Customand law.
Originally the power of the patriarch may have been almost absolute over the other members of the family, but it must very early have become modified and controlled by the growth of various customs. Indeed, in trying to picture to ourselves theseearly times, when as yet no regular notions of law had arisen, it is important to remember how great a force is possessed by custom. Even now, when we distinguish pretty clearly between law and custom, we still feel the great coercive and restraining powers of the latter in all the affairs of life. But when no exact notions of law had been formed, it seemed an almost irresistible argument in favour of a particular action that it had always been performed before. There would thus spring up in a household certain rules of conduct for the different members, certain fixed limits to their respective family duties. Before any individual would be commanded by the patriarch to do any particular duty, it would come to be inquired whether it was customary for such a duty to be assigned to such an individual. Before the patriarch inflicted any punishment on a member of the family, it would come to be inquired whether and in what manner it had been customary to punish the particular act complained of. Many things would tend to increase this regard for custom. The obvious advantages resulting from regularity and certainty in the ordering of the family life would soon be felt, and thus a public opinion in favour of custom would be created. Ancestor-worship, too, which plays so conspicuous a part in early Aryan civilization, acted, no doubt, as a powerful strengthener of the force of custom, as is indicated by the fact that in many nations the traditionary originator of their laws is some powerful ancestor to whom the nation is accustomed to pay an especial reverence.
Resulting from this development of custom into law in the early family life of the Aryans, we find that special duties soon became assigned to persons occupying particular positions. To the young men of the household were assigned the more active outdoor employments; to themaidens the milking of the cows; to the elder women other household duties. And the importance of knowing what the customs were also gave rise to the family council, or ‘sabhâ,’ as it is called in Sanskrit, which consisted of the elders of the family, the ‘sabhocita,’ presided over by the ‘sabhapati,’ or president of the assembly. The importance attached to the decisions of this council was so great, that the ‘sabyâ,’ or decrees of the ‘sabhâ,’ came to be used simply to express law or custom. It is probable therefore that this assembly regulated to a great extent the customs and laws of the family in its internal management, and also superintended any negotiations carried on with other families.
Thehouse-fire.
To complete our picture of the patriarchal family, we have the traditions of three distinct customs or rites affecting its internal economy. Two of these rites, the maintenance of the sacred house-fire, and the marriage ceremony, probably date back to a very remote period; and the third, the custom of adoption, though of later development, may be regarded, in its origin at least, as primitive. Fire is itself so wonderful in its appearance and effects, so good a servant, so terrible a master, that we cannot feel any surprise at its having attracted a great deal of attention in early times. The traces of fire-worship are so widely spread over the earth that there is scarcely a single race whose traditions are entirely devoid of them. But the sacred house-fire of the Aryans is interesting to us chiefly in its connection with other family rites in which it played an important part. This fire, which was perpetually kept burning on the family hearth, seems to have been regarded in some sort, as a living family deity, who watched over and assisted the particular family to which it belonged. It was by its aid that the food of the family wascooked, and from it was ignited the sacrifice or the funeral pyre. It was the centre of the family life; the hearth on which it burned was in the midst of the dwelling, and no stranger was admitted into its presence. That hearth was to each member of the household as it were anumbilicus orbis, or navel of the earth—hearth, only another form ofearth.[53]When the members of the family met together to partake of their meals, a part was always first offered to the fire by whose aid the meal was prepared; the patriarch acted as officiating priest in this as in every other family ceremony; and to the patriarch’s wife was confided the especial charge of keeping the fire supplied with fuel.
Marriage.
Bymarriage, as we have seen, a woman became a member of her husband’s family. She ceased to be any longer a member of the household in which she was born, for the life of each family was so isolated that it would have been impossible to belong to two different families at once. So we find that the marriage ceremony chiefly consisted in an expression of this change of family by the wife. In general it was preceded by a treaty between the two families, a formal offer of marriage made by the intending husband’s family on his behalf, together with a gift to the bride’s family, which was regarded as the price paid for the bride. If all preliminary matters went forward favourably, then, on the day fixed for the marriage, the different members of the bridegroom’s family went to the household of the bride and demanded her. After some orthodox delay, in which the bride was expected to express unwillingness to go, she was formally given up to those who demanded her, the patriarch of her household solemnly dismissing her from it and giving up all authority over her. She was then borne in triumph to the bridegroom’shouse; and, on entering it, was carried over the threshold, so as not to touch it with her feet; thus expressing that her entry within the house was not that of a mere guest or stranger. She was finally, before the house-fire, solemnly admitted into her husband’s family, and as a worshipper at the family altar.
Adoption.
This ceremony was subject to a great many variations amongst the different Aryan races; but in every one of them some trace of it is to be found, and this always apparently intended to express the same idea, the change of the bride’s family.Adoption, which in later times became extremely common among the Romans—the race which seems in Europe to have preserved most faithfully the old Aryan family type—originated in a sort of extension of the same theory that admitted of the wife’s entry into her husband’s family, as almost all the details of the ceremony of adoption are copied from that of marriage. Cases must have occurred pretty often where a man might be placed in such a position as to be without a family. He may have become alienated from his own kindred by the commission of some crime, or all his relatives may have died from natural causes or been killed in war. In the condition in which society was then, such a man would be in a peculiarly unenviable position. There would be no one in whom he could trust, no one who would be the least interested in him or bound to protect him. Thus wandering as an outlaw, without means of defence from enemies, and unable to protect his possessions if he chanced to have any, or to obtain means of subsistence if he had none, he would be very desirous of becoming a member of some other family, in order that he might find in it the assistance and support necessary for his own welfare. It might also sometimes happen, that owing to a want of male descendantssome house might be in danger of extinction. Now the extinction of a family was a matter of peculiar dread to its members. Connected with the worship of the hearth was the worship of the ancestors of the family. It was the duty of each patriarch to offer sacrifices on stated occasions to the departed spirits of his ancestors; and it was considered as a matter of the utmost importance that these sacrifices should be kept up, in order to insure the happiness of those departed spirits after death. So important indeed was this rite held to be, that it was reckoned as one of the chief duties which each patriarch had to perform, and the family property was regarded as dedicated to this object in priority to every other. It would therefore be the chief care of each head of a household to leave male descendants, in order that the offerings for his own and his ancestors’ benefit might be continued after his death. The only person, however, capable of performing these rites was a member of the same family, one who joined in the same worship by the same household fire: so if all the males of a family were to die out, these rights must of necessity cease.
The marriage ceremony had already supplied a precedent for introducing members into a house who were not born in it. It was very natural, then, that this principle should be extended to the introduction of males when there was any danger of the male line becoming extinct. This was done by the ceremony of adoption, which was in many respects similar to that of marriage, being a formal renunciation of the person adopted by the patriarch of his original family, in case he was a member of one, and a formal acceptance and admission into the new family of his adoption, of which he was thenceforward regarded as a regular member. This ceremony exhibits in a very marked manner the leading peculiarity of the patriarchal household. Wesee how completely isolated, in theory, such a group was from the rest of the world; having its own distinct worship, in which no one but its own members were permitted to share, reverencing its own ancestors only, who might receive worship from none but their descendants. So jealously was this separation of families guarded, that it was impossible for a man or woman at the same time to worship at two family shrines. While displaying its isolation in the strongest light, adoption is nevertheless a mark of decay in the patriarchal family. It is an artificial grafting on the original simple stock; and however carefully men may have shut their eyes at first to its artificial nature, it must have had a gradual tendency to undermine the reverence paid to the principle of blood relationship.
Before we consider, however, the causes of decay of this form of society, which we shall do in the next chapter, there are some other indications of their manner of livelihood which will help us to understand the social condition of these Aryan patriarchal families. We have seen that, with the introduction of bronze into Europe, various changes took place in the manner of men’s lives. One of these is the regular domestication of animals. It is true that domestic animals were by no means unknown before the bronze age in Europe: but until that time this custom had not attained any great extension. In remains of settlements whose age is supposed to be before the introduction of bronze, by far the larger number of animals’ bones found are those belonging to wild species, while those belonging to tame species are comparatively rare. This shows that the principal part of the food of those people who lived before the bronze age was obtained by hunting. After the introduction of bronze, however, exactly the reverse is the case. In these later remains the bones of domestic animals become much morecommon, while those of wild animals are comparatively rare, which shows what an important revolution had taken place in men’s habits.
Introductionof thepastoral life.
It must also be remembered that many remains supposed to belong to the later stone age may, in fact, belong to societies that existed during the bronze age, but who had not yet adopted the use of bronze, or else from their situation were unable to obtain any. As yet so little is known of how this metal was obtained at that time, that it is impossible to say what situations would be least favourable for obtaining it; but considering that tin, of which bronze is partly composed, is only found in a very few places, the wonder is rather that bronze weapons are so frequent amongst the different remains scattered over Europe, than that they should be absent from some of them. Moreover, the races that inhabited Europe before the Aryans came there would afterwards remain collected together in settlements, surrounded by the invading population, for a considerable length of time before they had either been exterminated or absorbed by the more civilized race. These aborigines would adopt such of the arts and customs of the Aryans as were most within their reach. The increased population and the greater cultivation of the land which followed the Aryan invasion would make it more difficult to obtain food from hunting, and the aborigines would therefore be compelled to adopt domestication of animals as a means of support, which they would have little difficulty in doing, as they would be able to obtain a stock to start from, either by raids on their neighbours’ herds or, perhaps, by barter. But the manufacture of bronze weapons, being a much more complicated affair than the rearing of cattle, would take a much longer time to acquire. This perhaps may account for theremains found in the lake-dwellings, some of which show a considerable degree of social advance, but an entire ignorance of the use of bronze, while in the later ones bronze weapons are also found. We may, then, regard the domestication of animals, to the extent that it was practised by the Aryans in their Asiatic home, as a new thing in Europe, and as introduced by the Aryans. It was on their flocks and herds that these races chiefly depended for subsistence, and the importance of the chase as a means of livelihood was very much less with them than it was with the old hunter-tribes that formed the earlier population of Europe. This in itself was a great advance in civilization. It implied a regular industry, and the possession of cattle was not only a guarantee against want, but an inducement to a more regular and orderly mode of living.
There are no lessons so important to uncivilized nations as those of providence and industry, and the pastoral life required and encouraged both these qualities. It was necessary to store up at one time of year food to support the cattle during another period; to preserve a sufficient number of animals to keep the stock replenished. The cows too had to be milked at regular times, and every night the flocks and herds had to be collected into pens to protect them from beasts of prey, and every morning to be led out again to the pasture. All this shows the existence of a more organized and methodical life than is possible to a hunter-tribe. The pastoral life, moreover, seems to be one particularly suited to the patriarchal type of society. Each little community is capable of supplying its own wants, and is also compelled to maintain a certain degree of isolation. The necessity of having a considerable extent of country for their pasturage would prevent different families from living very near each other. In its simpleststate, too, the pastoral life is a nomadic one; so that the only social connection which can exist among such a people is one of kinship, for having no fixed homes they can have no settled neighbours or fellow-countrymen. The importance attached to cattle in this stage of civilization is evidenced by the frequent use of words in their origin relating to cattle, in all the Aryan languages, to express many of the ordinary incidents of life. Not only do cattle occupy a prominent place in Aryan mythology, but titles of honour, the names for divisions of the day, for the divisions of land, for property, for money, and many other words, all attest by their derivation how prominent a position cattle occupied with the early Aryans. The patriarch is called in Sanskrit ‘lord of the cattle,’ the morning is ‘the calling of the cattle,’ the evening ‘the milking time.’ The Latin word for money,pecunia, and our English word ‘fee’ both come from the Aryan name for cattle. In Anglo-Saxon movable property is called ‘cwicfeoh,’ or living cattle, while immovable property, such as houses and land, is called ‘dead cattle.’ And so we find the same word constantly cropping up in all the Aryan languages, to remind us that in the pastoral life cattle are the great interest and source of wealth to the community, and the principal means of exchange employed in such commerce as is there carried on.
Commerce.
The commerce between different tribes or families seems to have been conducted at certain meeting-places agreed upon, and which were situated in the boundary-land or neutral territory between the different settlements. Very frequently at war with each other, or at best only preserving an armed and watchful quiet,—each side ready at a moment’s notice to seize on a favourable opportunity for the commencement of active hostilities,—continual friendly intercourse was impossible. So that when they wished for their mutual advantage to enter into amicable relations, it was necessary to establish some sort of special agreement for that purpose. It is probable, then, that when they found the advantages which could be derived from commercial exchanges, certain places were agreed upon as neutral territory where these exchanges might take place. Such places of exchange would naturally be fixed upon as would be equally convenient to both parties; and their mutual jealousy would prevent one tribe from permitting the free entrance within its own limits of members of other tribes. Places, too, would be chosen so as to be within reach of three or four different tribes; and thus the place of exchange, the market-place, would be fixed in that border-land to which no tribe laid any special claim. So we see that to commerce was due the first amicable relations of one tribe with another; and perhaps our market crosses may owe their origin to some remains of the old ideas associated with assemblies where men first learnt to look upon men of different tribes as brothers in a common humanity.
It took a long time, however, to mitigate that feeling of hostility which seems to have existed in early times between different communities. Even when they condescended to barter with each other they did not forget the difference between the friend and the foe. In theSenchus Mor, a book compiled by the old Irish or ‘Brehon’ lawyers, this difference between dealing with a friend and a stranger is rather curiously indicated in considering the rent of land. ‘The three rents,’ says theGreat Book of the Law, as it is called, ‘are rack rent (or the extreme rent) from a person of a strange tribe, a fair rent from one of the tribe (that is one’s own tribe), and the stipulated rent, which is paidequally by the tribe and the strange tribe.’ Such a distinction is generally recognized in all early communities. In dealing with a man of his own tribe, the individual was held bound in honour not to take any unfair advantage, to take only such a price, to exact only such a value in exchange, as he was legitimately entitled to. It was quite otherwise, however, in dealings with members of other tribes. Then the highest value possible might justly be obtained for any article; so that dealings at markets which consisted of exchanges between different tribes, came to mean a particular sort of trading, where the highest price possible was obtained for anything sold. It is probable that this cast, to a certain extent, a slur upon those who habitually devoted themselves to this kind of trading. Though it was recognized as just to exact as high a price as possible from the stranger, still the person who did so was looked upon to a certain extent as guilty of a disreputable action; viewed, in fact, much in the same light as usurious money-lenders are viewed nowadays. They were people who did not offend against the laws of their times, but who sailed so near the wind as to be tainted, as it were, with fraud. Indeed, our word ‘monger,’ which simply means ‘dealer,’ comes from a root which, in Sanskrit, means ‘to deceive;’ so commerce and cheating seem to have been early united, and we must therefore not be surprised if they are not entirely divorced even in our own time.
Now ‘mark,’ which, as we know, means a boundary or border-land, comes from a root which means ‘the chase,’ or ‘wild animals.’ So ‘mark’ originally meant the place of the chase, or where wild animals lived. This gives us some sort of picture of these early settlements, whose in-dwellers carried on their commerce with each other in such primitive fashion. They were little spots of cleared or cultivatedland, surrounded by a sort of jungle or primeval forest inhabited only by wild beasts. It was in such wild places as these that the first markets used to be held. Here, under the spreading branches of the trees, at some spot agreed upon beforehand,—some open glade, perhaps, which would be chosen because a neighbouring stream afforded means of refreshment,—the fierce distrustful men would meet to take a passing glimpse at the blessings of peace. These wild border-lands which intervened also explain to us how it was that so great an isolation continued to be maintained between the different settlements. If their pasture-lands had abutted immediately on each other, if the herds of one tribe had grazed by the herds of another, there must have been much more intercommunion and mutual trust than appears to have existed.
The value of cattle does not consist only in the food and skins which they provide. Oxen have from a very early time been employed for purposes of agriculture; and we find among the names derived from cattle many suggesting that they must have been put to this use at the time when those names arose. Thus the Greeks spoke of the evening as βουλυτός (boulutos), or the time for the unyoking of oxen; and the same idea is expressed in the old German word for evening, ‘àbant’ (Abend), or the unyoking. This, then, is the next stage in social progress: when agriculture becomes the usual employment of man. With the advance of this stage begins the decay of the patriarchal life, which, as we shall see in the next chapter, gradually disappears and gives place to fresh social combinations. Though we have hitherto spoken only of the patriarchal life of the Aryans, it was a life even more characteristic of the Semitic race. They were essentially pastoral and nomadic in their habits, and they seem to have continued to lead a purely pastorallife much longer than the Aryans did. In the Old Testament we learn how Abraham and Lot had to separate because their flocks were too extensive to feed together; and how Abraham wandered about with his flocks and herds, his family and servants, dwellers in tents, leading a simple patriarchal life, much as do the Arabs of the present day. Long after the neighbouring people had settled in towns, these Semitic tribes continued to wander over the intervening plains, depending for food and clothing only on their sheep and cattle and camels.
The agriculturallife.
Solong as people continued to lead a wandering shepherd life, the institution of the patriarchal family afforded a sufficient and satisfactory basis for such cordial union as was possible. It was a condition of society in which the relations of the different members to each other were extremely simple and confined within very narrow boundaries; but these habits of life prevented the existence of any very complicated social order, and at the same time gave a peculiar force and endurance to those customs and ties which did exist. For while the different tribes had no settled dwelling-places, the only cohesion possible was that produced by the personal relations of the different members one to another. Those beyond the limits of the tribe or household could have no permanent connection with it. They were simply ‘strangers,’ friends or enemies, as circumstances might determine, but having no common interests, connected by no abiding link, with those who were not members of the same community. When a family became so numerous that it was necessary for its members to separate, the new family, formed under the influence of this pressure, would at first remember the parent stock with reverence, and perhaps regard the patriarch of theelder branch as entitled to some sort of obedience from, and possessing some indefinite kind of power over, it after separation. It would, however, soon wander away and lose all connection with its relatives, forgetting perhaps in the course of time whence it had sprung, or inventing a pedigree more pleasing to the vanity of its members. But when men began to learn to till the soil, by degrees they had to abandon their nomadic life, and to have for a time fixed dwelling-places, in order that they might guard their crops, and gather, in the time of harvest, the fruits of their labour. Cattle were no longer the only means of subsistence, nor sufficiency of pasture the only limit to migration. A part of their wealth was, for a time, bound up in the land which they had tilled and sowed, and to obtain that wealth they must remain in the neighbourhood of the cultivated soil. Thus a new relationship arose between different families. They began to have neighbours—dwellers on and cultivators of the land bordering their own,—so that common interests sprang up between those who hitherto had nothing in common, new ties began to connect together those who had formerly no fixed relationship.
The adoption of agriculture changed likewise the relation of men to the land on which they dwelt. Hitherto the tracts of pasture over which the herdsman had driven his flocks and cattle had been as unappropriated as the open sea, as free as the air which he breathed. He neither claimed any property in the land himself, nor acknowledged any title thereto in another. He had spent no labour on it, had done nothing to improve its fertility; and his only right as against others to any locality was that of his temporary sojourn there. But when agriculture began to require the expenditure of labour on the land, and its enclosure, so as to protect the crops which had been sown,a new distinct idea of the possession of these enclosed pieces of land began to arise, so that a man was no longer simply the member of a particular family. He had acquired new rights and attributes, for which the patriarchal economy had made no provision. He was the inhabitant of a particular locality, the owner and cultivator of a particular piece of land. The effect of this change was necessarily to weaken the household tie which bound men together, by introducing new relations between them. The great strength of that early bond had consisted in its being the only one which the state of society rendered possible; and its force was greatly augmented by the isolation in which the different nomadic groups habitually lived. The adoption of a more permanent settlement thus tended in two ways to facilitate the introduction of a new social organization. By increasing the intercourse, and rendering more permanent the connection between different families, it destroyed their isolation, and therefore weakened the autocratic power of their chiefs; and at the same time, by introducing new interests into the life of the members of a family, and new relations between different families, it compelled sometimes the adoption of regulations necessarily opposed to the principles of patriarchal rule. We must remember, however, that the change from a nomadic to a settled state took place very gradually, some peoples being influenced by it much more slowly than others. Agriculture may be practised to a certain extent by those who lead a more or less wandering life, as is the case with the Tartar tribes, who grow buckwheat, which only takes two or three months for its production; so that at the end of that time they are able to gather their harvest and once more wander in search of new pastures. And it is from its use by them that this grain has received in French the name ofblé sarrasin(Saracen corn)or simplysarrasin. We may suppose that the earliest agriculture practised was something of this rude description; and even when tribes learnt the advantage of cultivating more slowly germinating crops, they would not readily abandon their nomadic habits, which long continuance had rendered dear to them; but would only become agriculturists under the pressure of circumstances. The hunter tribes of North American Indians, and the Gipsies of Europe, serve to show us how deeply rooted in a people may become the love of wandering and the dislike to settled industry.
The villagecommunity.
It was probably to the difficulty of supporting existence produced by the increase of population that the more continuous pursuit of agriculture was due; and it would therefore be first regularly followed by the less warlike tribes, whose territory had been curtailed by the incursions of their bolder neighbours. No longer able to seek pasture over so extended an area as formerly, and with perhaps an increasing population, they would find the necessity of obtaining from the land a greater proportionate supply of subsistence than they had obtained hitherto. Agriculture would therefore have to be pursued more regularly and laboriously, and thus the habit of settlement would gradually be acquired. Under this influence we may discern a change taking place in the social state of the Aryan tribes. Gradually they become less nomadic and more agricultural; and as this takes place, there arises also a change in the relations of peoples to each other. We should naturally expect considerable variety in the effects produced on different nations by the adoption of a settled life. The results depend upon climate and locality, upon the kind of civilization chosen, and the special idiosyncrasies of the people who adopt it. All theseelements had their share in moulding the life of the Aryans when they became an agricultural people. Yet we find, nevertheless, one special type of society to have been the prevailing type among them. This form of society is called the Village Community. It possesses some features apparently so peculiarly its own, that it would be difficult to decide on the cause of its adoption or growth. It will be safer with our present limited knowledge to be satisfied with noting the more marked characteristics of this form of society, and the localities in which it may be traced; and not attempt to determine whether it is to be regarded as a natural resultant of the settlement of patriarchal families, or as inherited or evolved by some particular groups of tribes.
The village community in its simplest state consisted of a group of families, or households, whose dwellings were generally collected together within an enclosure. To this group belonged a certain tract of land, the cultivation and proprietorship of which were the subject of minute regulations. The regulations varied in different localities to a certain extent, but they were based on the division of the land into three principal parts, viz. (1) the land immediately in the neighbourhood of the dwellings, (2) another part specially set aside for agricultural purposes, and (3) the remaining portion of the surrounding open country, which was used only for grazing. Each of these divisions was regarded as in some sort the common property of the village; but the rights of individuals in some of them were more extensive than in others. That part of the land which was annexed especially to the dwellings was more completely the property of the different inhabitants than any other. Each head of a house was entitled to the particular plot attached to his dwelling, and probably these plots, and the dwellings to which they were annexed, remained alwayspractically in the ownership of the same family. The area of this section, however, was very insignificant when compared with the remainder of the communal estate. In this the arable land was divided into a number of small plots, each or several of which were assigned to particular households. The mode of division was very various; but generally speaking, either each household had an equal share assigned to it, or else a share in proportion to the number of its males. Redistributions of the shares took place either at stated periods, or whenever circumstances had rendered the existing division inequitable. Each household cultivated the particular share assigned to it, and appropriated to its own use the crops produced; but individuals were never allowed themselves to settle the mode of cultivation that they might prefer. The crops to be sown, and the part of land on which they were to be sown, were all regulated by the common assembly of the whole village, as were also the times for sowing and for harvest, and every other agricultural operation; and these laws of the assembly had to be implicitly followed by all the villagers. The third portion, open or common land of the village, was not divided between the households at all; but every member of the community was at liberty to pasture his flocks and herds upon it.
In their relations to each other the villagers seem to have been on a footing of perfect equality. It is probable that there existed generally some sort of chief, but his power does not appear to have been very great, and for the most part he was merely a president of their assemblies, exercising only an influence in proportion to his personal qualifications. The real lawgivers and rulers of this society were the different individuals who constituted the assembly. These, however, did not comprise all the inhabitants ofthe village. Only the heads of the different families were properly included in the village assembly. But the household had no longer the same extended circle as formerly, and, so far as we can gather, there seems to have been little check on the division of families and the formation of new households.
It must be borne in mind, however, that we have no existing institution exactly resembling the village community, such as we may suppose it to have originally been. As with the patriarchal family, we meet with it only after it has undergone considerable modification, and we have to reconstruct it from such modified forms and traditions as remain to us. Many minor details of its nature are therefore necessarily matters of speculation. The community, however, may still be found in a changed form in several localities; notably among the peasantry in Russia, where it bears the name of themir, and among the native population of India. Its former existence among the Teuton tribes is attested by the clearest evidence. With each of these peoples, however, the form is somewhat varied from what we may conclude to have been its original nature; in each country it has been subject not only to the natural growth and development which every institution is liable to, but to special influences arising from the events connected with the nation’s history, and from the nature and extent of its territory. But before we inquire what these different influences may have been, let us notice first certain leading characteristics of this group, and consider how they probably arose.
The first thing that we notice is the change in the source of authority in the Village Community as compared with that which existed in the patriarchal family. The ruling power is no longer placed in the hands of an individual
The assemblyofhouseholders.
chief, but is vested in an assembly of all the householders. The second marked peculiarity is the common possession of nearly all the land by the village, combined with the individual possession of goods of a movable nature by the different members. These may be said to be the two essentials of a true village community. Now the change from the patriarchal to this later social form may have taken place by either of two processes—the extension of an individual family into a community, or the amalgamation of various families. Probably both of these processes took place; but wherever anything like the formation of a village community has been actually observed, and the process has occasionally been discernible even in modern times in India, it is due to the former of the two causes indicated. This mode of formation also appears to have left the most distinct impress on society, and we will therefore notice first how it probably acted.
When a family had devoted itself to agricultural pursuits, and settled in a fixed locality, one of those divisions of its members might take place which probably were of frequent occurrence in the nomadic state. Although theoretically we speak of the patriarchal family as united and indivisible, yet as a matter of fact we know that it could not always have been so, and that families must frequently have either split up, or else sent off little colonies from their midst. Now, we have seen how marked an effect the settlement of the family must have had in preserving a permanent connection between that family and the households which sprang out of it. The separation between the older and the younger households would be by no means so complete as formerly. The subsidiary family would continue in close intercourse with the elder branch, and would enjoy with itthe use of the land which had been appropriated. In course of time it might happen that a whole group of families would thus become settled near each other, all united by a common origin and enjoying in common the land surrounding the settlement. The desire for mutual protection, which would often be felt, would alone be a strong inducement to preserve the neighbourhood between those who through kinship were allies by nature and tradition. Thus, though each separate family would continue in its internal relations the peculiarities of the patriarchal rule, the heads of the different families would be related to each other by quite a new tie. They would not be members of one great family all subservient to a common chief. They would be united simply by the bond of their common interests.
In this way, no doubt, sprang up a new relationship between the family chiefs, a relationship not provided for in the construction of the patriarchal family. We might expect perhaps that a special pre-eminence would be accorded to the original family from which the others had separated, and possibly some traces of this pre-eminence may here and there be discovered. Why we have not more traces of it may be difficult to explain. For upon the whole the relationship among the different heads of households seems generally to be one of equality. As we do not know exactly by what process families became divided, it is useless to speculate how this equality arose. Alongside of this new reign of equality among the different patriarchs or heads of households, went a decrease in the power of the patriarch within his own circle. The family had ceased to be the bond of union of the community at large, albeit the units composing the new combination were themselves groups constructed on the patriarchal type; so that the fact that they were now only parts of larger groups had the effect ofweakening the force of patriarchal customs. When the household was the only state of which an individual was a member, to leave it was to lose all share in its rights and property, to become an outlaw in every possible sense. But when the family became part of the village, the facilities for separating from it were necessarily increased. Households would more readily subdivide, now that after separation their component parts continued united in the community. Thus by degrees the old patriarchal life decayed, and gave place to this new and more elastic social formation. The importance of an individual’s relation to the family became less, that of the family to the community became greater; so that in time the community took to itself the regulation of many affairs originally within the exclusive power of the patriarch.
With these changes in social life came new theories of rights and obligations. A new lesson was learnt with regard to property. It is difficult to discern whether, in the older, the patriarchal society, the property was regarded as exclusively that of the chief, or as belonging to the family collectively. The truth seems to be that the two ideas were blended, and neither was conceived with any clearness or completeness. In the village community for the first time the two forms of property, personal and communal, became fully distinguished; each kind, by defining and limiting, producing a clearer idea of the other. The land, the bond of union, and the limit of the extent of the community, remained the common property of all; in part, no doubt, because the idea of possessing land was still so new that it had not been thoroughly grasped. The produce of the land, whether corn or pasture, was, on the other hand, rather regarded as a proper subject of private possession. At first, perhaps, in obedience to the habits of an earlier life, even this mayhave been looked upon as common property. But it did not long continue so, as the separation of the households remained too complete to permit of any community with regard to the possessions of the individual homestead, or of the produce required for the support of each household; and this enforced separation of household goods soon extended to the live stock, and to the produce of the harvest.[54]
Law.
The effects produced by their new relation to each other upon the individual members of this group were very important. Hitherto such idea of law as existed was confined to the mandates or traditional regulations of the patriarchs. Law was at first inseparably connected with religion. It was looked upon as a series of regulations handed down by some ancestor who had received the regulations by Divine inspiration. This notion of the origin of law is so general, that it is to be met with in the traditions of almost every nation. Thus we find the Egyptians reputing their laws to the teachings of Hermes (Thoth); while the lawgivers of Greece, Minôs and Lycurgus, are inspired, the one by Zeus the other by Apollo. So too the Iranian lawgiver Zoroaster is taught by the Good Spirit; and Moses receives the commandments on Mount Sinai. Now, though this idea of law is favourable to the procuring obedience to it, it produces an injurious effect on the law itself, by rendering it too fixed and unalterable. Law, in order to satisfy the requirements and changes of life, should be elastic and capable of adaptation; otherwise, regulations which in their institution were beneficial willsurvive to be obnoxious under an altered condition of society. But so long as laws are regarded as Divine commands they necessarily retain a great degree of rigidity. The village community, in disconnecting the source of law from the patriarchal power, tended to destroy this association. The authority of the patriarch was a part of the religion of the early Aryans; he was at once the ruler and the priest of his family; and though this union between the two characters long continued to have great influence on the conception of law, the first efforts at a distinction between Divine and human commands sprang from the regulations adopted by the assembly of the village. The complete equality and the joint authority exercised by its members was an education in self-government, which was needed to enable them to advance in the path of civilization, teaching them the importance of self-dependence and individual responsibility.
Those who learnt that lesson best displayed in their history the greatness of its influence, having gained from it a vigour and readiness to meet and adapt themselves to new requirements such as was never possessed by those absolute monarchies which sprang out of an enlarged form of the principle of patriarchal government. The history of the various states which arose in Asia, each in its turn to be overwhelmed in a destruction which scarcely left a trace of its social influence, exhibits in a very striking manner the defects which necessarily ensue when a people ignorant of social arts attempts to form an extensive scheme of government. The various races who have risen to temporary empire by the chances of war in the East, have been in very many instances nomadic tribes whose habits had produced a hardihood which enabled them to conquer with ease their effeminate neighbours of the more settleddistricts, but whose social state was not sufficiently advanced to allow them to carry on any extended rule. Used only to their simple nomadic life, they were suddenly brought face to face with wants and possessions of which they had hitherto had no experience, and which lay beyond the bounds of their customs or ideas. They contented themselves with exacting from the conquered such tribute as they could extort, leaving their new subjects to manage their own affairs much as they had done before, till the conquerors, gradually corrupted by the luxuries which their position afforded, and having failed to make for themselves any firm footing in their new empire, were in their turn overwhelmed by fresh hordes of nomadic invaders.
Such, indeed, may be the fate of any nation. Such was the fate of Rome. Her mighty empire, too, fell; but how different a record has she left behind from that of the short-lived monarchies of the East! Having learnt in her earliest infancy, better perhaps than any other nation, how to reconcile the conflicting theories of the household and the community, she never flagged in her study of the arts of government. Early imbued with a love of law and order, her people discovered in due time how to accommodate their rule to the various conditions of those which came under their sway. Her laws penetrated to the remotest boundaries of her state, and the rights of a Roman citizen were as clearly defined in Britain as in Rome itself. Thus the Romans have left behind them a system of law the wonder and admiration of all mankind, one which has left indelible marks on the laws and customs, the arts and civilization, of every country which once formed part of their dominions.
Such were among the changes resulting from the adoption of the village community; but their influences only graduallyasserted themselves, and the extent of their development was very various among different peoples. In India, the religious element in the household had always a peculiar force, and its influence continued to affect to a great extent the formation of the community. There this organization never lost sight of the patriarchal power, and has exhibited a constant tendency to revert to that more primitive social form. Among the Slavonic tribes the community seems to have found its most favourable conditions, and some of the reasons for this are not difficult to discern. The Slavs in Russia have for a long time had open to them an immense tract of thinly inhabited country, their only rivals to the possession of which were the Finnish tribes of the north. Now, the village community is a form peculiarly adapted for colonization, and this process of colonizing fresh country by sending out detachments from over-grown villages seems to have gone on for a long time in Russia; so that the communities which still exist there present a complete network; all are bound by ties of nearer or more distant relationship to each other; every village having some ‘mother-village’ from which it has sprung.[55]Having a practically boundless territory awaiting their settlement, none of those difficulties in obtaining land which led to the decay of the village in western Europe affected the Russians in their earlier history.
With the Teutons the village had a somewhat different history. It is difficult to determine exactly to what extent it existed among them; but traces of its organization are still discoverable among the laws and customs of Germany and England. The warlike habits of the German tribes, however, soon produced a marked effect on this organization.The chief of the village, whether hereditary or elective, was under normal conditions possessed of but little power. Among a warlike people, however, the necessity for a captain or dictator must have been much greater than with peaceful tribes; for war requires, more than any other pursuit, that it should be directed by an individual mind. Among the peaceful inhabitants of India or Russia the village head-man was generally some aged and venerable father exercising a sort of paternal influence over the others through the reverence paid to his age and wisdom. The habits of the Teutons gave an excessive importance to the strength and vigour of manhood, and they learnt to regard those who exhibited the greatest skill in battle as their natural chieftains.
Wehave hitherto been occupied in tracing the growth of inventions which had for their end the supply of material wants, or the ordering of conditions which should enable men to live peaceably together in communities, and defend the products of their labour from the attacks of rival tribes and warlike neighbours. A very little research into the relics of antiquity, however, brings another side of human thought before us, and we discover, whether by following the revelations of language or by examining into the traces left in ancient sites, abundant proof to show that the material wants of life did not alone occupy the thoughts of our remote ancestors any more than our own, and that even while the struggle for life was fiercest, conjectures about the unseen world and the life beyond the grave, and aspirations towards the invisible source of life and light they felt to be around them, occupied a large space in their minds. God did not leave them without witness at any time, but caused the ‘invisible things to be shown by those that do appear.’ And even in the darkest ages and among the least-favoured races there were always to be found some minds that vibrated, however feebly, to the suggestions of this teaching,and shaped out for themselves and their tribe some conception of a Divine Ruler and His government of the world from those works of His hands of which their senses told them. Before commerce, or writing, or law had advanced beyond their earliest beginnings, religious rites and funeral rites had no doubt been established in every tribe, and men’s thoughts about God and His relationship to His creatures had found some verbal expression, some sort of creed in which they could be handed down from father to son and form a new tie to bind men together. The task of tracing back these rites and creeds to their earliest shape is manifestly harder than that of tracing material inventions, or laws between man and man, to their first germs, for we are here trenching on some of the deepest questions which the human mind is capable of contemplating—nothing less, indeed, than the nature of conscience and the dealings of God Himself with the souls of His creatures. We must therefore tread cautiously, be content to leave a great deal uncertain, and, making up our minds only on such points as appear to be decided by revelation, accept on others the results of present researches as still imperfect, and liable to be modified as further light on the difficult problems in consideration is obtained.