214 Evolution of Society. 



"May there be successively born of our line sons who, in 

 all coming time, may offer us rice boiled in milk, honey, 

 and clarified butter." Negligence of the son's duty to make 

 these libations and sacrifices was not only the grossest pos- 

 sible act of impiety, but was nothing less than the crime 

 of parricide, multiplied as many times as there were ances- 

 tors in the family. So long as these attentions were con- 

 tinued the ancestors were the protecting gods of the family, 

 providing for them, driving away and inflicting diseases 

 upon all those who approached who had not descended 

 lineally from them. Marriage among the Greeks and Ro- 

 mans was controlled by the same principles ; the continuity 

 of the family, — survival, — was the subject of most jealous 

 care; adultery was most impious, as it might taint their 

 very god-head ; celibacy was forbidden ; divorce for sterility 

 was enforced ; the women of the family were made subor- 

 dinate ; the rights of property were fixed exclusively in the 

 head of the family ; the right of succession and inheritance 

 was controlled, and almost every act of life was regulated 

 by this system. Their gods guarded the boundaries of the 

 landed property of the family, and, later, of the tribe and city 

 or State, with exceedingly jealous care, as they supposed. 



Every house had its altar and altar-fire, renewed once 

 every year, and carefully kept meantime, and was the 

 source of moral order in the family state. This altar-fire 

 was concealed from outsiders, as were also the ceremonies, the 

 creeds, the chants, the hymns and the prayers, which were 

 "transmitted only from the father-priest to the son destined 

 to be the priest when the father had become one of the 

 family gods. Justice for the wife, the sons, daughters and 

 retainers rested in the house, and in no external city or 

 State, in the beginning; the father as judge might take 

 away the life of any member of the family, — wife, son, 

 daughter or other. Strange as it may seem to us, this sys- 

 tem developed great strength and endurance, and a high 

 order of society. 



Sir Henry Maine defines the controlling characteristic of 

 Ancient Society, thus founded, by the word Stattis; and the 

 Modern Society, or the society that took its place, as being- 

 founded on Contract; the former being a natural state or 

 condition, and the latter — in which we are now living — 

 being reached by consideration, examination and discussion, 

 resulting in agreement or contract. 



