effect on the legal position. If the tie of blood were decisive, there would be an à priori reason for regarding the family as the foundation of the whole, and it is therefore remarkable that the importance of the family increases after it has ceased to insist on the tie of blood. The clan, however, loses its legal importance in the same proportion. The characteristic features which are here adduced will perhaps prove to be not unimportant. Enough has been said in this cursory estimate of our proposed inquiry into the way in which the clan became a group allied by blood, and the family became a privileged institution. It has always been assumed as an undoubted fact that the tie of blood which keeps the clan together is founded on the same ideas as those which unite the family. The clan represents a group actually allied in blood, and it has been supposed to be a matter of indifference whether the common descent which is ascribed to the members of a clan is founded on reality or on fiction; it is enough that the life of the clan should be dominated by the idea of their common descent. Starting from this assumption, the attempt has been made to ascertain whether the family is a new formation in the clan, or if, on the contrary, the clan is an enlargement of the family. The rights of a clan and of a family must correspond, whether the clan be nominally or in reality a group allied by blood. In the former case, the fiction shows that it is only the tie of blood which supports the theory of rights, and thus enables the clan to act as a great family, and in the latter case the same remark holds good. In either case it would be possible to infer the organization of the clan from that which the family is, or was. Such an inference would be correct if the clan and the family were organizations of the same nature, but, as we have already said, we cannot begin by admitting this as an à priori assumption. We find groups of kinsfolk in the first beginnings of our com munities, and this fact may be easily ascertained, but it is uncertain what is to be understood by the word "kinship." An inquiry into the original meaning and gradual development of the conception of kinship will constitute our first task, and only after this question has been decided can we apply ourselves to the special study of the family. SECTION I. THE DEFINITION OF KINSHIP. One-sided definition of kinship-À priori and empirical The IT has been already observed that, strictly speaking, a family group can never be completely detached, since the blood of the family flows from two sources. life of the child is given both by father and mother, and if kinship is to be defined by descent, both parents must be taken into account; the blood of both flows in the child's veins. Yet it seems that this view, which appears to us to be in accordance both with nature and with reason, is not accepted by many primitive peoples. Wherever the clan is concerned, the child is either exclusively, or at any rate by preference assigned to one or other of the parents. This fact has, especially of late, been noticed by several learned men, who draw from it conclusions with respect to the primitive form of the family and of marriage. If the application is founded on ideas of descent, it is easy to infer the nature of the marriage bond from the general character of the mode in which kinship is reckoned. If the child is referred to both parents, or to the father alone, it has been assumed that we may regard the connection between the sexes as being so permanent that there can as a rule be no doubt with respect to the fatherhood. On the other hand, the fatherhood is not taken into account when the sexual bond is a loose one, and under such circumstances the descent can only be reckoned on the mother's side. We find, indeed, a number of peoples in which this socalled female line prevails, and it has been inferred from this fact that the sexual relations of such races either still are, or were in not very remote times so unrestricted that there was no means of ascertaining the fatherhood; that is, that the primitive state was that of promiscuous intercourse. This conclusion does not appear to me to be perfectly just. Although it must be admitted that a child whose father is unknown can only be assigned to the mother, as is still the case with illegitimate children, yet the converse does not necessarily hold good, namely, that the only reason for admitting female descent is that the father is unknown. Agnation, or the reckoning of kinship through the father only, and not through the mother, is a fact parallel with that of female descent, yet no one has ever asserted that this is due to uncertainty with respect to the mother. The reckoning of kinship on one side only shows that, for some reason or other, no account is taken of one parent, but it in no way explains what that reason was. Here, if anywhere, an à priori interpretation is misleading, and no surmise is of any value except that which is supported by facts. We meet with one obstacle in the investigation of questions with respect to the meaning of one-sided lines of descent. Many learned men are too much disposed to seek for the explanation of a given custom in conditions of former times which have now perhaps disappeared. It is certain that customs persist by the force of habit, even when the conditions which first gave birth to them have long ceased to exist; yet it is scarcely 1 "It is inconceivable that anything but the want of certainty on that point (fatherhood) could have long prevented the acknowledgment of kinship through males" (McLennan, Studies, p. 129). Reference may also be made to other learned men-Spencer, Bachofen, some of Lubbock's writings, and, in a lower category, Engels, Lippert, Post, Wilken, Dargun, Giraud-Teulon, Kulischer, etc. Morgan takes up a position of his own. necessary to remark that this appeal to early times can only be effective when it has been shown to be impossible to discover the cause of such customs in the conditions under which they still continue. If this main principle is not accepted, we shall be led astray by every idle delusion. If we are able to trace the cause of a custom in existing circumstances, we must abide by that cause, and nothing but a definite historical account of the prior existence of the custom can induce us to seek for another explanation. When we take the instance before us, we find that descent through the female line still occurs in cases in which the fatherhood may be ascertained, and if there are other circumstances which may explain the maintenance of the female line, we must for the present accept these as the cause. Definite historical accounts have in some instances pointed to promiscuous intercourse as the cause for tracing descent through the female line, yet this does not imply that it was the universal cause; for it is not an axiom, but an hypothesis which requires proof, that the primitive form of human communities was in all cases the same. Since the female line of descent has hitherto been explained by the à priori method, and this explanation has served as a basis for far-reaching theories, we must, in the first instance, carefully consider its historical forms. This study, however, requires such ample material, and it involves so many other questions that it may interfere with the proportions of this work. We propose to inquire what is implied by the female line of descent; what causes it involves; whether it is in every community the original line of kinship; and whether it does or does not essentially differ from agnation. As, however, we shall meet with many erroneous opinions, nothing but the most patient methods of induction can lead to certain conclusions. We must go step by step, from one land, from one race to another, and we must request our readers not to shrink from the trouble of following us. |