Ancient society

by Lewis Henry Morgan

Evidence of ancient descent in the female line among the Grecian tribes is found in particular marriages which occurred in the traditionary period. Thus Salmōneus and Krētheus were own brothers, the sons of Æolus. The former gave his daughter Tyrō in marriage to her uncle. With descent in the male line, Krētheus and Tyrō would have been of the same gens, and could not have married for that reason; but with descent in the female line, they would have been of different gentes, and therefore not of gentile kin. Their marriage in that case would not have violated strict gentile usages. It is immaterial that the persons named are mythical, because the legend would apply gentile usages correctly. This marriage is explainable on the hypothesis of descent in the female line, which in turn raises a presumption of its existence at the time, or as justified by their ancient usages which had not wholly died out.

The same fact is revealed by marriages within the historical period, when an ancient practice seems to have survived the change of descent to the male line, even though it violated the gentile obligations of the parties. After the time of Solon a brother might marry his half-sister, provided they were born of different mothers, but not conversely. With descent in the female line, they would be of different gentes, and, therefore, not of gentile kin. Their marriage would interfere with no gentile obligation. But with descent in the male line, which was the fact when the cases about to be cited occurred, they would be of the same gens, and consequently under prohibition. Cimon married his half-sister, Elpinice, their father being the same, but their mothers different. In the Eubulides of Demosthenes we find a similar case. “My grandfather,” says Euxithius, “married his sister, she not being his sister by the same mother.”[401] Such marriages, against which a strong prejudice had arisen among the Athenians as early as the time of Solon, are explainable as a survival of an ancient custom with respect to marriage, which prevailed when descent was in the female line, and which had not been entirely eradicated in the time of Demosthenes.

Descent in the female line presupposes the gens to distinguish the lineage. With our present knowledge of the ancient and modern prevalence of the gentile organization upon five continents, including the Australian, and of the archaic constitution of the gens, traces of descent in the female line might be expected to exist in traditions, if not in usages coming down to historical times. It is not supposable, therefore, that the Lycians, the Cretans, the Athenians and the Locrians, if the evidence is sufficient to include the last two, invented a usage so remarkable as descent in the female line. The hypothesis that it was the ancient law of the Latin, Grecian, and other Græco-Italian gentes affords a more rational as well as satisfactory explanation of the facts. The influence of property and the desire to transmit it to children furnished adequate motives for the change to the male line.

It may be inferred that marrying out of the gens was the rule among the Athenians, before as well as after the time of Solon, from the custom of registering the wife, upon her marriage, in the phratry of her husband, and the children, daughters as well as sons, in the gens and phratry of their father.[402] The fundamental principle on which the gens was founded was the prohibition of intermarriage among its members as consanguinei. In each gens the number of members was not large. Assuming sixty thousand as the number of registered Athenians in the time of Solon, and dividing them equally among the three hundred and sixty Attic gentes, it would give but one hundred and sixty persons to each gens. The gens was a great family of kindred persons, with common religious rites, a common burial place, and, in general, common lands. From the theory of its constitution, intermarriage would be disallowed. With the change of descent to the male line, with the rise of monogamy and an exclusive inheritance in the children, and with the appearance of heiresses, the way was being gradually prepared for free marriage regardless of gens, but with a prohibition limited to certain degrees of near consanguinity. Marriages in the human family began in the group, all the males and females of which, excluding the children, were joint husbands and wives; but the husbands and wives were of different gentes; and it ended in marriage between single pairs, with an exclusive cohabitation. In subsequent chapters an attempt will be made to trace the several forms of marriage and of the family from the first stage to the last.

A system of consanguinity came in with the gens, distinguished as the Turanian in Asia, and as the Ganowánian in America, which extended the prohibition of intermarriage as far as the relationship of brother and sister extended among collaterals. This system still prevails among the American aborigines, in portions of Asia and Africa, and in Australia.

It unquestionably prevailed among the Grecian and Latin tribes in the same anterior period, and traces of it remained down to the traditionary period. One feature of the Turanian system may be restated as follows: the children of brothers are themselves brothers and sisters, and as such could not intermarry; the children of sisters stood in the same relationship, and were under the same prohibition. It may serve to explain the celebrated legend of the Danaidæ, one version of which furnished to Aeschylus his subject for the tragedy of the Suppliants. The reader will remember that Danaus and Ægyptus were brothers, and descendants of Argive Io. The former by different wives had fifty daughters, and the latter by different wives had fifty sons; and in due time the sons of Ægyptus sought the daughters of Danaus in marriage. Under the system of consanguinity appertaining to the gens in its archaic form, and which remained until superseded by the system introduced by monogamy, they were brothers and sisters, and for that reason could not marry. If descent at the time was in the male line, the children of Danaus and Ægyptus would have been of the same gens, which would have interposed an additional objection to their marriage, and of equal weight. Nevertheless the sons of Ægyptus sought to overstep these barriers and enforce wedlock upon the Danaidæ; whilst the latter, crossing the sea, fled from Egypt to Argos to escape what they pronounced an unlawful and incestuous union. In the Prometheus of the same author, this event is foretold to Io by Prometheus, namely: that in the fifth generation from her future son Epaphus, a band of fifty virgins should come to Argos, not voluntarily, but fleeing from incestuous wedlock with the sons of Ægyptus.[403] Their flight with abhorrence from the proposed nuptials finds its explanation in the ancient system of consanguinity, independently of gentile law. Apart from this explanation the event has no significance, and their aversion to the marriages would have been mere prudery.

The tragedy of the Suppliants is founded upon the incident of their flight over the sea to Argos, to claim the protection of their Argive kindred against the proposed violence of the sons of Ægyptus, who pursued them. At Argos the Danaidæ declare that they did not depart from Egypt under the sentence of banishment, but fled from men of common descent with themselves, scorning unholy marriage with the sons of Ægyptus.[404] Their reluctance is placed exclusively upon the fact of kin, thus implying an existing prohibition against such marriages, which they had been trained to respect. After hearing the case of the Suppliants, the Argives in council resolved to afford them protection, which of itself implies the existence of the prohibition of the marriages and the validity of their objection. At the time this tragedy was produced, Athenian law permitted and even required marriage between the children of brothers in the case of heiresses and female orphans, although the rule seems to have been confined to these exceptional cases; such marriages, therefore, would not seem to the Athenians either incestuous or unlawful; but this tradition of the Danaidæ had come down from a remote antiquity, and its whole significance depended upon the force of the custom forbidding the nuptials. The turning-point of the tradition and its incidents was their inveterate repugnance to the proposed marriages as forbidden by law and custom. No other reason is assigned, and no other is needed. At the same time their conduct is intelligible on the assumption that such marriages were as unpermissible then, as marriage between a brother and sister would be at the present time. The attempt of the sons of Ægyptus to break through the barrier interposed by the Turanian system of consanguinity may mark the time when this system was beginning to give way, and the present system, which came in with monogamy, was beginning to assert itself, and which was destined to set aside gentile usages and Turanian consanguinity by the substitution of fixed degrees as the limits of prohibition.

Upon the evidence adduced it seems probable that among the Pelasgian, Hellenic and Italian tribes descent was originally in the female line, from which, under the influence of property and inheritance, it was changed to the male line. Whether or not these tribes anciently possessed the Turanian system of consanguinity, the reader will be better able to judge after that system has been presented, with the evidence of its wide prevalence in ancient society.

The length of the traditionary period of these tribes is of course unknown in the years of its duration, but it must be measured by thousands of years. It probably reached back of the invention of the process of smelting iron ore, and if so, passed through the Later Period of barbarism and entered the Middle Period. Their condition of advancement in the Middle Period must have at least equaled that of the Aztecs, Mayas and Peruvians, who were found in the status of the Middle Period; and their condition in the Later Period must have surpassed immensely that of the Indian tribes named. The vast and varied experience of these European tribes in the two great ethnical periods named, during which they achieved the remaining elements of civilization, is entirely lost, excepting as it is imperfectly disclosed in their traditions, and more fully by their acts of life, their customs, language and institutions, as revealed to us by the poems of Homer. Empires and kingdoms were necessarily unknown in these periods; but tribes and inconsiderable nations, city and village life, the growth and development of the arts of life, and physical, mental and moral improvement, were among the particulars of that progress. The loss of the events of these great periods to human knowledge was much greater than can easily be imagined.