The Origin of the Family Private Property and the State by Frederick Engels (classic novels .txt) ๐
Klytaemnestra has killed her husband Agamemnon on his return from the Trojan war for the sake of her lover Aegisthos; but Orestes, her son by Agamemnon, avenges the death of his father by killing his mother. Therefore he is persecuted by the Erinyes, the demonic protectors of maternal law, according to which the murder of a mother is the most horrible, inexpiable crime. But Apollo, who has instigated Orestes to this act by his oracle, and Athene, who is invoked as arbitrator--the two deities representing the new paternal order of things--protect him. Athene gives a hearing to both parties. The whole question is summarized in the ensuing debate between Orestes and the Erinyes. Orestes claims that
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The downfall of the gentile order in Scotland dates from the suppression of the revolt in 1745. What link of this order the Scotch clan represented remains to be investigated; that it is a link, is beyond doubt. Walter Scott's novels bring this Scotch highland clan vividly before our eyes. It is, as Morgan says, "an excellent type of the gens in organization and in spirit, and an extraordinary illustration of the power of the gentile life over its members.... We find in their feuds and blood revenge, in their localization by gentes, in their use of lands in common, in the fidelity of the clansman to his chief and of the members of the clan to each other, the usual and persistent features of gentile society.... Descent was in the male line, the children of the males remaining members of the clan, while the children of its female members belonged to the clans of their respective fathers." The fact that matriarchal law was formerly in force in Scotland is proved by the royal family of the Picts, who according to Beda observed female lineage. Even a survival of the Punaluan family had been preserved among the Scots, as among the Welsh. For until the middle ages, the chief of the clan or king, the last representatives of the former common husbands, had the right to claim the first night with every bride, unless a ransom was given.
It is an indisputable fact, that the Germans were organized in gentes up to the time of the great migrations. The territory between the Danube, the Rhine, the Vistula and the northern seas was evidently occupied by them only a few centuries before Christ. The Cimbri and Teutons were then still in full migration, and the Suebi did not settle down until Cesar's time. Cesar expressly states that they settled down in gentes and kins (gentibus cognatibusque), and in the mouth of a Roman of the gens Julia this term gentibus has a definite meaning, that no amount of disputation can obliterate. This holds good for all Germans. It seems that even the provinces taken by them from the Romans were settled by distribution to gentes. The Alemanian code of laws affirms that the people settled in gentes (genealogiae) on the conquered land south of the Danube. Genealogia is used in exactly the same sense as was later on Markโor Dorfgenossenschaft (mark or village community). Kovalevsky recently maintained that these genealogiae were the great household communities among which the land was divided, and from which the village communities developed later on. The same may be true of the fara, by which term the Burgundians and Langobardsโa Gothic and a Herminonian or High German tribeโdesignated nearly, if not exactly, the same thing as the Alemanian genealogiae. Whether this is really the gens or the household community, must be settled by further investigation.
The language records leave us in doubt, whether all the Germans had a common expression for gens or not, and as to what this term was. Etymologically, the Gothic, kuni, middle High German kรผnne, corresponds to the Grecian genos and the Latin gens, and is used in the same sense. We are led back to the time of matriarchy by the terms for "woman" which are derived from the same root: Greek gynรช, Slav zenรข, Gothic qvino, Norse kona, kuna.
Among Langobards and Burgundians, I repeat, we find the term fara which Grimm derives from the hypothetical root fisan, to beget. I should prefer to trace it to the more obvious root faran, German fahren, to ride or to wander, in order to designate a certain well defined section of the wandering corps, composed quite naturally of relatives. As a result of centuries of wanderings from West to East and back again, this term was gradually applied to the sex group itself.
There is furthermore the Gothic sibja, Anglosaxon sib, old High German sippia, sippa, High German sippe. Old Norse has only the plural sifjar, the relatives; the singular occurs only as the name of a goddess, Sif.
Finally, another expression occurs in the Hildebrand Song, where Hildebrand asks Hadubrand "who is your father among the men of the nation ... or what is your kin?" (eddo huรชllihhes cnuosles du sรฎs).
If there was a common German term for gens, it was presumably the Gothic kuni. This is not only indicated by its identity with the corresponding term in related languages, but also by the fact that the word kuning, German Kรถnig, English king, is derived from it, all of which originally signified chief of gens or tribe. Sibja, German Sippe (relationship), does not appear worthy of consideration. In old Norse, at least, sifjar signifies not alone kin by blood, but also kin through marriage; hence it comprises the members of at least two gentes, and the term sif cannot have been applied to the gens itself.
In the order of battle, the Germans, like the Mexicans and Greeks, arranged the horsemen as well as the wedge-like columns of the troops on foot by gentes. Tacitus' indefinite expression, "by families and kinships," is explained by the fact that at his time the gens had long ceased to be a living body in Rome.
Another passage of Tacitus is decisive. There he says: "The mother's brother regards his nephew as his son; some even hold that the bond of blood between the maternal uncle and the nephew is more sacred and close than that between father and son, so that when persons are demanded as securities, the sister's son is considered a better security than the natural son of the man whom they desire to place under bonds." Here we have a living proof of the matriarchal, and hence natural, gens, and it is described as a characteristic mark of the Germans.[28] If a member of such a gens gave his own son as a security for the fulfillment of a vow and this son became the victim of his father's breach of faith, that was the concern of the father alone. But when the son of a sister was sacrificed, then the most sacred gentile law was violated. The next relative who was bound above all others to protect the boy or young man, was held responsible for his death; either he should not have given the boy in bail or he should have kept the contract. If we had no other trace of gentile law among the Germans, this one passage would be sufficient proof of its existence.
But there is another passage in the Old Norse song of the "Dawn of the Gods" and the "End of the World," the Vรถluspรข, which is still stronger evidence, because it is 800 years younger. In this "Vision of the Seeress," in which Bang and Bugge have now demonstrated the existence of Christian elements, also, the description of the time of general degeneration and corruption inaugurating the great catastrophe contains this passage:
"Brothers will wage war against one another and become each other's murderers, and sisters' children will break the bonds of blood." Systrungr means the son of the mother's sister, and an abnegation of the blood kinship from that side surpasses in the eyes of the poet even the crime of fratricide. There is a deliberate climax in that systrungar, emphasizing the maternal kinship. If the term syskina-bรถrn, brother's and sister's children, or syskina-synir, brother's and sister's sons, had been used, there would have been a weakening of the effect, instead of a climax. That shows that even at the time of the Vikings, when the Vรถluspรข was composed, the recollection of maternal law was not yet blotted out.
Among the Germans with whom Tacitus was familiar maternal law had already given way to paternal lineage. The children were the next heirs of the father; in the absence of children, the brothers and uncles on both sides were next in line. The admission of the mother's brother to the inheritance is a relic of maternal law and proves that paternal law had only recently been introduced by the Germans. Traces of maternal law were preserved until late in the middle ages. It seems that even at this late date people still felt certain misgivings about the reliability of fatherhood, especially among serfs. For when a feudal lord demanded the return of a fugitive serf from a city, it was first required, for instance in Augsburg, Basel and Kaiserslautern, that the fact of his serfdom should be established by the oaths of six of his next blood relations, all of whom had to belong to his mother's kin. (Maurer, Stรคdteverfassung, I, page 381.)
Another relic of declining matriarchy was the (from the Roman standpoint) almost inexplicable respect of the Germans for the female sex. Young girls of noble family were considered the safest bonds to secure the keeping of contracts with Germans. In battle, nothing stimulated their courage so much as the horrible thought that their wives and daughters might be captured and carried into slavery. A woman was to them something holy and prophetical, and they listened to her advice in the most important matters. Veleda, the Bructerian priestess on the river Lippe, was the soul of the insurrection of the Batavians, in which Civilis at the head of German and Belgian tribes shook the foundations of Roman rule in Gaul. The women held undisputed sway in the house. If we may believe Tacitus, they, together with the old men and children, had to do all the work, for the men went hunting, drank and loafed. But as Tacitus does not say who cultivated the fields, and as according to his explicit statement the slaves paid only tithes, but did not work under compulsion, it seems that the adult men would have had to do what little agricultural work was required.
The form of marriage, as stated above, was the pairing family in gradual transition to monogamy. It was not yet strict monogamy, for polygamy was permitted for the wealthy. Chasteness of the girls was in general carefully maintained, different from the custom of the Celts. Tacitus speaks with special ardor of the sacredness of the matrimonial bond among the Germans. Adultery of the woman is alone quoted by him as a reason for a divorce. But his treatment of this subject leaves many a flaw and besides, it too openly holds up the mirror of virtue to the dissipated Romans. So much is certain: Granted that the Germans were such exceptional models of virtue in their forests, it required only a short contact with the outer world to bring them down to the level of the other average Europeans. In the whirl of Roman life the last trace of pure morals disappeared even faster than the German language. Just read Gregorius of Tours. It is obvious that in the primeval forests of Germany no such hyper-refined voluptuousness could exist as in Rome. That implies fully enough superiority of the Germans over the Roman world, and there is no necessity for ascribing to them a moderation and chastity that have never been the qualities of any nation as a whole.
A result of gentile law is the obligation to inherit the enmities as well as the friendships of one's father and relatives; so is furthermore the displacement of blood revenge by the Wergeld, a fine to be paid in atonement of manslaughter and injuries. A generation ago this Wergeld was considered a specifically German institution, but it has since been found that hundreds of nations introduced this mitigation of gentile blood revenge. Like the obligatory hospitality, it is found, for instance, among the American Indians. Tacitus' description of the manner in which hospitality was observed (Germania, chapt. 21) is almost identical with Morgan's.
The hot and ceaseless controversy as to whether
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