SKETCH OF MODERN AGRICULTURE 35 



Out of the patriarchal family developed the tribe, a large 

 group of related families claiming descent from a common 

 male ancestor. One significant fact regarding patriarchal 

 society is that it was based upon kinship rather than upon 

 neighborhood or residence in a given geographical area. It 

 would never have occurred to a member of such a society or 

 tribe that you were entitled to a share in his government or his 

 religion merely because you happened to be his neighbor or to 

 live in the same territory. Unless you were born a kinsman of 

 his, you were not a member of his tribe, and you could 

 nor have his religion unless you were made a make-believe 

 kinsman by the process of adoption. 



Property in land. While private capital came to play an 

 important part in the pastoral economy, there were only the 

 beginnings of property in land. The idea that one man had a 

 better right than another to pasture his flocks upon a given 

 piece of land would at first have seemed monstrous indeed. 

 However, by mutual agreement it came to be understood in 

 some cases that each herdsman or the head of each pastoral 

 group was to restrict his cattle to certain lands. Thus in 

 Genesis xm we are told how Abraham and Lot agreed to 

 separate, and each to restrict himself to a given territory, because 

 land was getting scarce, or rather because their herds and 

 herdsmen were getting so numerous as to invite quarrels. This 

 was a beginning of the idea of property in land, for whenever 

 men begin to think in terms of " mine and thine " they are 

 beginning to think in terms of property. However, in this case 

 it was not strictly private property, but rather group or tribal 

 property, for the patriarchal family was a considerable group, 

 of which the patriarch was the head. 



Village communities. As this process went on and families 

 grew into tribes, and tribes increased in numbers, each tribe 

 would be more and more restricted in its area. When a definite 



