FAMILLE JAUNE 



3O78 



FAMINE 



least reside in the same diocese. The 

 office became at one time an easy 

 ladder to ordination and prefer- 

 ment. Consequently, the council of 

 Trent decreed that a familiar could 

 not be ordained by his bishop un- 

 less he belonged to the same diocese 

 and had lived with him three years. 

 Familiars of the Holy Office were 

 officials of the Inquisition charged 

 with the duty of arresting and 

 imprisoning persons suspected of 

 heresy or other offences against the 

 spiritual authority. The name is 

 explained by reference to their ad- 

 mission into the confidence of the 

 Holy Office, as members of the 

 family. (See Inquisition.) 



Familiar was also the term ap- 

 plied to the spirit supposed to be 

 in the service of necromancers and 

 witches, incarnate sometimes in 

 the form of a black cat or other 

 animal. In this instance the idea 

 was derived from the universal 

 belief in a daemon, tutelar genius, 

 or guardian angel associated with 

 an individual from the moment of 

 birth. See Demonology. 



Famille Jaune (Fr.). Much of 

 the finest old Chinese pottery is 

 classified into family coloured 

 groups, according to the predomin- 

 ating tints used. The most es- 

 teemed are the famille rose, noire, 

 jaune, and verte (rose, black, yellow, 

 green). See Pottery. 



Family (Lat. familia). Group 

 comprising father and mother, with 

 their offspring. The unit of human 

 society, its roots are traceable in 

 the primeval life of mankind. 



The first modern attempt to 

 elucidate the origin of family life 

 was Maine's patriarchal theory 

 (1861). Based on Roman models, 

 it assumed that the primitive father 

 possessed uncontrolled power, the 

 patria potestas, over his house- 

 hold. This view was impugned by 

 MacLennan (1865), who postu- 

 lated a primeval promiscuity, out 

 of which emerged matriarchy, at- 

 tributed to uncertain paternity ; 

 and exagamy, due to the theoretic 

 kinship of the maternal clan ; 

 while communal marriage ulti- 

 mately broke up into polyandry 

 and polygyny. Working on similar 

 material Lewis Morgan (1870) ob- 

 served that in primitive communi- 

 ties it was more customary to de- 

 note kinship by " classificatory " 

 than by " descriptive " terms. The 

 main classes were five in number, a 

 man using the same words for all 

 persons within the clan of the 

 generations of his grandparents, 

 parents, brothers, children, and 

 grandchildren respectively. These 

 systems were hailed as further 

 evidence of a stage of communal 

 marriage preceding the growth of 

 family groups. 



Westermarck (1891) reverted to 

 Darwin's view (1871) that the 

 family was from the beginning 

 based upon the supremacy of the 

 individual father. When the " mat- 

 rimonial classes " of the Australian 

 aborigines, based on the totem, 

 were studied by Spencer and 

 Gillen, Howitt, and others, they 

 were held to point to a primitive 

 form of group-marriage. Subse- 

 quently Atkinson and Lang (1903) 

 suggested that the prohibition of 

 marriage within an incest-group 

 whence exogamy sprang was due 

 to the jealousy of the sire. The 

 theory of promiscuity is incon- 

 sistent with the evidence ; the wide- 

 spread variants of the normal family 

 are explicable on other grounds. 



In polygynous societies the 

 family is composed of sub-families, 

 which under the system of concu- 

 binage tend to become subordinate 

 to that of the chief wife. The closer 

 social relationship of the mother 

 with her own children obscures the 

 paternal status ; one outcome of 

 this is the toleration of union with 

 the half-sister, e.g. Abraham and 

 Sarah. 



The matriarchal system, impos- 

 ing rights and duties towards the 

 child, first upon the kinship group, 

 and afterwards, as their repre- 

 sentative, upon the mother's 

 brother, is a widespread social de- 

 vice for securing the observance 

 of tribal law. It may be reason- 

 ably attributed to the beginnings 

 of agriculture at the end of the 

 neolithic age, having been found 

 in Europe by the Aryan-speaking 

 peoples who spread westward, 

 bringing new conceptions of father- 

 right that lay at the base of patri- 

 archal society. This view is con- 

 firmed by the matriarchy of early 

 Egypt, and by the fact that patri- 

 archy was well established at the 

 dawn of Semitic history, which 

 antedated the Aryan family. 



In aboriginal America, where 

 social organizations were developed 

 on the neolithic f oundationbrought 

 from Eurasia, the family hi the 

 sense of the homestead or " house- 

 fire " is traceable at every cultural 

 level. See Kinship ; Marriage ; 

 Society. 



Family. In zoological classifi- 

 cation, term used for a group of 

 genera which resemble one another, 

 but are not marked by such im- 

 portant distinctive features as to 

 justify making them into an order. 

 For example, the domestic dog 

 belongs to the genus Canis, which, 

 with three other living genera and 

 several extinct ones, is included in 

 the family Canidae, or dog-like 

 mammals ; and this family forms 

 one of the groups of the order Car- 

 nivora, or flesh-eating mammals. 



Family Compact. Arrange 

 ments made in the 18th century be- 

 tween the kings of France and Spam 

 for the maintenance of an alliance 

 between them, the Bourbons being 

 the family then ruling over both 

 countries. There were three of 

 these compacts. On Nov. 7, 1733, 

 France and Spain signed a secret j 

 treaty directed against Austria, 

 with whom war quickly followed. I 

 In Oct., 1743, this alliance was 

 renewed in a new family compact, 

 directed mainly against Britain, 

 with whom Spain, but not France, 

 was then at war. War with France 

 quickly followed. A third was made 

 in 1761, when the Seven Years' 

 War was raging. By this Spain 

 entered the war. 



The term family compact was 

 applied to the domination of Upper 

 Canada or Ontario, by a narrow 

 circle of men, attached to England 

 and the English church, in the 

 early 19th century. 



Family Herald, THE. London 

 weekly journal of useful informa- 

 tion and amusement, " interesting 

 to all ; offensive to none," founded 

 in Dec., 1842, and the first period- 

 ical to be produced entirely by 

 machinery. Until May, 1843, it 

 was issued as a broadsheet, when 

 the patent machinery was given up. 

 The Rev. James E. Smith, M.A., 

 the universalist, was its first editor. 

 See "Shepherd" Smith the Uni- 

 versalist, W.Anderson Smith, 1892. 



Family of Love OR FAMILISTS. 

 Religious sect, founded by Henry 

 Niclaes, or Nicholas (c. 1502-80). 

 Influenced by the mystical teach- 

 ings of David Joris (1501-56), he 

 claimed to be a recipient of divine 

 revelations. The sect made its way 

 to England in the reign of Edward 

 VI, and had a few scattered follow- 

 ers. They taught that no one out- 

 side their sect could have a true 

 knowledge of God ; gave all the 

 chief doctrines of Christianity a 

 purely allegorical interpretation ; 

 and were extreme antinomians in 

 practice as well as in theory. They 

 became extinct about the middle 

 of the 17th century. 



Famine (Lat. fames, hunger). 

 Period of want or scarcity of food 

 supplies, usually confined to a more 

 or less restricted locality. Its chief 

 primary cause is deficiency of rain- 

 fall, but floods, frosts, storms, visi- 

 tations of insects or other pests, in- 

 adequate agricultural methods, ill- 

 directed labour, deficient trans- 

 port, and the ravages of war are 

 contributory causes. Neglect in the 

 storage of food frequently brings 

 about famine among primitive 

 peoples, but it is sometimes to be 

 accounted for by less obvious 

 reasons, such as wholesale defores- 

 tation, which gives rise to local 



