world. A man and his property belonged not to himself, but to his entire kin, both that which was before and that which was to come after. The family did not exist for man, but man for the family. The archaic household, however, was essentially different from the modern family, with its ties of consanguinity, its limited parental authority, and its transient relationships. It was a permanent corporation having an individuality distinct from its members, possessing a sacerdotal purpose, and founded upon a unity of religious belief.1 Thus constituted, the household had a corporate character, was perpetual, inextinguishable, immortal, and a man's first duty was to provide for its safe continuance; until he had offspring to succeed him his duty to his ancestors was unfulfilled. The expansion of the household into the clan, and of the clan into the State, did not in any way alter this view of the relative importance of the individual and the group. The group was still of supreme importance. From this it resulted, as a matter of course, that the principle of the clan was collective liability. The members of the cian were bound together not merely by a common domestic worship, and a community of land; they were united by a mutual responsibility; for his kinsman's misdeeds, each man must answer, and for redressing his injuries, must lend assistance. A communism thus close demands, for its completion and preservation, a communism also in the matter of property. In the archaic household all property was owned by the household in common, while the use lay in the hands of the Father to be employed by him as dictated by custom. Since primitive man can neither obtain mental grasp of, nor consciously direct his life according to, great general principles, these customs must have regulated the very smallest details of life, and the action of the individual must have been fettered in every way conceivable. How minute the regulations of a primitive com 1 Aryan Household, p. 64. 2 Maine, Ancient Law, p. 126. 8 Ibid., p. 127. La Cité Antique. munism must be, we may gather from examining those in force, in recent times, among such tribes as the Australian aborigines. Among these tribes, the social life is almost entirely communistic; the scantiness of subsistence and the danger of famine render the regulations as to food especially minute, so that every animal, which a hunter may capture, is divided according to fixed custom based upon kinship. Thus, to quote an illustration from Letourneau “If a man has speared a mediumsized fish, the tail-end belongs to him; the other falls to his wife. If, on the contrary, a haul of little fish has been taken, six eels for instance, four of which are large and two small, the division is made thus: The man, his wife, and his maternal uncle with his wife have each a right to one of the big eels; the last reverts to the elder and younger brothers. Of the two remaining small eels, one is destined for the children of the mother's brother and the other, circumstances permitting, for the fisherman's married daughter and her husband."1 In such a society, unchanging custom regulates the entire life of the individual from the first moment of his existence to the last. It was the weakness of the individual and the necessity of mutual aid which drove men into union. The accumulation of property, even in its most rudimentary forms, removed that pressure. It may be doubted if the primitive communism was ever absolute. No matter what degree of equality might exist in a tribe, individuals were permitted to exercise a more or less exclusive right of property in those articles, weapons and utensils, which they themselves had made and which they alone had used. Whatever a man had manufactured was regarded as depending, in some sort, upon him; the articles which he formed were his creation, and had received a portion of his being; during his lifetime he was allowed a somewhat special ownership in them, and when he died they were broken and placed with him in the tomb, so that he might take them 1 Letourneau, Property, Its Origin and Development, p. 32. with him to the spirit-world and the future existence on which he had entered. When such a conception had been once. entertained, all that is essential in the idea of private property was present, and the institution had only to develop and grow in the course of social evolution. From private ownership of an object made by a man, to the appropriation of other things upon which he had impressed his personality, was but a short step easily taken. The tendency to confound the thing made with its maker, was soon extended so as to include not only the ground which he had cleared, and the crops which he had sown, but also the captives whom he had seized during successful forays, the women carried away, and the prisoners made slaves by him. Slaves formed the first species of property capable of indefinite increase. It was not until heavy labor, such as that of agriculture, had to be performed that slavery developed; when the tilling of the soil had grown in importance, the labor of women was displaced, or supplemented, by that of slaves. With the introduction of slavery, agriculture became more and more important, and so produced further capital admitting of accumulation and exchange. "The establishment of aristocracy and hereditary monarchic power has merely crowned this economic evolution, whereof the point of departure was slavery and the consequent development of agriculture, whence arose the rupture of primitive equality, creation of exchangeable values, development of private property, contrast between rich and poor, foundation of castes, and hereditary succession." 1 If we now return to the archaic household, it is possible briefly to indicate the transition from communism to individualism which directly preceded our own civilization. The corporate household was monarchic in principle. Over the living the Father ruled with an absolute sway. His was the power 1 Letourneau, Property, Its Origin and Development, p. 61. of life and death for all who were in his hand, but his government was not one of irresponsible caprice. His power was bounded by custom and he was responsible for all his acts to the House Spirits, whose representative on earth he was.1 There are no gradations in the power of an absolute monarch. The members of the ancient household may be divided into many classes, mother, sons, daughters, slaves, dependents. But although the circumstances of the individuals varied with their classes, there were no differences in their rights; strictly speaking they had no rights; they were all alike in the hand of the House Father. The son, indeed, may be said to have had a right of succession, but that was all; during the lifetime of his father he was as much a dependent as any slave.2 The position of women, whether as wives or daughters, afforded not even this prospect of ultimate liberty.3 Manes worship was a worship of males by males. Woman was, therefore, incapable of offering the needful sacrifices and so, of necessity, remained in a subject condition. Prior to marriage, she was in the hand of her father; after marriage, she served her husband's gods and passed into his power or that of his father, if living. Further, the proprietary rights of the household were vested in the Father. Over all the movables, the herds, the produce of the lands and the labor of his dependents, his power was absolute; but the land itself was inalienable, of it the Father had only the use, and on it rested, as a first charge, the burden of maintaining the sacred hearth and the not less sacred tomb.4 This corporate family, after slowly decaying for a thousand years, was finally destroyed by Christianity. During that long period it had undergone many alterations. The Father's power had been both increased and diminished. By the time of the Twelve Tables, it was possible for the paterfamilias to sell the originally inalienable land of the household. By public law, he was enabled to make a testamentary distribution 1 Aryan Household, p. 95. 2 Ibid., p. 91. of his property, and by the time of Antoninus Pius, the remedy for his debts lay, not against his person, but against his family possessions. But, in proportion as his proprietary rights increased, his potestas diminished. The corporate family, with the patria potestas, existing as an imperium in imperio, was incompatible with the full development of political authority. The rights of a father over his son and the rights of the State over its citizen, while sometimes conflicting, were at all times antagonistic. The progress of the State involved the decay of the paternal power in the family. Under the religious marriage with manus, the relation of husband and wife was only a particular application of the law of parent and child. The wife was not sui juris, but was in absolute subjection to her husband. The introduction of free marriages greatly changed the position of woman. She was no longer materfamilias; she was only uxor; but what she lost in dignity, she gained in liberty. She was now an equal partner with her husband. Whatever proprietary rights were hers before marriage, remained to her after it. She was on an equal footing with her husband both as to her capacity for acquiring, and for dealing with, her individual property. Her power over it was not The power of the father limited by any marital restrictions. over his sons and dependents was jealously watched, and gradually restricted by the State. Originally, the father had an absolute control over both the person and the possessions. of his son. By the time of Augustus, an exception was made in favor of the peculium castrense of the filiusfamilias miles, an exception which, after the reign of Diocletian, was extended to the official remuneration of all sons in public offices; while by the enactments of various Emperors, the power of life and death over sons and slaves was greatly reduced, if not altogether destroyed. But it was reserved for Christianity to deal the final blow. The religion of the hearth, and not natural affection, was the bond of union in the household. To that religion Christianity was, of necessity, hostile. As an uncompromising monotheism, |