Ancient society

by Lewis Henry Morgan

CHAPTER II. - THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE—CONTINUED.

Property in the Upper Status of Barbarism.—Slavery.—Tenure of Lands in Grecian Tribes.—Culture of the Period.—Its Brilliancy.—Third Rule of Inheritance.—Exclusively in Children.—Hebrew Tribes.—Rule of Inheritance.—Daughters of Zelophehad.—Property remained in the Phratry, and probably in the Gens.—The Reversion.—Athenian Inheritance.—Exclusively in Children.—The Reversion.—Inheritance remained in the Gens.—Heiresses.—Wills.—Roman Inheritance.—The Reversion.—Property remained in the Gens.—Appearance of Aristocracy.—Property Career of the Human Race.—Unity of Origin of Mankind.

The last great period of barbarism was never entered by the American aborigines. It commenced in the Eastern, according to the scheme adopted, with the production and use of iron.

The process of smelting iron ore was the invention of inventions, as elsewhere suggested, beside which all other inventions and discoveries hold a subordinate position. Mankind, notwithstanding a knowledge of bronze, were still arrested in their progress for the want of efficient metallic tools, and for the want of a metal of sufficient strength and hardness for mechanical appliances. All these qualities were found for the first time in iron. The accelerated progress of human intelligence dates from this invention. This ethnical period, which is made forever memorable, was, in many respects, the most brilliant and remarkable in the entire experience of mankind. It is so overcrowded with achievements as to lead to a suspicion that many of the works ascribed to it belong to the previous period.

IV. Property in the Upper Status of Barbarism.—Near the end of this period, property in masses, consisting of many kinds and held by individual ownership, began to be common, through settled agriculture, manufactures, local trade and foreign commerce; but the old tenure of lands under which they were held in common had not given place, except in part, to ownership in severalty. Systematic slavery originated in this status. It stands directly connected with the production of property. Out of it came the patriarchal family of the Hebrew type, and the similar family of the Latin tribes under paternal power, as well as a modified form of the same family among the Grecian tribes. From these causes, but more particularly from the increased abundance of subsistence through field agriculture, nations began to develop, numbering many thousands under one government, where before they would be reckoned by a few thousands. The localization of tribes in fixed areas and in fortified cities, with the increase of the numbers of the people, intensified the struggle for the possession of the most desirable territories. It tended to advance the art of war, and to increase the rewards of individual prowess. These changes of condition and of the plan of life indicate the approach of civilization, which was to overthrow gentile and establish political society.

Although the inhabitants of the Western hemisphere had no part in the experience which belongs to this status, they were following down the same lines on which the inhabitants of the Eastern had passed. They had fallen behind the advancing column of the human race by just the distance measured by the Upper Status of barbarism and the superadded years of civilization.

We are now to trace the growth of the idea of property in this status of advancement, as shown by its recognition in kind, and by the rules that existed with respect to its ownership and inheritance.

The earliest laws of the Greeks, Romans and Hebrews, after civilization had commenced, did little more than turn into legal enactments the results which their previous experience had embodied in usages and customs. Having the final laws and the previous archaic rules, the intermediate changes, when not expressly known, may be inferred with tolerable certainty.

At the close of the Later Period of barbarism, great changes had occurred in the tenure of lands. It was gradually tending to two forms of ownership, namely, by the state and by individuals. But this result was not fully secured until after civilization had been attained. Lands among the Greeks were still held, as we have seen, some by the tribes in common, some by the phratry in common for religious uses, and some by the gens in common; but the bulk of the lands had fallen under individual ownership in severalty. In the time of Solon, while Athenian society was still gentile, lands in general were owned by individuals, who had already learned to mortgage them;[510] but individual ownership was not then a new thing. The Roman tribes, from their first establishment, had a public domain, the Ager Romanus; while lands were held by the curia for religious uses, by the gens, and by individuals in severalty. After these social corporations died out, the lands held by them in common gradually became private property. Very little is known beyond the fact that certain lands were held by these organizations for special uses, while individuals were gradually appropriating the substance of the national areas.