290 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



to new and specialized forms, and so in like manner, did 

 the tribe. The old series of organizations making up the 

 ethnic nation were supplanted bj^ compact kindreds, ham- 

 lets and towns. "This patriarchal kindred wherever 

 found, as among the Aryans of India, the Greeks, the 

 Slavs, the Celts, and the Germans, normally consists of 

 five generations of descendants of a common ancestor, 

 dwelling together as a community, sometimes as a joint 

 family, and owning an undivided estate. At the end of 

 the fifth generation the estate is divided, and each of the 

 male heirs may be the first ancestor of a new kindred 

 that will hold together, as before, for five generations." ^' 

 This system recommends itself to our common sense when 

 we consider that five generations is all that the average 

 man can ever know of his kindred. His personal ac- 

 quaintance seldom extends beyond his grandfather, and 

 rarely to his great-grandsons ; thus any given individual, 

 his father and grandfather, his son and grandsons, may 

 constitute a five generation group. 



The patriarchal kindred occupied a definite territory, 

 but on their possessions were often found dwellers in 

 some sense attached to the kindred, though not strictly 

 members of it. These people were of different origins; 

 ' sometimes they were remnants of a conquered people, 

 often they were individuals from shattered kindreds else- 

 where who, by some service, had won the hospitality or 

 protection of the proprietary kindred. By adoption they 

 were often taken into participation in some of its priv- 

 ileges. Although commonly organized in partial imita- 

 tion of the patriarchal kindred, these individuals were 

 always on a basis of strict equality among themselves. 

 In return for the privileges of occupying the land, they 



2-! JUd., p. 481. 



