Ancient society

by Lewis Henry Morgan

CHAPTER XIV. - CHANGE OF DESCENT FROM THE FEMALE TO THE MALE LINE.

How the change might have been made.—Inheritance of property the Motive.—descent in the Female Line among the Lycians.—The Cretans.—The Etruscans.—Probably among the Athenians in the time of Cecrops.—The Hundred Families of the Locrians.—Evidence from Marriages.—Turanian System of Consanguinity among Grecian Tribes.—Legend of the Danaidæ.

An important question remains to be considered, namely: whether any evidence exists that descent was anciently in the female line in the Grecian and Latin gentes. Theoretically, this must have been the fact at some anterior period among their remote ancestors; but we are not compelled to rest the question upon theory alone. Since a change to the male line involved a nearly total alteration of the membership in a gens, a method by which it might have been accomplished should be pointed out. More than this, it should be shown, if possible, that an adequate motive requiring the change was certain to arise, with the progress of society out of the condition in which this form of descent originated. And lastly, the existing evidence of ancient descent in the female line among them should be presented.

A gens in the archaic period, as we have seen, consisted of a supposed female ancestor and her children, together with the children of her daughters, and of her female descendants through females in perpetuity. The children of her sons, and of her male descendants, through males, were excluded. On the other hand, with descent in the male line, a gens consisted of a supposed male ancestor and his children, together with the children of his sons and of his male descendants through males in perpetuity. The children of his daughters, and of his female descendants, through females, were excluded. Those excluded in the first case would be members of the gens in the second case, and vice versâ. The question then arises, how could descent be changed from the female line to the male without the destruction of the gens?

The method was simple and natural, provided the motive to make the change was general, urgent and commanding. When done at a given time, and by preconcerted determination, it was only necessary to agree that all the present members of the gens should remain members, but that in future all children, whose fathers belonged to the gens, should alone remain in it and bear the gentile name, while the children of its female members should be excluded. This would not break or change the kinship or relations of the existing gentiles; but thereafter it would retain in the gens the children it before excluded, and exclude those it before retained. Although it may seem a hard problem to solve, the pressure of an adequate motive would render it easy, and the lapse of a few generations would make it complete. As a practical question, it has been changed from the female line to the male among the American aborigines in a number of instances. Thus, among the Ojibwas descent is now in the male line, while among their congeners, the Delawares and Mohegans, it is still in the female line. Originally, without a doubt, descent was in the female line in the entire Algonkin stock.

Since descent in the female line is archaic, and more in accordance with the early condition of ancient society than descent in the male line, there is a presumption in favor of its ancient prevalence in the Grecian and Latin gentes. Moreover, when the archaic form of any transmitted organization has been discovered and verified, it is impossible to conceive of its origination in the later more advanced form.

Assuming a change of descent among them from the female line to the male, it must have occurred very remotely from the historical period. Their history in the Middle Status of barbarism is entirely lost, except it has been in some measure preserved in their arts, institutions and inventions, and in improvements in language. The Upper Status has the superadded light of tradition and of the Homeric poems to acquaint us with its experience and the measure of progress then made. But judging from the condition in which their traditions place them, it seems probable that descent in the female line had not entirely disappeared, at least among the Pelasgian and Grecian tribes, when they entered the Upper Status of barbarism.

When descent was in the female line in the Grecian and Latin gentes, the gens possessed the following among other characteristics: 1. Marriage in the gens was prohibited; thus placing children in a different gens from that of their reputed father. 2. Property and the office of chief were hereditary in the gens; thus excluding children from inheriting the property or succeeding to the office of their reputed father. This state of things would continue until a motive arose sufficiently general and commanding to establish the injustice of this exclusion in the face of their changed condition.

The natural remedy was a change of descent from the female line to the male. All that was needed to effect the change was an adequate motive. After domestic animals began to be reared in flocks and herds, becoming thereby a source of subsistence as well as objects of individual property, and after tillage had led to the ownership of houses and lands in severalty, an antagonism would be certain to arise against the prevailing form of gentile inheritance, because it excluded the owner’s children, whose paternity was becoming more assured, and gave his property to his gentile kindred. A contest for a new rule of inheritance, shared in by fathers and their children, would furnish a motive sufficiently powerful to effect the change. With property accumulating in masses and assuming permanent forms, and with an increased proportion of it held by individual ownership, descent in the female line was certain of overthrow, and the substitution of the male line equally assured. Such a change would leave the inheritance in the gens as before, but it would place children in the gens of their father, and at the head of the agnatic kindred. For a time, in all probability, they would share in the distribution of the estate with the remaining agnates; but an extension of the principle by which the agnates cut off the remaining gentiles, would in time result in the exclusion of the agnates beyond the children and an exclusive inheritance in the children. Farther than this, the son would now be brought in the line of succession to the office of his father.