Chapter 60

179Encyclopédie méthodique, Jurisprudence, vii. 77, art. Puissance paternelle.

180Supra,p. 393sq.

181Westermarck,op. cit.p. 236.

The new religion was anything but unfavourable to this process of emancipation. The ethical precept of filial piety was changed by Christ. His church was a militant church. He had come not to send peace but a sword, “to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother.”182Being chiefly addressed to the young, the new teaching naturally caused much disorder in families. Fathers disinherited their converted sons,183and children thought that they owed no duty to their parents where such a duty was opposed to the interests of their souls. According to Gregory the Great, we ought to ignore our parents, hating them and flying from them when they are an obstacle to us in the way of the Lord;184and this became the accepted theory of the Church.185Nay, it was not only in similar cases of conflict that Christianity exercised a weakening influence on family ties which had previously been regarded with religious veneration. In all circumstances the relationship between child and parent was put in the shade by the relationship between man and God. “Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in Heaven.”186“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”187At the same time the fifth commandment, though modified by considerations which would never have occurred to the mind of an orthodox Jew, was left formally intact. Obedience to parents was, in fact, repeatedly enjoined by St. Paul as a Christian duty.188It was regarded as a prerequisitefor the veneration of God. “If we do not honour and reverence our parents, whom we ought to love next to God, and whom we have almost continually before our eyes, how can we honour or reverence God, the supreme and best of parents, whom we cannot see?”189

182St. Matthew, x. 34sq.St. Luke, xii. 51sqq.

183Tertullian,Apologeticus, 3 (Migne,Patrologiæ cursus, i. 280sq.).

184St. Gregory the Great,Homiliæ in Evangelia, xxxvii. 2 (Migne,op. cit.lxxvi. 1275).

185Thomas Aquinas,Summa theologica, ii.-ii. 101. 4.

186St. Matthew, xxiii. 9.

187St. Luke, xiv. 26.

188Ephesians, vi. 1sqq.Colossians, iii. 20.

189Catechism of the Council of Trent, iii. 5. 1.

Ancient, deep-rooted ideas die slowly. Whilst among Teutonic peoples the grown-up child is recognised both by custom and law as independent of the parents, and the parental authority over minors is regarded merely in the light of guardianship,190the Roman notions of paternal rights and filial duties have to some extent survived in Latin countries, not only through the Middle Ages, but up to the present time. “Above the majesty of the feudal baron,” says M. Bernard, “that of the paternal power was held still more sacred and inviolable. However powerful the son might be, he would not have dared to outrage his father, whose authority was in his eyes always confounded with the sovereignty of command.”191Du Vair remarks, “Nous devons tenir nos pères comme des dieux en terre.”192Bodin wrote, in the later part of the sixteenth century, that, though the monarch commands his subjects, the master his disciples, the captain his soldiers, there is none to whom nature has given any command except the father, “who is the true image of the great sovereign God, universal father of all things.”193According to edicts of Henry III., Louis XIII., and Louis XIV., sons could not marry before the age of thirty, nor daughters before the age of twenty-five, without the consent of the father and mother, on pain of being disinherited.194And even now in France considerable power is accorded to parents, not only by custom and public sentiment, but by law. A child cannot quit the paternal residence without the permission of the father before the age of twenty-one, except for enrolmentin the army.195For grave misconduct by his children the father has strong means of correction.196A son under twenty-five and a daughter under twenty-one could not until 1907 marry without parental consent;197and even when a man had attained his twenty-fifth year and a woman her twenty-first, both were still bound to ask for it, by a formal notification.198

190Starcke,La famille dans les différentes sociétés, p. 213sqq.

191Bernard, quoted in Spencer’sDescriptive Sociology, France, p. 38.

192Du Vair, quoted by de Ribbe,Les familles et la société en France avant la Révolution, p. 51.

193Bodin,De republica, i. 4, p. 31.

194Koenigswarter,Histoire de l’organisation de la famille en France, p. 231.

195Code Civil, art. 374.

196Ibid.art. 375sqq.

197Ibid.art. 148.

198Ibid.art. 151.

The parental authority depends, in the first place, on the natural superiority of parents over their children when young, and on the helplessness of the latter; and for similar reasons the daughter, though grown-up, still remains in her father’s power. Parents are, moreover, considered to possess in some measure proprietary rights over their offspring, being their originators and maintainers;199and in various cases, it seems, the father is also regarded as their owner because he is the owner of their mother. Filial duties and parental rights to some extent spring from the children’s natural feeling of affection for their parents,200particularly for their mother,201and from the debt of gratitude which they are considered to owe to those who have brought them into existence and taken care of them whilst young.202The authority of parents is much enhanced and extended by the sentiment of filial reverence, as distinct from mere affection. From their infancy children are used to look up to their parents,especially the father, as to beings superior to themselves; and this feeling, which by itself has a tendency to persist, is all the more likely to last even when the parents get old, as it is based not only on superior strength and bodily skill, but on superior knowledge, which remains though the physical power be on the wane. Among savages, in particular, filial regard is largely regard for one’s elders or the aged. The old men represent the wisdom of the tribe. “Long life and wisdom,” say the Iroquois, “are always connected together.”203Throughout all West Africa the aged are “the knowing ones.”204In his work on the Algerian natives M. Villot observes:—“Les vieillards, au milieu des sociétés barbares, représentent la tradition qui tient lieu de patrie; la science des coutumes et usages qui remplacent la loi; la connaissance des généalogies qui fixe les degrés de parenté et sert de base à la détermination des titres de propriété. Pour ces causes, aussi bien qu’en raison de leur faiblesse et de leurs cheveux blancs, le respect pour les vieillards est de règle au milieu des indigènes.”205Among people who possess no literature the old men are the sole authorities on religion, as well as on custom. In Australia the deference shown to them is partly due to the superstitious awe of certain mysterious rites which are known to them alone, and to the knowledge of which young persons are only very gradually admitted.206Moreover, old age itself inspires a feeling of mysterious awe. The Moors say that, when getting old, a man becomes a saint, and a woman ajinnía, or evil spirit—there is something supernatural in both. Among the East African Embe “it is only by means of the rankest superstition that the old men are able to maintain their supremacy over the hot-blooded youths”; they convince the warriors, by presenting themwith some magic emblem, that in the hands of the sages alone rest the fate and fortune of those who fight in a battle. And old women, also, are often believed to possess supernatural power, in which case their influence, in spite of the subservient position of their sex in general, is almost as great as that of a medicine-man.207According to the beliefs of the natives of Western Victoria, witches always appear in the form of an old woman.208Among the Maoris some of the aged women exercise the greatest influence over their tribes, being supposed to possess the power of witchcraft and sorcery.209Among the Abipones, says Charlevoix, “the old women take upon them to be great witches; and it would be no easy matter to convert them.”210In Arabia, as well as in Morocco, old women are always believed to be skilled in sorcery.211

199Cf.Vasishtha, xv. 1sq.;Bandháyana Parisishta, vii. 5. 2sq.

200For instances of filial affection among savages see Catlin,North American Indians, ii. 242; Powers,Tribes of California, p. 112 (Mattoal); Selenka,Sonnige Welten, p. 34 (Dyaks); Seemann,Viti, p. 193; Mathew, ‘Australian Aborigines,’ inJour. & Proceed. Roy. Soc. N.S. Wales, xxiii. 388.

201For instances of great affection for the mother, see Munzinger,Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 474 (Barea and Kunáma); Winterbottom,Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, i. 211; Park,Travels in the Interior of Africa, p. 241; New,op. cit.p. 101 (Wanika); François,Nama und Damara, Deutsch-Süd-West-Afrika, p. 251 (Mountain Damaras); Rowley,Africa Unveiled, p. 164; Lane,Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, p. 70sq.; Urquhart,op. cit.ii. 265sq.(Turks); Schmidt,Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 146, 155. It is said in the Talmud that the child loves its mother more than its father, whilst it fears its father more than its mother (Deutsch,Literary Remains, p. 55).

202Hsiáo King, 9 (Sacred Books of the East, iii. 479).Laws of Manu, ii. 227. Plato,Leges, iv. 717.

203Loskiel,History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians in North America, i. 15.

204Kingsley,West African Studies, p. 142.

205Villot,Mœurs, coutumes et institutions des indigènes de l’Algérie, p. 47.

206Schuermann, ‘Aboriginal Tribes of Port Lincoln,’ in Woods,Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 226.Cf.Nelson, ‘Eskimo about Bering Strait,’ inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.xviii. 304.

207Chanler,op. cit.pp. 247, 252.

208Dawson,Australian Aborigines, p. 52.

209Angas,Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand, i. 317.

210Charlevoix,History of Paraguay, i. 406.

211Niebuhr,Travels in Arabia, ii. 216.

The beliefs held regarding the dead also influence the treatment of the aged whose lives are drawing to an end. Certain African tribes treat their old people with every kindness in order to secure their goodwill after death.212A missionary in East Africa heard a negro say with reference to an old man, “We will do what he says, because he is soon going to die.”213The Omahas “were afraid to abandon their aged on the prairie when away from their permanent villages lest Wakanda should punish them”;214and in this case it seems that Wakanda, at least originally meant the ghost of the dead. The Niase is an egoist ever in his respect for the old, because he hopes that they will protect and assist him when they are dead.215In China the doctrine that ghosts may interfere at any moment with human business and fate, either favourably or unfavourably, “enforces respect for human life and a charitabletreatment of the infirm, the aged, and the sick, especially if they stand on the brink of the grave.”216The regard for the aged and the worship of the dead are often mentioned together in a way which suggests that there exists an intrinsic connection between them. Of the Dacotahs Prescott observes, “Veneration is very great in some Indians for old age, and they all feel it for the dead.”217The worship of ancestors is a distinguishing characteristic of the religious system of Southern Guinea; the “profound respect for aged persons, by a very natural operation of the mind, is turned into idolatrous regard for them when dead.”218“The Barotse chiefly worship the souls of their ancestors…. Cognate to this worship of ancestors is the great respect displayed for parents and the old—especially the eldest of a family or tribe.”219Among the Herero “the tomb of a father is the most important of all holy places, the soul of a father the oracle most often consulted.”220The Aetas of the Philippine Islands “have a profound respect for old-age and for their dead.”221The Ossetes “show the greatest love and veneration to their parents, to old age generally, and especially to the memory of their ancestors.”222In cases like these, however, it is impossible accurately to distinguish between cause and effect. Whilst the worship of the dead is, in the first place, due to the mystery of death, it is evident that the regard in which a person is held during his lifetime also influences the veneration which is bestowed on his disembodied soul.

212Arnot,op. cit.p. 78, note.

213Lippert,Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit, i. 229.

214Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.iii. 369.Cf.ibid.p. 275.

215Modigliani,Viaggio a Nías, p. 467.

216de Groot,op. cit.(vol. iv. book) ii. 450.

217Prescott, in Schoolcraft,Indian Tribes of the United States, ii. 196.

218Wilson,Western Africa, p. 392sq.

219Decle,Three Years in Savage Africa, p. 74sq.

220François,op. cit.p. 192.

221Foreman,op. cit.p. 209.

222von Haxthausen,Transcaucasia, p. 414.

There are thus obvious reasons for the connection between filial submissiveness and religious beliefs; but the chief cause of this connection seems to be the extreme importance frequently attached to the curses and blessings of parents. Among the Nandi in Central Africa, “if ason refuses to obey his father in any serious matter, the father solemnly strikes the son with his fur mantle. This is equivalent to a most serious curse, and is supposed to be fatal to the son unless he obtains forgiveness, which he can only do by sacrificing a goat before his father.”223Among the Mpongwe “there is nothing which a young person so much deprecates as the curse of an aged person, and especially that of a revered father.”224The Barea and Kunáma are convinced that any undertaking which has not the blessing of the old people will fail, that every curse uttered by them must be destructive.225Among the Bogos nobody takes an employment or gives it up, nobody engages in a business or contracts a marriage, before he has received the blessing of his father or his master.226Among the Herero, “when a chief feels his dissolution approaching, he calls his sons to the bedside, and gives them his benediction.”227The Moors have a proverb that “if the saints curse you the parents will cure you, but if the parents curse you the saints will not cure you.” The ancient Hebrews believed that parents, and especially a father, could by their blessings or curses determine the fate of their children;228indeed, we have reason to assume that the reward which in the fifth commandment is held out to respectful children was originally a result of parental blessings. We still meet with the original idea in Ecclesiasticus, where it is said: “Honour thy father and mother both in word and deed, that a blessing may come upon thee from them. For the blessing of the father establisheth the houses of children; but the curse of the mother rooteth out foundations.”229The same notion that the parents’ blessings beget prosperity, and that their curses bring ruin, prevailed in ancient Greece. Plato saysin his ‘Laws’:—“Neither God, nor a man who has understanding, will ever advise any one to neglect his parents…. If a man has a father or mother, or their fathers or mothers treasured up in his house stricken in years, let him consider that no statue can be more potent to grant his requests than they are, who are sitting at his hearth, if only he knows how to show true service to them…. Oedipus, as tradition says, when dishonoured by his sons, invoked on them curses which every one declares to have been heard and ratified by the gods, and Amyntor in his wrath invoked curses on his son Phoenix, and Theseus upon Hippolytus, and innumerable others have also called down wrath upon their children, whence it is clear that the gods listen to the imprecations of parents; for the curses of parents are, as they ought to be, mighty against their children as no others are. And shall we suppose that the prayers of a father or mother who is specially dishonoured by his or her children, are heard by the gods in accordance with nature; and that if a parent is honoured by them, and in the gladness of his heart earnestly entreats the gods in his prayers to do them good, he is not equally heard, and that they do not minister to his request?… Therefore, if a man makes a right use of his father and grandfather and other aged relations, he will have images which above all others will win him the favour of the gods.”230Originally the efficacy of parents’ curses and blessings were ascribed to a magic power immanent in the spoken word itself, and their Erinyes, who were no less terrible than the Erinyes of neglected guests,231were only personifications of their curses.232But in this, as in other similar cases already noticed, the fulfilment of the curse or the blessing came afterwards to be looked upon as an act of divine justice. According to Plato, “Nemesis, the messenger of justice,” watches over unbecoming words utteredto a parent;233and Hesiod says that if anybody reproaches an aged father or mother “Zeus himself is wroth, and at last, in requital for wrong deeds, lays on him a bitter penalty.”234It also seems to be beyond all doubt that thedivi parentumof the Romans, like theirdii hospitales, were nothing but personified curses. For it is said, “If a son beat his parent and he cry out, the son shall be devoted to the parental gods for destruction.”235In aristocratic families in Russia children used to stand in mortal fear of their fathers’ curses;236and the country people still believe that a marriage without the parents’ approval will call down the wrath of Heaven on the heads of the young couple.237Some of the Southern Slavs maintain that if a son does not fulfil the last will of his father, the soul of the father will curse him from the grave.238The Servians say, “Without reverence for old men, there is no salvation.”239

223Johnston,Uganda Protectorate, ii. 879.

224Wilson,Western Africa, p. 393.

225Munzinger,Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 475.

226Idem,Sitten der Bogos, p. 90sq.

227Andersson,Lake Ngami, p. 228.

228Genesis, ix. 25sqq.; xxvii. 4, 19, 23, 25, 27sqq.; xlviii. 9, 14sqq.; xlix. 4, 7sqq.Judges, xvii. 2.Cf.Cheyne, ‘Blessings and Cursings,’ inEncyclopædia Biblica, i. 592; Nowack, ‘Blessing and Cursing,’ inJewish Encyclopedia, iii. 244.

229Ecclesiasticus, iii. 8sq.Cf.ibid.iii. 16.

230Plato,Leges, xi. 930sq.Cf.ibid.iv. 717.

231Aeschylus,Eumenides, 545sqq.

232SeeIliad, xxi. 412sq.; Sophocles,Œdipus Coloneus, 1299, 1434; von Lasaulx,Der Fluch bei Griechen und Römern, p. 8; Müller,Dissertations on the Eumenides, p. 155sqq.; Rohde, ‘Paralipomena,’ inRheinisches Museum für Philologie, 1895, p. 7.

233Plato,Leges, iv. 717.

234Hesiod,Opera et dies, 331sqq.(329sqq.).

235Servius Tullius, in Bruns,Fontes Juris Romani antiqui, p. 14, and Festus,De verborum significatione, ver.Plorare: “Si parentem puer verberit, ast olle plorassit, puer divis parentum sacer esto.”Cf.Leist,Alt-arisches Jus Civile, i. 184.

236I am indebted to Prince Kropotkin for this statement.

237Kovalewsky,Modern Customs and Ancient Laws of Russia, p. 37.

238Krauss,op. cit.p. 119.

239Maine,Early Law and Custom, p. 243.

In various instances the rewards or punishments attached to the behaviour of children seem to spring from the belief in parental blessings and curses, although the cause is not expressly mentioned. According to ancient Hindu ideas, a father, mother, and spiritual teacher are equal to the three Vedas, equal to the three gods, Brahman, Vishnu, and Siva.240A man who shows no regard for them derives no benefit from any religious observance; whereas, “by honouring his mother, he gains the present world; by honouring his father, the world of gods; and by paying strict obedience to his spiritual teacher, the world of Brahman.”241As in Greece a person who had assaulted his parent was regarded as polluted by a curse,242so accordingto the sacred law of India, those who quarrel with their father, and those who have forsaken their father, mother, or spiritual teacher, defile a company and must not be entertained at a Srâddha offering.243Those who have struck any of these persons cannot be readmitted until they have been purified with water taken from a sacred lake or river.244The stain of disobedience towards mother and father is purged away with barley-corns, like food which has been licked at by dogs or pigs, or defiled by crows and impure men.245In the Dhammapada it is said that to him who always greets and constantly reveres the aged four things will increase, namely, life, beauty, happiness, and power.246The Coreans believe that “the richest rewards on earth and brightest heaven hereafter await the filial child,” whereas “curses and disgrace in this life and the hottest hell in the world hereafter are the penalties of the disobedient or neglectful child.”247It seems to have been a notion of the ancient Egyptians that a son who accepted the word of his father would attain old age on that account.248The following is an exhortation which an Aztec gave to his son:—“Guard against imitating the example of those wicked sons who, like brutes that are deprived of reason, neither reverence their parents, listen to their instruction, nor submit to their correction; because whoever follows their steps will have an unhappy end, will die in a desperate or sudden manner, or will be killed and devoured by wild beasts.”249And if an Aztec married without the sanction of his parents, the belief was that he would be punished with some misfortune.250The Aleuts were of opinion that those who were attentive to feeble old men, expecting in exchange their good advice only, would be long-lived and fortunate in the chase and in war, and would not be neglected when growing oldthemselves.251In the Tonga Islands “disrespect to one’s superior relations is little short of sacrilege to the gods,” and to pay respect to chiefs is “a superior sacred duty, the non-fulfilment of which it is supposed the gods would punish almost as severely as disrespect to themselves.”252In the same islands great efficacy is ascribed to curses which are uttered by a superior.253

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