274 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



most coherent societies. In two allied, yet distinguishable, 

 ways, does monogamy favour social solidarity. 



Unlike the children of the polyandric family, who are 

 something less than half brothers and sisters (see 300, note), 

 and unlike the children of the polygynic family, most of 

 whom are only half brothers and sisters, the children of the 

 monogamic family are, in the great majority of cases, all of 

 the same blood on both sides. Being thus themselves more 

 closely related, it follows that their clusters of children are 

 more closely related ; and where, as happens in early stages, 

 these clusters of children when grown up continue to form a 

 community, and labour together, they are united alike by 

 their kinships and by their industrial interests. Though 

 with the growth of a family group into a gens which spreads, 

 the industrial interests divide, yet these kinships prevent the 

 divisions from becoming as marked as they would otherwise 

 become. And, similarly, when the gens, in course of time, 

 develops into the tribe. Nor is this all. If local cir 



cumstances bring together several such tribes, which are still 

 allied in blood though more remotely, it results that when, 

 seated side by side, they are gradually fused, partly by inter- 

 spersion and partly by intermarriage, the compound society 

 formed, united by numerous and complicated links of kin 

 ship as well as by political interests, is more strongly bound 

 together than it would otherwise be. Dominant ancient 

 societies illustrate this truth. Says Grote &quot;All that we 

 hear of the most ancient Athenian laws is based upon the 

 gentile and phratric divisions, which are treated throughout 

 as extensions of the family.&quot; Similarly, according to Momm- 

 sen, on the &quot; Eoman Household was based the Roman 

 State, both as respected its constituent elements and its form. 

 The community of the Roman people arose out of the junc 

 tion (in whatever way brought about) of such ancient clan 

 ships as the Romilii, Voltinii, Fabii, &c.&quot; And Sir Henry 

 Maine has shown in detail the ways in which the simple 

 family passes into the house -community, and eventually the 



