284 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



could be stored and kept for long periods of time the day 

 of famine was less imminent than ever before, and 

 men could dwell in a security seldom previously experi- 

 enced. 



The .patriarchal organization of society was influenced 

 by this momentous economic change and now the religious 

 prerogatives of the family group took on added sig- 

 nificance. If men were generous to their housoliold gods 

 in gifts and sacrifices, then there would be bountiful har- 

 vests for man and beast. Thus, while the family may re- 

 gard natural objects and forces as animated by friendly 

 or evil spirits as before, they entertained for the soul of 

 the departed founder of the house the stronger feeling 

 of veneration. They thought of the ancestral spirit as 

 their friend and protector. To the ancestral spirit, 

 therefore, they paid their principal devotions. It was 

 believed that the soul had need of a dwelling-place and 

 of food and drink, for the soul that had no tomb, wan- 

 dered forever as a homeless spirit, and instead of being 

 a protecting power, it usually became a malevolent 

 ghost.^^ To secure the repose of the soul, its body must 

 be reverently buried and a tomb prepared where food 

 could be left and libations poured in accordance with 

 proper ceremony. Often there was an altar within the 

 house whereon there burned a sacred fire, extinguished 

 only after the entire family had perished.^^ 



Ancestor-worship reacted upon the domestic life ''and 

 marriage was arranged with reference to the transmission 

 of property and of priestly office to sons, and to the pres- 

 ervation of the integrity and continuity of the family 

 group." As none but a son could properly perform the 

 rites of the ancestral tomb, the patriarch of the house 



1-5 Giddings, Principles, p. 291. i''> Ibid, 



