CHAPTER XI: THE STATUS OF CHILDREN.

§ 330. That brutes, however ferocious, treat their offspring tenderly, is a familiar fact; and that tenderness to offspring is shown by the most brutal of mankind, is a fact quite congruous with it. An obvious explanation of this seeming anomaly exists. As we saw that the treatment of women by men cannot pass a certain degree of harshness without causing extinction of the tribe; so here, we may see that the tribe must disappear unless the love of progeny is strong. Hence we need not be surprised when Mouat, describing the Andaman Islanders, says “Mincopie parents show their children the utmost tenderness and affection;” or when Snow says of the Fuegians that both sexes are much attached to their offspring; or when Sturt describes Australian fathers and mothers as behaving to their little ones with much fondness. Affection intense enough to prompt great self-sacrifice, is, indeed, especially requisite under the conditions of savage life, which render the rearing of young difficult; and maintenance of such affection is insured by the dying out of families in which it is deficient.

But this strong parental love is, like the parental love of animals, very irregularly displayed. As among brutes the philoprogenitive instinct is occasionally suppressed by the desire to kill, and even to devour, their young ones; so among primitive men this instinct is now and again over-ridden by Edition: current; Page: [746] impulses temporarily excited. Though attached to their offspring, Australian mothers, when in danger, sometimes desert them; and if we may believe Angas, men have been known to bait their hooks with the flesh of boys they have killed. Notwithstanding their marked parental affection, Fuegians sell their children for slaves. Among the Chonos Indians, a father, though doting on his boy, will kill him in a fit of anger for an accidental offence. Everywhere among the lower races we meet with like incongruities. Falkner, while describing the paternal feelings of Patagonians as very strong, says they often pawn and sell their wives and little ones to the Spaniards for brandy. Speaking of the Sound Indians and their children, Bancroft says they “sell or gamble them away.” The Pi-Edes “barter their children to the Utes proper, for a few trinkets or bits of clothing.” And among the Macusi, “the price of a child is the same as the Indian asks for his dog.”

This seemingly-heartless conduct to offspring, often arises from the difficulty experienced in rearing them. To it the infanticide so common among the uncivilized and semi-civilized, is mainly due—the burial of living infants with mothers who have died in childbirth; the putting to death one out of twins; the destruction of younger children when there are already several. For these acts there is an excuse like that commonly to be made for killing the sick and old. When, concerning the desertion of their aged members by wandering prairie tribes, Catlin says—“it often becomes absolutely necessary in such cases that they should be left, and they uniformly insist upon it, saying, as this old man did, that they are old and of no further use, that they left their fathers in the same manner, that they wish to die, and their children must not mourn for them”—when, of the “inhabitants bordering on Hudson’s Bay,” Heriot tells us that in his old age “the father usually employed as his executioner, the son who is most dear to him”—when, in Kane, we read of the Assiniboine chief who “killed his own mother,” because, Edition: current; Page: [747] being “old and feeble,” she “asked him to take pity on her and end her misery;” there is suggested the conclusion that as destruction of the ill and infirm may lessen the total amount of suffering to be borne under the conditions of savage life, so may infanticide, when the region is barren or the mode of life hard. And a like plea may be urged in mitigation of judgment on savages who sell or barter away their children.

Generally, then, among uncivilized peoples, as among animals, instincts and impulses are the sole incentives and deterrents. The status of a primitive man’s child is like that of a bear’s cub. There is neither moral obligation nor moral restraint; but there exists the unchecked power to foster, to desert, to destroy, as love or anger moves.

§ 331. To the yearnings of natural affection are added in early stages of progress, certain motives, partly personal, partly social, which help to secure the lives of children; but which, at the same time, initiate differences of status between children of different sexes. There is the desire to strengthen the tribe in war; there is the wish to have a future avenger on individual enemies; there is the anxiety to leave behind, one who shall perform the funeral rites and continue the periodic oblations at the grave.

Inevitably the urgent need to augment the number of warriors leads to preference for male children. On reading of such a militant race as the Chechemecas, that they “like much their male children, who are brought up by their fathers, but they despise and hate the daughters;” or of the Panches, that when “a wife bore her first girl child, they killed the child, and thus they did with all the girls born before a male child;” we are shown the effect of this desire for sons; and everywhere we find it leading either to destruction of daughters, or to low estimation and ill-usage of them. Through long ascending stages of progress the desire thus arising persists; as witness the statement of Herodotus, that Edition: current; Page: [748] every Persian prided himself on the number of his sons, and that an annual prize was given by the monarch to the one who could show most sons living. Obviously the social motive, thus coming in aid of the parental motive, served to raise the status of male children above that of female.

A reason for the care of sons implied in the passage of Ecclesiasticus which says, “he left behind him an avenger against his enemies,” is a reason which has weighed with all races in barbarous and semi-civilized states. The sacred duty of blood-revenge, earliest of recognized obligations among men, survives so long as societies remain predominantly warlike; and it generates an anxiety to have a male representative who shall retaliate upon those from whom injuries have been received. This bequest of quarrels to be fought out, traceable down to recent times among so-called Christians, as in the will of Brantôme, has of course all along raised the value of sons, and has put upon the harsh treatment of them, a check not put upon the harsh treatment of daughters: whence a further differentiation of status.

The development of ancestor-worsip, which, requiring each man to make sacrifices at the tombs of his immediate and more remote male progenitors, implies anticipation of like sacrifices to his own ghost by his son, initiates yet another motive for cherishing male children rather than females. The effects of this motive are at the present time shown us by the Chinese; among whom the death of an only son is especially lamented, because there will be no one to make offerings at the grave, and among whom the peremptory need for a son, hence arising, justifies the taking of a concubine, though, if a person has sons by his wife (for daughters never enter into the account) it is considered derogatory to take a handmaid at all. On recalling Egyptian wall-paintings and papyri, and the like evidence furnished by Assyrian records, showing that sacrifices to ancestors were made by their male descendants—on remembering, too, that among ancient Aryans, whether Hindu, Greek, or Roman, the Edition: current; Page: [749] daughter was incapable of performing such rites; we are shown how this developed form of the primitive religion, while it strengthened filial subordination, added an incentive to parental care—of sons but not of daughters.

In brief, then, the relations of adults to young among human beings, originally like those among animals, began to assume higher forms under the influence of the several desires—first to obtain an aider in fighting enemies, second to provide an avenger for injuries received, and third to leave behind one who should administer to welfare after death: motives which, strengthening as societies passed through their early stages, enforced the claims of male children, but not those of female children. And thus we again see how intimate is the connexion between militancy of the men and degradation of the women.

§ 332. Here we are introduced to the question—what relation exists between the status of children and the form of social organization? To this the reply is akin to one given in the last chapter; namely that mitigation of the treatment of children accompanies transition from the militant type to the industrial type.

Those lowest social states in which offspring are now idolized, now killed, now sold, as the dominant feeling prompts, are states in which hostilities with surrounding tribes are chronic. This absolute dependence of progeny on parental will, is shown whether the militancy is that of archaic groups or that of groups higher in structure. In the latter as in the former, there exists that life-and-death power over children which is the negation of all rights and claims. On comparing children’s status in the rudest militant tribes, with their status in militant tribes which are patriarchal and compounded of the patriarchal, all we can say to the advantage of the last is that the still-surviving theory becomes qualified in practice, and that qualification of it increases as industrialism grows. Note the evidence.

The Fijians, intensely despotic in government and ferocious in war, furnish an instance of extreme abjectness in the position of children. Infanticide, especially of females, reaches nearer two-thirds than one-half; they “destroy their infants from mere whim, expediency, anger, or indolence;” and “children have been offered by the people of their own tribe to propitiate a powerful chief,” not for slaves but for food. A sanguinary warrior-race of Mexico, the Chichimecs, yield another example of excessive parental power: sons “cannot marry without the consent of parents; if a young man violates this law . . . the penalty is death.” By this instance we are reminded of the domestic condition among the ancient Mexicans (largely composed of conquering cannibal Chichimecs), whose social organization was highly militant in type, and of whom Clavigero says—“their children were bred to stand so much in awe of their parents, that even when grown up and married, they hardly durst speak before them.” In ancient Central America family-rule was similar; and in ancient Peru it was the law “that sons should obey and serve their fathers until they reached the age of twenty-five.”

If we now turn to the few uncivilized and semi-civilized societies which are wholly industrial, or predominantly industrial, we find children, as we found women, occupying much higher positions. Among the peaceful Bodo and Dhimáls, “infanticide is utterly unknown;” daughters are treated “with confidence and kindness:” to which add the reciprocal trait that “it is deemed shameful to leave old parents entirely alone.” With the nearly-allied Kócch, similarly peaceful, when marriages are being arranged there is a “consulting the destined bride.” The Dyaks, again, largely industrial and having an unmilitant social structure, yield the fact that “infanticide is rarely heard of,” as well as the facts before named under another head, that children have the freedom implied by regular courtship, and that girls choose their mates. We are told of the Samoans, who Edition: current; Page: [751] are more industrial in social type than neighbouring Malayo-Polynesians, that infanticide after birth is unknown and that children have the degree of independence implied by elopements, when they cannot obtain parental assent to their marriage. Similarly of the Negritos inhabiting the island of Tanna, where militancy is slight and there are no pronounced chieftainships, Turner writes:—“the Tannese are fond of their children. No infanticide there. They allow them every indulgence, girls as well as boys.” Lastly, there is the case of the industrial Pueblos, whose children were unrestrained in marriage, and by whom, as we have seen, daughters were especially privileged.

Thus with a highly militant type there goes extreme subjection of children, and the status of girls is still lower than that of boys; while in proportion as the type becomes non-militant, there is not only more recognition of children’s claims, but the recognized claims of boys and girls approach towards equality.

§ 333. Kindred evidence is supplied by those societies which, passing through the patriarchal forms of domestic and political government, have evolved into large nations. Be the race Turanian, Semitic, or Aryan, it shows us the same connexion between political absolutism over subjects and domestic absolutism over children.

In China destruction of female infants is common; parents sell their children to be slaves; in marriage “the parents of the girl always demand for their child a price.” “A union prompted solely by love would be a monstrous infraction of the duty of filial obedience, and a predilection on the part of a female as heinous a crime as infidelity.” Their maxim is that, as the Emperor should have the care of a father for his people, a father should have the power of a sovereign over his family. Meanwhile it is observable that this legally-unlimited paternal power descending from militant times, and persisting along with the militant type of social Edition: current; Page: [752] structure, has come to be qualified in practice by sentiments which the industrial type fosters. Infanticide, reprobated by proclamation, is excused only on the plea of poverty, joined with the need for rearing a male child; and public opinion puts checks on the actions of those who buy children. With that militant organization which, during early wars, became highly developed among the Japanese, similarly goes great filial subjection. Mitford admits that needy people “sell their children to be waitresses, singers, or prostitutes;” and Sir Rutherford Alcock, too, says that parents “have undoubtedly in some cases, if not in all, the power to sell their children.” It may be added that the subordination of young to old irrespective of sex, is greater than the subordination of females to males; for abject as is the slavery of wife to husband, yet, after his death, the widow’s power “over the son restores the balance and redresses the wrong, by placing woman, as the mother, far above man, as the son, whatever his age or rank.” And the like holds among the Chinese.

How among primitive Semites the father exercised capital jurisdiction, and how along with this there went a lower status of girls than of boys, needs no proof. But as further indicating the parental and filial relation, I may name the fact that children were considered so much the property of the father, that they were seized for his debts (2 Kings iv. 1; Job xxiv. 9); also the fact that selling of daughters was authorized (Exodus xxi. 7); also the fact that injunctions respecting the treatment of children referred exclusively to their father’s benefit: instance the reasons given in Ecclesiasticus, chap. xxx., for chastising sons. Though some qualification of paternal absolutism arose during the later settled stages of the Hebrews, yet along with persistence of the militant type of government there continued extreme filial subordination.

Already in the chapter on the Family, when treating of the Romans as illustrating both the social and domestic Edition: current; Page: [753] organization possessed by the Aryans when conquering Europe, something has been implied respecting the status of children among them. In the words of Mommsen, relatively to the father, “all in the household were destitute of legal rights—the wife and child no less than the bullock or the slave.” He might expose his children. The religious prohibition which forbade it, “so far as concerned all the sons—deformed births excepted—and at least the first daughter,” was without civil sanction. He “had the right and duty of exercising over them judicial powers, and of punishing them as he deemed fit, in life and limb.” He might also sell his child. And then mark that the same industrial development which we saw went along with improvement in the position of women during growth of the Roman Empire, went along with improvement in the position of children. I may add that in Greece there were allied manifestations of paternal absolutism. A man could bequeath his daughter, as he could also his wife.

§ 334. If, again, we compare the early states of existing European peoples, characterized by chronic militancy, with their later states, characterized by a militancy less constant and diffused, and an increased industrialism, differences of like significance meet us.

We have the statement of Cæsar concerning the Celts of Gaul, that fathers “do not permit their children to approach them openly until they have grown to manhood.” In the Merovingian period a father could sell his child, as could also a widowed mother—a power which continued down to the ninth century or later. Under the decayed feudalism which preceded the French Revolution, domestic subordination especially among the aristocracy, was still such that, Chateaubriand says—“my mother, my sister, and myself, transformed into statues by my father’s presence, used only to recover ourselves after he left the room;” and Taine, quoting Beaumarchais and Restif de la Bretonne, indicates Edition: current; Page: [754] that this rigidity of paternal authority was general. Then, after the Revolution, the Vicomte de Ségur writes:—“Among our good forefathers a man of thirty was more in subjection to the head of the family than a child of eighteen is now.”

Our own history furnishes kindred evidence. Describing manners in the fifteenth century, Wright says:—“Young ladies, even of great families, were brought up not only strictly, but even tyrannically. . . . The parental authority was indeed carried to an almost extravagant extent.” Down to the seventeenth century, “children stood or knelt in trembling silence in the presence of their fathers and mothers, and might not sit without permission.” The literature of even the last century, alike by the use of “sir” and “madam” in addressing parents, by the authority parents assumed in arranging marriages for their children, and by the extent to which sons and still more daughters, recognized the duty of accepting the spouses chosen, shows us a persistence of filial subordination proportionate to the political subordination. And then, during this century, along with immense development of industrialism and the correlative progress towards a freer type of social organization, there has gone a marked increase of juvenile freedom; as shown by a greatly moderated parental dictation, by a mitigation of punishments, and by that decreased formality of domestic intercourse which has accompanied the changing of fathers from masters into friends.

Differences having like meanings are traceable between the more militant and the less militant European societies as now existing. The relatively-developed industrial type of political organization in England, is associated with a treatment of children less coercive than in France and Germany, where industrialism has modified the political organizations less. Joined to great fondness for, and much indulgence of, the young, there is in France a closer supervision of them, and the restraints on their actions are both stronger and more Edition: current; Page: [755] numerous: girls at home are never from under maternal control, and boys at school are subject to military discipline. Moreover parental oversight of marriageable children still goes so far that little opportunity is afforded for choice by the young people themselves. In Germany, again, there is a stringency of rule in education allied to the political stringency of rule. As writes to me a German lady long resident in England, and experienced as a teacher,—“English children are not tyrannized over—they are guided by their parents. The spirit of independence and personal rights is fostered. I can therefore understand the teacher who said he would rather teach twenty German [children] than one English child—I understand him, but I do not sympathize with him. The German child is nearly a slave compared to the English child; it is therefore more easily subdued by the one in authority.”

Lastly come the facts that in the United States, long characterized by great development of the industrial organization little qualified by the militant, parental government has become extremely lax, and girls and boys are nearly on a par in their positions: the independence reached being such that young ladies form their own circles of acquaintances and carry on their intimacies without let or hindrance from their fathers and mothers.

§ 335. As was to be anticipated, we thus find a series of changes in the status of children parallel to the series of changes in the status of women.

In archaic societies, without laws and having customs extending over but some parts of life, there are no limits to the powers of parents; and the passions, daily exercised in conflict with brutes or men, are restrained in the relations to offspring only by the philoprogenitive instinct.

Early the needs for a companion in arms, for an avenger, and for a performer of sacrifices, add to the fatherly feeling other motives, personal and social, tending to give something Edition: current; Page: [756] like a status to male children; but leaving female children still in the same position as are the young of brutes.

These relations of father to son and daughter, arising in advanced groups of the archaic type, and becoming more settled where pastoral life originates the patriarchal group, continue to characterize societies that remain predominantly militant, whether evolved from the patriarchal group or otherwise. Victory and defeat, which express the outcome of militant activity, have for their correlatives despotism and slavery in military organization, in political organization, and in domestic organization.

The status of children, in common with that of women, rises in proportion as the compulsory co-operation characterizing militant activities, becomes qualified by the voluntary co-operation characterizing industrial activities. We see this on comparing the militant uncivilized peoples with others that are not militant; we see it on comparing the early militant states of civilized nations with their later more industrial states; we see it on comparing civilized nations that are now relatively militant with those that are now relatively industrial.

Most conclusively, however, is the connexion shown on grouping the facts antithetically thus:—On the one hand, savage tribes in general, chronically militant, have, in common with the predominantly militant great nations of antiquity, the trait that a father has life-and-death power over his children. On the other hand, the few uncivilized tribes which are peaceful and industrial, have, in common with the most advanced civilized nations, the traits that children’s lives are sacred and that large measures of freedom are accorded to both boys and girls.