number of persons with their families, all of whom, with the wives and children of the patriarch in one case, and of the pater familias in the other, were under paternal power. It was an exceptional, and, in the Roman family, an excessive development of paternal authority, which, so far from being universal, was restricted in the main to the people named. Gaius declares that the power of the Roman father over his children was peculiar to the Romans, and that in general no other people had the same power.[481]

It will be sufficient to present a few illustrations of the early monogamian family from classical writers to give an impression of its character. Monogamy appears in a definite form in the Later Period of barbarism. Long prior to this time some of its characteristics had undoubtedly attached themselves to the previous syndyasmian family; but the essential element of the former, an exclusive cohabitation, could not be asserted of the latter.

One of the earliest and most interesting illustrations was found in the family of the ancient Germans. Their institutions were homogeneous and indigenous; and the people were advancing toward civilization. Tacitus, in a few lines, states their usages with respect to marriage, without giving the composition of the family or defining its attributes. After stating that marriages were strict among them, and pronouncing it commendable, he further remarks, that almost alone among barbarians they contented themselves with a single wife—a very few excepted, who were drawn into plural marriages, not from passion, but on account of their rank. That the wife did not bring a dowry to her husband, but the husband to his wife, ... a caparisoned horse, and a shield, with a spear and sword. That by virtue of these gifts the wife was espoused.[482] The presents, in the nature of purchasing gifts, which probably in an earlier condition went to the gentile kindred of the bride, were now presented to the bride.

Elsewhere he mentions the two material facts in which the substance of monogamy is found:[483] firstly, that each man was contented with a single wife (singulis uxoribus contenti sunt); and, secondly, that the women lived fenced around with chastity (septæ pudicitia agunt). It seems probable, from what is known of the condition of the family in different ethnical periods, that this of the ancient Germans was too weak an organization to face alone the hardships of life; and, as a consequence, sheltered itself in a communal household composed of related families. When slavery became an institution, these households would gradually disappear. German society was not far enough advanced at this time for the appearance of a high type of the monogamian family.