KINSHIP, BLOOD REVENGE, PRIMITIVE JUSTICE, PEACE UNIONS
Kinship.—Forms of kinship.—Family education.—Kinds of kinship.—How family mores are formed.—Family and marriage.—Goblinism and kinship; blood revenge.—Procreation; forms of the family.—Notions about procreation and share in it.—Blood revenge and the in-group—Institutional ties replace the blood tie.—Peace in the in-group.—Parties to blood revenge.—Blood revenge in ethnography.—Blood revenge in Israel.—Peace units and peace pacts.—The instability of great peace unions.—The Arabs.—The development of the philosophy of blood revenge.—Alleviations of blood revenge.—The king's peace.—The origin of criminal law.
534. Kinship. Kinship is a fact which, in the forms of heredity and race, is second to none in importance to the interests of men. It is a fact which was concealed by ignorance from primitive men. It is yet veiled in much mystery from us. Nevertheless the notion of kinship was one of the very first notions formed by primitive men as a bond of association, and they based folkways upon their ideas about it. They deduced the chief inferences and handed the whole down to succeeding generations. Therefore the assumed knowledge of the facts of kinship was used as the basis of a whole series of societal conventions. The first construction was the family, which was a complete institution. Of course marriage was a relationship which was controlled and adjusted by the family ideas. From the folkways as to kinship all the simplest conceptions of societal rights and duties were derived, societal institutions were constructed, and societal organization has grown up.
535. Forms of kinship. That a certain child was born of a certain woman, after having been for some time in physical connection with her body, is an historical and physical fact. That another child was born of the same mother is another fact, of the same order. It may be believed that these facts produce permanent life relations between the mother and children, and between the children, or it may be believed that the facts have no importance for duties, interests, or sympathies. The relations, if recognized, may be defined and construed in many different ways and degrees. They could also be carried further by including more generations, or wider collateral branches, until kinship would include a sib, or family in the widest sense,—those related within some limit of descent and cousinship on a system decided on (mother family, father family, etc.) and traditional. Kinship is purely matter of fact and history, and therefore rational. There is no "natural affection." There is habit and familiarity, and the example and exhortations of parents may inculcate notions of duty. Sentiments and sympathies will then be produced out of familiarity in life, or out of use and wont. The construction and limits of kinship in any society are products of the folkways, or—inasmuch as the system is built up with notions of welfare and rights and duties—of the mores. In fact, since the folkways in regard to this matter begin at a very primitive stage of human life, run up to the highest civilization, and are interwoven with the most tender sympathies and ethical convictions at all stages, kinship is one of the most important products of the folkways and mores. It is, in fact, the most important societal concept which the primitive man thought out, and it would be such even if we were now compelled to reject it as erroneous.
536. Family education. No doubt the folkways about kinship are produced in connection with views about interests, and in connection with faiths about procreation, and impressions produced by experience. The mother and children live in constant contact and intimacy. The family grows into an institution which takes its nature from the traditional and habitual behavior of its members to each other in daily life. Use and wont have here a great field for their constructive operation. Each family (mother and children) is independent and makes its own world, in which nearly all its interests are enfolded. There are constantly recurring occasions for acts of a reciprocal character, and such acts especially build up institutions. The family is also an arena in which sympathies are cultivated, which does not mean that they are always nourished and developed. Habits are formed and discipline is enforced. Rules are accepted from custom and enforced by authority and force. Rights and duties are enforced as facts long before they are apprehended as concepts.
537. Kinds of kinship. The sib, or large family, including all those who are known to be related at all, is a group of very varying importance in different societies. In some societies the common bond is strong and produces important social consequences. In other cases no heed is paid to relationship beyond first and second cousins. Although the Yakuts keep up the rod, or great family, for some purposes, we are told that often "nothing unites the members of the rod but a vague tradition of common descent."[1720] Whether individuals can break the ties of kin, by voluntary act, is answered differently in different societies. The Salic Franks allowed a man to do it by breaking his staff (which was his personal symbol) in a ceremonial act.[1721] If kinship depends on connection of the body of the child with that of the mother, his nourishment by her milk is another ground of kinship. The Arabs recognize this tie of a child to its foster mother. Later the child is nourished by food shared with commensals. Hence the tie of commensality forms a basis of social union like kinship.[1722]
538. How mores are formed. The family groups which are in local neighborhood have, in general, the same folkways as an inheritance, but variations occur from varieties of character and circumstances. The variations are life experiments, in fact, and they lead to selection. In the community as a whole the mores of family life are selected, approved, and established, and then handed down by tradition. It may be believed that there is a common interest of the entire larger group in the education and treatment of children, and that all the adults recognize that interest more or less completely. The big group, therefore, molds notions of consanguinity, and the sanctions of tribal authority and public opinion coerce all to observe the modes of family life which the ruling authority thinks most expedient for the group interests.
539. Family and marriage. The family institution must have preceded marriage. In fact, marriage appears, in ethnography and history, as the way of founding a family and as molded by the family mores existing in the society.
540. Goblinism and kinship. Blood revenge. Integration of kin relations was produced by goblinism. This furnished an interest which impelled to development of the kin idea. If a man was murdered, his ghost would seek revenge, just as a man while alive would have sought revenge for a smaller injury. The ghost was dangerous to two persons or classes of persons, the murderer and those near the corpse. The latter would be, almost always, his kinsmen. It behooved the latter, therefore, if they wanted to appease the ghost and save themselves, to find the murderer and to punish him. Hence the custom of blood revenge. It was not due to kin notions, but to goblinistic notions. Kin only defined those who came under the obligation. In this way kin became a tie of mutual offense, defense, and assistance, and kin groups were formed into societies,—we-groups or in-groups,—inside of which there was comradeship, peace, law, and order, while the relation to all out-groups was one of suspicion, hostility, plunder, and subjugation if possible. The primary notion of kin was embodied in formulæ about blood,—which were only figures of speech,—which have come down to us, so that propositions about blood are used now to express our notions of kinship, heredity, etc. In fact, according to modern embryology, not a drop of blood passes from either parent to the offspring. Superstitions about blood (seat of the soul or life, etc.) helped to develop the notion of kin. The primitive idea is that the ghost of a murdered man can be appeased only by blood. The blood of Abel cried unto God from the ground. Some peoples go out to kill anything, in order that blood may be shed and so the ghost may be satisfied.
541. Procreation. Forms of the family. The notion of kin was so elastic that various conceptions of procreation have been grafted upon it, and various ways of organizing the family, or of reckoning kinship, have been connected with it. Mores grow upon the notions of kinship. They dictate modes of behavior and ideas of right and duty, and train all members of the society in the same. The relation of father and child is known to few persons, perhaps only to two. Kinship through the father, therefore, seems to uncivilized people far less important than kinship through the mother. When the father relationship is regarded as the real tie and is made the norm of kin groups, great changes are produced in the mores of the mother family.