Chapter III

The Family in Relation to Industry

There is a German saying in which German sociologists like to sum up one theory of human development, the saying "wenn man weiss, was ein Volk isst, so weiss man auch, was es ist." It owes much of its attractiveness to a play upon words which does not survive translation into English (when we know what a people eats, we know also what it is), but it embodies a truth which must not be lost sight of in considering human affairs. There is no tendency to neglect it at the present day; everywhere we hear the cry of the majority that food, and more food, and still more food, is the one thing needful for social salvation, while a sturdy and growing minority proclaim their faith that to eat less food is the sovereign panacea for all the ills of the individual. And meanwhile the number of those who have given in their adhesion to some particular form of diet as that which will conduce to the highest life increases every day. There is a humorous account in one of Miss Wilkins' New England stories of a bad-tempered man who tried to cure his fault by changing his diet, and he puts the case for the materialist view of life perhaps as shrewdly as it ever has been put. "What we want," he says, "is to eat the kind of things that will strengthen knowledge an' spirit an' self-control, because the first two ain't any account without the last; but there ain't no kind of food that's known that can do that. If there is, I ain't never heard of it. But what we can do, is to eat the kind of things that won't strengthen the animal nature at the expense of the spiritual. We know that animal food does that; we can see how it works in tigers and bears. Now, it's the spiritual part of us we want to strengthen, because that's the biggest strength we can get, an' it's worth. It's what gives us the rule over other animals. It's better for us to eat some other kind of food, if we get real weak and pindlin' on it, rather than eat animal food an' make the animal in us stronger than the spiritual, so we won't be any better than wild tigers an' bears, an' lose our rule over the other animals" (Pembroke, p. 51)

There is nothing older since man first began to think about himself, that greatest of human puzzles, than his belief that he can change his moral nature by what he eats. We hear of savages who will eat the heart of a brave enemy in the confident belief that in so doing he adds the valour of the dead man to his own; and we are told that sacramental meals are rooted in the same faith. But to the savage it probably never occurs to reflect, while the educated man finds it easy to forget, that for a man to deliberately change or regulate his diet with a view to the cultivation of certain qualities, implies that the knowledge and desire of those qualities is already active in him, and that the material food is but the instrument or means by which the active spiritual principle seeks to strengthen itself. He is determined to be brave, or holy, or meek, and more or less ignorantly controls his economic conditions to advance his desire.

It is much the same with the attempt to explain the development of humanity, or of any human institution, entirely by the economic conditions within which it develops. Just in proportion as man raises himself from the lowest stage of development, his economic conditions become what he, having certain ends in view, desires them to be; and though they in turn react on him-if it were not so he would not wish to alter them-it would perhaps be truer to say that they enable him to be what he desires, than that they make him what he is.

If now we approach the question of the organisation of the Family with this line of thought in our minds, we find one school of sociologists inclining to the view that we must seek for an explanation of it, as of all other human institutions, in the economic conditions prevalent at any given place or time. It requires certain economic conditions to call it into being, it changes its form to correspond to changes in those conditions, and still further changes in those conditions may lead to its total disappearance.

Perhaps the most systematic attempt to trace this connection is that of Dr. E. Grosse in his book Die Formen der Familie und die Formen der Wirthschaft. "We shall show", he says, "that the different forms of the Family correspond to the different forms of Industry (Wirthschaft), that the character of each particular form of Family can be explained in its essential features by the character of the form of industry in which it is noted." It is true, he adds, that many other factors also exert an influence upon the organisation and function of the Family, but he proposes to confine himself to that which he holds to be the most powerful-the economic conditions. At the same time, important as he considers these to be, he does not admit that there have ever been economic conditions under which the Family did not exist.

He begins by distinguishing the three main forms in which the Family organises itself. These vary primarily in extent. They are: the Sonderfamilie, consisting of two generations only, parents and their children; the Grossfamilie, which includes three or four generations; and the Sippe, or clan, which is a group of persons bound together by a common ancestry. Within the Sippe he distinguishes again the Vatersippe, or clan in which descent is counted through males alone, and the Muttersippe, in which descent is counted through females.

Not only does he consider that the form which the Family takes is determined by economic conditions ; he also maintains that economic considerations have always been by far the most potent in determining marriage-both the fact of marriage and the choice of a particular husband or wife. Men seek wives who will support them, or wives who will be good housekeepers; above all, wives who will bear them children. And they desire children again for economic reasons: daughters that they may be sold, sons who may work and fight for them, who may feed them not only in this life, but also in the next. Some concession, indeed, he is prepared to make to the "mutual fondness" between parents and children, but this he thinks exists mainly between mother and child. A father has to learn to love his children, while children regard a father more with reverent fear than with any heartfelt liking.

Whether the desire for children can really be explained away into such crude elements, even in the lower stages of human development, seems open to doubt. The theory seems indeed to imply a much too advanced power of calculation for the simple savage. It is said that one reason why the lower tribes never proceed to an agricultural or pastoral life is, that they have not the foresight and patience required to await the processes of Nature. If this is the case where a year or less is sufficient to bring the desired result, is it not crediting them with rather much economic foresight to suppose that they will arrange a mariage de convenance, not merely for the services of the wife-which indeed are immediate, and imply little foresight-but for the sake of advantages which will not accrue for periods varying from ten to twenty years? At a higher stage of intellectual development, no doubt, such nice calculations of profit and loss may form an important element in the value which a father attaches to his children; but then there will also be a very much greater complexity of feeling. We have already seen how, amongst certain peoples, the motives which make the desire for children the most imperative in life have passed into a highly spiritualised religion, quite as far removed from any merely economic consideration as Christianity itself.

In considering the effect of industry upon the different forms assumed by the Family, Grosse proceeds to distinguish five types of peoples, characterised by being at five stages of economic development. These are: the peoples who hunt, and these are subdivided again into higher and lower; the pastoral peoples who tend flocks and herds; and the agricultural peoples, these also being divided into higher and lower. None of these divisions are absolute, but they represent the nature of the main occupations of the people concerned.

I. The Lower Hunters are the tribes which represent the lowest stage of development known to us. That they are "primitive," in the sense of representing the earliest stage through which mankind has passed, it is impossible to affirm. Even such a small amount of culture as they possess is the result of a long process of experience and development; while the suggestion has been made that some at least of them are the degraded remnants of a people once living under better conditions, and possessing a much higher degree of culture. Their food consists of animals slain by the men, and of roots and fruits collected by the women. Owing to the poverty of their lands and the rudeness of their weapons, they soon exhaust the resources of a neighbourhood, and only a perpetual wandering preserves them from famine, while they constantly suffer from hunger. Hence their numbers never grow large; a high death-rate and the practice of infanticide preserve the relations between population and subsistence, and it is only occasionally and for short periods that they meet together in large numbers. This mode of life excludes the possibility of developing higher forms of industry, and every one makes his own tools and weapons, besides providing his own subsistence. Private property is limited to the fewest and most indispensable articles, and the hunting-ground belongs to all the men of a tribe in common. Differences in rank are hardly known, all adult men being equal, except that the elder derive a certain authority from their richer experience, and individuals who can claim magical powers exert some influence. What little is known of their religion shows a firm belief in the continued life of the soul after death, and the desirability of fulfilling certain duties towards the departed, generally including the provision of food.

Though there are no marriage laws amongst these peoples, the custom of living in Families is universal. Generally speaking also they are monogamous, though this perhaps is owing rather to poverty than to any objection to a plurality of wives. A wife being obtained by purchase or exchange is the absolute property of the man, and is used or misused at his pleasure. All laborious and despised work is imposed upon the women; they collect plants, insects, and shell-fish, cook the food, carry wood, build the huts, prepare nets, sacks, and clothing, and when the tribe is on its wanderings carry the whole of its possessions, as well as the little children. In short, the position of the woman is that of an inferior but useful creature -a beast of burden, despised, ill-treated, but valued.

The relation of the man to his children is similar. He regards them as his absolute property, and this whether the clan counts relationship through males or through females. His power is as complete for a time as that of the Roman Pater, but ceases when he has handed over his daughter to another man, and when his son has passed the tests of manhood. He frequently sells his children or exchanges them.

Children have no rights against their parents. There is no system of inheritance, because there is nothing to inherit, weapons and tools being left with their dead owner, while the land remains the common property of the tribe.

It is thought that the small hordes into which these tribes divide themselves while on their wanderings generally consist of members of the same family, held together merely by habit and familiarity; but on this point there seems to be considerable uncertainty. And though a father's power over his young children is absolute, there is no evidence of such an organisation as we find in the typical patriarchal Family.

II. Where the hunting and fishing grounds are exceptionally rich, and the conditions of life are therefore more favourable, we find higher grades of hunters, characterised by a fuller development of culture. Such especially are the hunters of North America and of North-eastern Asia. Owing to the greater abundance of food, especially on the coasts, the communities consist of much larger numbers than among the lower hunters, and their settlements are of a much more permanent nature. The division of labour as between men and women follows the same lines; but both sexes have reached a higher stage of efficiency, and a certain amount of specialisation in handicraft has been achieved. Moreover, they make and produce more than is sufficient for their own needs, and are thus enabled to carry on exchange with neighbouring peoples and to accumulate wealth in various forms, such as skins, blankets, and even slaves. The ground is the property of the tribe or clan, but "movable property" is sufficiently abun dant to give rise to great inequality in wealth. Amongst these peoples the rich have better houses than the poor, and a plutocracy is common, influence and position being determined principally by wealth. There is little political organisation, the largest community being the tribe, which holds together but loosely. The village communities, having more interests in common, are more firmly bound; but the strongest social bond is the household.

The higher hunters, like the lower, live without exception in Families (Sonderfamilie). Marriage is mostly monogamous, a plurality of wives being allowed by custom but seldom permitted by circumstances; for here again, owing to the custom of purchase, only the rich can afford more than one wife. Sometimes, indeed, instead of purchase, a wife may be obtained in exchange for service to her father, but in one way or another she must be paid for. Here again, therefore, she is regarded as the property of her husband and treated as a slave. "Women are made for work," a chief is quoted as saying, one woman can drag and carry more than two men." Nor is their position any better amongst those tribes which count descent through the mother only, except in a few cases where the greater respect in which they are held seems to be attributable to the fact that the man receives from his wife's relations a dower, which he has to return if he sends her away without justification.

Here, again, the children are regarded as the property of the father while young. Little is known about customs of inheritance. Generally speaking, the son inherits from the father; sometimes he inherits from the maternal uncle, and where this is the case the uncle is apt to have more authority than the father.

Amongst many of the tribes large houses are found containing a number of families who are presumably closely related. Amongst other tribes these "great families" form village communities. Whether the household community is also an industrial community, or how far there is private property in the produce of the chase, etc., is not known.

III. Pastoral Peoples -- These tribes, whose principal occupation is tending flocks and herds, seldom confine themselves entirely to it; they also practise agriculture to some extent, but generally regard it as a lower and almost unworthy occupation. It is a mistake also to suppose that they are entirely nomadic; some few of them never change their dwelling-places, and though for most of them wandering has become a necessity of their natures, it is always within fairly fixed limits, within a domain which is regarded as the property of the tribe, and which is frequently subdivided amongst particular families (both Sonderfamilie and Grossfamilie).

The tending of the herds has developed out of the chase, and is always the business of the man. On the other hand, the elements of agriculture, togetherwith other undignified and laborious work, are left tothe women or to slaves. Life is generally muchricher and more comfortable than amongst the hunters,but it is exposed to great risks. There is difficultyin developing such industrial activities as architectureor pottery; but the making of textiles and dressingof skins, and sometimes working in metals, arebrought to a high degree of perfection. But thenature of the life is on the whole hostile to industry,and the men in particular are nearly always lazy andphlegmatic.

While the land is the common property of the tribe or clan, the herds are always private property; hence there are great inequalities in wealth, which consists entirely in cattle or wives. One reason for this inequality is the prevalence of war, which enables the strong warrior to appropriate the cattle, wives, and slaves of his enemy. Tribal feuds, though petty, are almost continuous, and impress a rough and savage character upon the pastoral life, which is clearly marked in the form of the Family. The tribes are scattered over such vast extents of ground that only a very strong ruler succeeds in making a political unity of them; but among the Bedouin Arabs every important family makes a camp in the desert, and weaker families attach themselves to the more powerful. The heads of the families are united under one chief, who is called the sheikh, but who has no more important function than that of presiding in council.

The family organisation of the herdsman is much better known than that of the hunters. The Family is based upon a marriage which may be either monogamous or polygamous, the nomad taking as many wives as he can pay for and maintain. Purchase of women is an habitual and open business transaction, the price being determined according to the rank, beauty, and usefulness of the woman. Wife purchase is commonly supposed to have succeeded to, and developed out of, wife capture; but this is a mistake. There are instances amongst all peoples of women being captured for purposes of marriage; but never as a recognised form of marriage, only as a punishable act of violence infringing the limits of right (Grosse, p. 105).

Though polygamy is recognised and desired, the number of the herdspeople who actually possess a plurality of wives is comparatively small, partly because of the high price of women, and partly because of the difficulty of keeping up several establishments. Very often, again, only one of the women is regarded as the legitimate wife, and her children alone are competent to inherit. But all alike are slaves of the man who has bought them, and amongst the nomads the woman is even more oppressed than amongst the hunters, since no other form of industry gives the man such overwhelming superiority. The only occupations which confer any dignity, herd-tending and war, belong to the man, and the women have no means of winning respect from the rough herdsmen and robbers. Daughters are valued solely in view of the future purchase money; and women in general are regarded as an investment of capital, the man who buys them doing so with the intention of repaying himself by their work and by the children they bear him.

Generally speaking, the woman has no property, and the result of her work belongs to the man who owns her ¹; but in some tribes a definite settlement is made upon her, and in one at least, community of property is part of the marriage contract. It always remains true, however, that in their mutual personal relations the man has all the rights, the woman all the duties. But the woman does not break all connection with her former family, which forms a sort of court of appeal for both parties. Sometimes her husband accuses her to them, and they undertake her punishment; sometimes she takes refuge with them, and may even remain with them permanently if they return the money paid for her.

Amongst the nomads the man is regarded as lord and proprietor of his children, or of any children borne by his wives. Until they form independent households of their own they work for him and can be sold by him as if they were slaves. While they bear themselves with the greatest respect towards their father, their attitude towards their mother almost invariably reflects the general contempt in which women are held. In some tribes the authority of the father lasts until his death; more often the son throws off all allegiance on attaining manhood, and neglects or even ill-treats the father who has become old or feeble.

Women are generally excluded also from all share in the inheritance, and where they do partake they receive a much smaller portion than the sons. The general rule is that the eldest son inherits exclusively, but sometimes there is equal division amongst sons.² The nomads attach much importance to relation of kinship and are proud of their ancestors, these being counted in the male line alone. But the feeling is not strong enough to bind the members of a clan into any close organisation. The feeding of their flocks, which necessitates their spreading over much ground, makes the Sonderfamilie (two generations) the largest group which is economically advantageous; on the other hand, the need for mutual protection prevents them from wandering too far from their relations. Thus it happens that in times of peace they live as isolated families; whilst in times of war they gather together in "great families" and clans. They have no economic interests in common; and when no external danger unites them in obedience to the clan patriarch, the individual fathers of families go about their own business and are little concerned with each other.

Before passing to Grosse's description of the fourth type, the lower agriculturists, it may be interesting to study in rather more detail a particular community concerning which Le Play has given a full description in Les Ouvriers Européens. It is an account of one of the villages of the Bachkirs, a semi-nomadic pastoral people living in the Urals, which illustrates the transition from a pastoral to an agricultural life. In family organisation, and in the position of the women, as well as in economic conditions, they share the characteristics of both types.

In the particular village chosen by Le Play for his studies, the population consists mainly of these seminomad Bachkirs, living partly upon the produce of the arable lands around the village where they live in winter, partly upon herds, especially of mules, which in summer are taken by the whole community up to the pastures on the mountain sides.

These people have too strong a passion for repose ever to attain wealth; but their possession in common of a considerable territory, and the organisation of the Family, prevent any great poverty. Those who are well off take into their families as domestic workers such poor orphans as cannot provide for themselves, and abundant means of subsistence makes it always easy to provide for any who fall into temporary distress. What wealth a family has is measured principally by the number of wives wedded by the chief of the house, and also by the number of mules and other animals which he possesses. The particular family visited possessed three mules, but the chief had only one wife.

In a Bachkir family it is usual for all the married brothers to remain in the paternal house, and community of habitation and interests often continues after the death of the father. The household in question consisted of the families of two brothers, consisting of eight members, all under the absolute control of the elder brother. All the inhabitants of the village belonged to the Mahometan religion, but only about half obeyed the precepts of the Koran. The children received elementary instruction in a school conducted by the Mullah, and the desire for education was increasing, those who could afford it sending their sons to study as boarders under a celebrated master living 35 kilometres distant. The chief vice of the people is their inveterate propensity towards a life of pastoral quiet; the utmost at which a family aims is the possession of eight or ten mules, which would enable it to dispense altogether with agriculture and live entirely upon khoumis.

The women, who are bought by their husbands, are absolutely dependent upon them; theirs is the heaviest part in the agricultural work, and they do the whole of the domestic work, even to saddling their husband's horse whenever he goes out. But as mothers their authority is complete, and they no less than the father enjoy the respect and affection of the children. Moreover, here as elsewhere, notwithstanding the power of the husband, women will often by force of individual character obtain influence even in matters concerning the interests of the community.

With regard to marriage, the first step is that the man makes a payment to the parents of the girl, which is called the kolime, and remains in their possession. The kolime increases in proportion to the wealth of the families concerned, the physical perfections of the bride, the imperfections and age of the husband, the number of wives already possessed by him, etc. The contract is signed before the Mullah, in presence of six witnesses; the man pays down a first instalment of the kolime, but the marriage is not celebrated nor the woman given to her husband until the entire payment has been made, which generally involves a delay of three or four years. The parents hand over to the girl some domestic animals, clothes, and furniture; it is de rigueur that she brings with her at least the curtains of her bed. Custom strictly prohibits marriage between young people belonging to the same village, a fact which seems to point to the village community having been originally a family community.

The children are carefully tended while young, and are left to develop in complete freedom from work. Towards the age of ten or twelve they begin to go to school under the Mullah, who teaches reading, writing, and arithmetic, and especially the reading of the Koran. The girls, under the surveillance of an old woman, attend school until marriage, being taught in a different class from the boys. Owing to the necessity of paying the kolime the men never marry until twenty-five or thirty, the girls from nineteen to twenty. The father of the family generally keeps his married sons with him. He disposes of all the goods of the community, and determines their transmission after his death by means of a will prepared with the help of the Mullah, generally assigning to the sons twice as much as to the daughters. He has absolute authority over all the families united in his household, distributing the work, buying and selling, and disposing of the common funds. If he dies suddenly, the mother, if still living, takes charge of the community; one at least of the married sons remaining with her, and the others being free to form new households.

With regard to property, it is difficult to distinguish precisely between private property and subventions from the community. Strictly speaking, only the houses and their immediate surroundings are private property; but the arable lands and hay meadows are assigned to families, and transmitted in them from generation to generation. But the rights of the family over its lands are limited; the community sometimes makes additions to them from the reserve land not yet divided, and sometimes withdraws into this reserve land from which the family to which it has been assigned have not taken a crop for some years. This right of the community to resume possession is never really burdensome to individuals, while it protects them from the abuses of mortgage and usury. The rights of usage assigned to families over the summer pastures, the woods, the game, the fish, wild fruits, etc., never bear the character of private property; individuals enjoy them only as members of the community and under definite regulation (Les Ouvriers Européens, vol. ii)

So far as concerns the position of women and children in the Family, these people have made considerable progress towards the next stage described by Grosse, that of the Lower Agriculturists.

IV. Lower Agriculturalists-- These are the groups "which devote themselves exclusively or mainly to the cultivation of edible plants"; and they are distinguished by the fact thatallpersons capable of and obliged to work take an active part in such production, from the Higher Agriculturists, amongst whom many of the workers are engaged in manufactures. In numbers the people of this stage greatly exceed all the preceding; but it cannot be said that all of them possess a higher culture, many of them being inferior to most nomads both in possessions and in culture.

The most marked new characteristic of this stage is, that agriculture requires a life settled in one place, and it is this which makes it difficult for hunters and herdsmen to make the transition to it. Another essential difference lies in the fact that the most valuable possession of the tiller of the soil is the land, which is not-like the herds of the nomad-his private property. Originally at least it is the common property of the group. And amongst the lower agriculturists, for whom there is abundance of land available, the welfare of a community increases with its numbers, since agriculture is most easily carried on by many working in co-operation. Thus agriculture not only holds men in one place, it also holds them together by common interests, and has therefore a much greater socialising power than hunting and herding.

Equal right to the land gives equal right to the produce, and this right is given effect to in various ways. The harvest may be divided amongst the particular families and individuals, or each may take what he needs from the general supplies, or again amongst some tribes a special piece of the common land is assigned to each family for its use. This does not lead, as might be expected, to equality amongst the members of the community: individuals who are especially active and capable always acquire greater possessions (e.g. by taking in waste lands, etc.) and also greater power. Moreover, the settled life conduces also to the development of industry and trade, by which private property is increased; and thus the distinction between rich and poor appears, notwithstanding the common property in land.

In agriculture we find for the first time that not the small Family-the Sonderfamilie-is of most importance, but the Sippe or clan, which here develops itself into an organised institution far exceeding all others in influence, and controls the life and industry of all members of the community. These clans may be bound together either by paternal or maternal relationship; but the latter seems to have been in the past far more prevalent than the former; and it is still more powerful amongst the agricultural peoples than amongst the hunters and herdsmen. The reason for this lies in the nature of the industry, for the cultivation of plants was originally a form of production belonging essentially to women. "Women invented agriculture" (is not this almost equivalent to saying that women invented civilisation?); and amongst most of the more primitive peoples it is carried on almost exclusively by women. And it is not only a duty of the woman, it is also her right, carrying with it other rights, and more especially a right to the land which she has made fertile. Many of the tribes in this group of peoples hold this view very strongly, and the land descends in the clan through the mother.

As the woman's labour is valuable to the clan in which she is born, the man who marries her must either compensate for her loss by a money payment, or must himself enter into her clan and serve for her. For the agriculturist, whose work needs much labour, it is as important to increase the numbers of his Family, as it is for the herdsman to increase the numbers of his herds. And it is owing to the value of her work that the woman, though still subordinate to the man, yet meets with better treatment amongst the agriculturists than amongst the herdsmen and hunters. Marriage is usually monogamous, but here again polygamy is recognised.

It is amongst the agriculturists alone that actual instances of matriarchal clans are known as distinct from the clans which are merely characterised by the maternal system of relationship. But even here they are rare, the maternal clans themselves being generally under the guidance of the oldest or most respected men. The same is true of the families; where the women are strong in the clan, the position of women and children is strong in the Family; but for the most part the Family is under the rule of the father. And when the paternal kinship rules in the clan, then the sway of the man is absolute; he is lord and proprietor of wives and children.³

The Germans, as described by Cæsar, lived in village communities which were also clans or groups of relations. The same organisation is found at the present day amongst the Slavs. Those of them who are agriculturists live and work in household communities. Each such household (zadruga) consists of a group of descendants of the same ancestor, who live together, possess their land and cultivate it in common, and consume the produce of their work in common. The numbers contained in the household used to be greater; but the organisation remains the same. The chief of the "zadruga" is called "starjesina," and is either nominated by his predecessor, or chosen by his companions. He assigns the daily tasks, superintends the work, and disposes of the income; but he cannot entirely dispense with the assent of the other adult members of the Family, and according to modern ideas it is not he who owns all the property, but the community, including the women. Nevertheless, the women hold a very subordinate position; "if a woman meets a man in the road, even if he is younger than she, she must kiss his hand."

In Russia a similar organisation still exists over immense tracts of country. The "bolschaja" unites several generations and households allied by the bonds of blood and of common interests. It often happens that several married sons, several households of collateral relatives, live together in the same house, or on the same farm, where they work together under the rule of father or grandfather. All the property is held in common. Generally there is no inheritance or division of property. House, garden, implements, cattle, harvests, utensils of every kind, remain the common property of the Family from one generation to another. No one thinks of claiming a special share for himself. When the father of the Family dies, the respect and rule either passes to the eldest man of the community, his brother or son; or sometimes the Family chooses a new head. Out of the "bolschaja" has grown the "mir," the Russian village community. This, again, is not merely an administrative unit, but a patriarchal community, an extension of the Family, into which a stranger cannot be admitted without the consent of the majority. This village clan possesses the land in common, divides it at certain periods amongst the individual households, and determines the time and nature of work in the fields.

Though we find that agriculture thus increases the power of the clan as against the Family, it has never resulted in completely superseding it. And the clan itself is strong only so long as it possesses the land in common; it breaks down so soon as this is taken from it. Moreover, as soon as agriculture ceases to be the ruling form of Production, the clan organisation is doomed: and it is here that we enter upon the fifth and final stage of culture, that of the Higher Agriculturists.

V. Higher Agriculturalists--It is characteristic of the peoples in this stage, that while agriculture continues to be carried on it is left to one section of the people alone, the others turning to different occupations. Manufactures tend to become more and more important, and these peoples might be called more appropriately manufacturing. The change brings with it a change in the relative values of different kinds of property; the greater part of the wealth consisting in objects produced by manufacture and not by agriculture. Amongst the lower agriculturists it is immovable common property which preponderates; amongst the higher, not only the enormously increased amount of movable property, but the greater part of the land itself is private property. But the most important differences arise out of the advance in division of labour, owing to which the people of the later type are not only far more differentiated, but also, because of their mutual dependence, far more integrated, than the people who live in comparatively selfsufficing productive groups.

There are two types of this higher order of peoples. The first and oldest is that in which the "great Family" prevails, and which is represented by the ancient civilisation of Europe, and by the Chinese and Japanese of to-day.

The second consists of the Western European peoples and their kindred; and in it the Sonderfamilie-the Family of two generations-prevails.⁴

It is in the first that we find the typical patriarchal Family, the "great Family," which is under the dominion of the Patriarch. This Family group always existed within the clan; but so long as the clan maintained its power the authority of the Patriarch was limited, and it was only when the clan broke down, that the Patriarch, inheriting its power in addition to his own, became full autocrat.⁵

We have already seen what the Patriarchal Family was in Rome and still is in Japan. In China also the "great Family" continues to maintain its industrial organisation. All earnings of the members of the Family flow into the common chest, and this is controlled by the Patriarch. But the Patriarch's power, though great, is limited by documentary family statutes, which determine expenditure in different directions and assign duties and punishments. The women in the Family are completely subordinate; a girl is held to be incapable of either virtues or crimes; and the power of the man over his wife extends to his children and is unlimited.

The "great family" holds together only so long as the father is able to maintain his authority over successive generations. But in Western Europe this authority has gradually disappeared before other and stronger influences: that of the State, that of Religion, and that of changed economic conditions, which have made it easy for the younger members of the Family to break away and earn their living independently. Thus we get once more, as the typical family unit of modern civilisation, the original Sonderfamilie, the two parents and their dependent children.

Before proceeding to consider in detail the nature of this modern Family in its relation to external influences, we may pause to consider how far this survey justifies the view that the form of the Family is dependent upon economic conditions. It is summarised almost entirely from Grosse's Die Formen der Familie und die Formen der Wirthschaft, and though it is necessarily brief, I have endeavoured to preserve in it all the main features upon which the argument depends.

In the first place, we find that the Family in its ultimate form persists throughout all economic conditions without exception. So far, therefore, there is no justification for the view that, being dependent upon certain economic conditions, it will disappear if those particular conditions disappear.

In the second place, so far as we are able to analyse the connection, it would seem to be quite as descriptive of the facts to say that the Family, by the form it takes, creates its own economic conditions, as that its form depends upon economic conditions. For instance, the Family in its simplest form, by recognising the dependence of the weak upon the strong, creates the necessity for its responsible head to produce, or in some way provide, more sustenance than is needed for himself alone. is an economic condition of the very highest importance, and one which no other institution but that of the Family or slavery can ensure.

Again, the organisation of the Family group under one controlling head enables that co-operation in labour which is essential to the successful pursuit of industry. In the absence of a system of wagelabour or of slavery this is again an essential economic condition, and one upon which the development of agriculture, as we have seen, more especially depended. But it is, I think, impossible to say which position has most truth in it-that the stronger organisation of the Family has enabled and led to the development of agriculture, or that the development of agriculture has determined the form of the Family. Why, for instance, did not the lower insect-catching hunters develop the Patriarchal Family which would have enabled them to carry on agriculture. It was not that they were too much scattered by their way of life (see p. 48), but simply that the same low level of intellect which prevented the woman from taking her proper place in the Family, and prevented the higher organisation of the Family for industrial purposes, also prevented the discovery of agriculture and its pursuit. At the utmost it would seem that all we can say with certainty is, that at an early stage of development we find a particular form of the Family connected with agriculture, but that agriculture has persisted long after that form of the Family has broken down, and that, therefore, the connection is not a permanent or essential one.

One way of stating the relation between the form of the Family and its economic conditions might be to say that the variety of occupations open to the members of a Family determines how far they will be forced by mutual dependence to hold together, and how far able to assert their individual freedom. Or, from another point of view, that the nature of their occupation determines how far they will be able to hold together, and how far forced to separate. But then it must be borne in mind that the variety of occupations itself depends most intimately upon the nature of the Family. Until the village communities broke up and set free a supply of wage-labour, there was no possibility of any great development of industry; just as there was no possibility of the development of agriculture until the father could control the adult members of his family to co-operate with him.

There is even greater difficulty after our survey in accepting the saying from which we started this chapter, that "a people is what it eats." As a theory of development it breaks down completely as soon as we consider the stage at which we have now arrived. From the point of view of what we eat we are all hunters, all pastors, all agriculturists. It is far more what we do which is characteristic of the sort of people we are than what we eat, and of course in the days when occupations are directed almost entirely to the production of food the two points of view tend to coincide. To-day it is no less true that for the great majority of people their energies are directed ultimately towards the procuring of food by means of exchange; but while every one expects to get much the same kind of food, vast numbers are engaged, as Grosse points out, in work which has nothing to do with actual food production. And when we look for differences of type amongst modern peoples, we find them largely following the lines of occupation; the coal-miner and the city clerk, the navvy and the shop-assistant, the sailor and the soldier, the tramp and the skilled artisan, are differentiated in character, habits, and capacities far more by the nature of what they do than by any difference in their food, which at the most is a difference of amount rather than of kind. But however marked these differentiations are, they can hardly be said to have affected the typical form of the Family in any modern community. It is true that the differences between what we may call the family habit of-let us say-the sailor, the tramp, and the city clerk, would be found, I imagine, far more marked than between those of the higher hunters and the herdsman; but the recognised form remains the same for all members of the community, whatever their occupations and habits.

There is one more difficulty which I find in giving pre-eminence to economic conditions as determining the form of the Family. It is the fact that the migratory habits of civilised peoples have shown over and over again, in the past as in the present, that when they are placed under the same economic conditions as tribes of a lower order of development, they do not, at any rate necessarily or even often, adopt the institutions of the aborigines. It may have been the economic conditions of North America which caused the Indians to organise themselves in clans sometimes matriarchal, often maternal; but why, then, have they had no such effect upon the peoples of every nationality which have entered the country since?⁶ And Mussulman, Hindoo, and European live side by side under the same economic conditions in India, and each preserves his own typical family life. And if, like Grosse, we take the meaning of the term "economic conditions" to refer chiefly to a man's occupations-the acts which flow out of him, rather than the food which goes into him-then, as we have seen, the form of the Family is itself one of the principal conditions determining those acts.

Here I must guard myself from misunderstanding, by pointing out that the question whether in any given generation the form of the Family is determined by economic conditions, is not to deny that economic conditions have influenced the development of peoples in the past. It may well be that the American of to-day only fails to organise himself into maternal clans because his inherited constitution has been moulded by long generations of European conditions. We might, indeed, go so far as to admit that any given man is only the summary, the epitome, the concentrated essence of the conditions and surroundings of long lines of ancestors; but that very fact would only make him all the stronger to resist his own immediate surroundings where they failed to harmonise with the past which he represents and the future which he desires. It is a momentary and diffused present against an age-long and concentrated past; and to say that the past will win the day, and mould the present to suit its vision of the future, is only to say that man the spirit is lord over nature.

Notes