On The Structure of Greek Tribal Society: An Essay Part 11

(M107) This pa.s.sage contrasts the recognised autocracy of the head of the family over his own household with the courteous deference of the younger brothers towards the eldest; and it is evidence, so far as it goes, that the eldest brother did not succeed to his father's power over his grown-up brothers, but owed what influence he did not obtain from the superior advantages of his age and experience, to a superst.i.tious feeling that something was due to him in his position of head of the eldest branch of the family.

In the _Odyssey_,(212) Zeus gives Poseidon the t.i.tle of "eldest and best"-p?es?tat?? ?a? ???st??-and elsewhere Hera lays claim to the same birthright.(213)

The power of the head of a household must have been something much more real. Telemachos declares that he is willing that some other _basileus_ in Ithaka should take the kings.h.i.+p, but he will be master over his own house-??a? ?????? ?et?????-"and over the slaves that the divine Odysseus won for me."(214)

In the Homeric Hymn to _Hestia_, that deity receives the t.i.tle of honour of firstborn: the poet, by a fanciful blending of ideas, implying that the honour paid to the sacred hearth by the eldest of the family, fell to her share as the eldest born of the children of Kronos.(215)

Aristotle says that every household is ruled (as??e?eta?) by its oldest member,(216) and gives this prerogative of the household-_basileus_ as the type and origin of the kings.h.i.+p in the village and the State. Reference has already been made, in the section on the limitations of the ????ste?a, to the pa.s.sage in the Gortyn law, viz.-

"The father shall have power over the children and the property to divide it amongst them.... As long as they (the parents) are alive there is no necessity for division."(217)

(M108) But it must be borne in mind that though the ?????? was set apart in theory for the use and sustenance of a head of a family with all his descendants, and was supposed to be inalienable therefrom, there is no reason to suppose that there existed among the Greeks a system of joint holding between father and son. The owners.h.i.+p and management of the property vested in the head of the family. It is true that brothers did not always divide their inheritance on the death of their father, but their undivided right to their respective equal shares remained to each one and his descendants as an individual property, and they always seem to have had the expectation of an ultimate subdivision amongst the separate ????? that had sprung into being.(218)

(M109) The Gortyn Laws throw some light on the subject.

As long as the father is alive, no man shall buy or receive in pledge from the son any of the father's property. But what the son himself has earned, or inherited, he may sell if he like.

So too the father may not dispose of the goods of the children which they have earned or inherited.

Yet may a son's prospective share in his paternal inheritance be sold to pay any legal fine he has incurred.(219)

(M110) There is no joint holding here between father and son. The father is in undisputed possession, and nothing the son can do by private contract can affect his father's occupation. But if the son had a right of maintenance from his father during the lifetime of both, his expectation of succession to an equal share with his brothers would give him, so to speak, a value in the public eye. In the event of his incurring a blood-fine, his father would presumably be obliged to pay it out of the patrimony; and when exaction of such penalties pa.s.sed into the hands of a court, exception would hardly be made for long on behalf of the fine for murder over penalties for other crimes coming before the court. Although therefore for all ordinary purposes a son had no claim on the paternal estate beyond his maintenance, his right of succession might easily grow up in the eye of the law as an available a.s.set capable of forfeiture with the theoretical a.s.sumption that the scapegrace was unfit to hold his position in the family.(220) His future portion, thus becoming deprived of a representative, might be wholly or in part confiscated to the State.

There are many inscriptions confiscating to the State the goods of criminals who transgressed the laws therein; but Plato evidently contemplated the possibility of wiping out the individual without depriving his descendants of their inheritance.(221) In such a case as wife-murder, he says, the husband's right of maintenance is extinguished from amongst his family, he should be banished and his name wiped out for ever, whilst his sons or relations enter upon the inheritance of his property _immediately_. No distinction is made by Plato, or in the Gortyn Laws in such a case between chattels and land. But inasmuch as all fines would be levied in the first instance upon the property of the guilty individual, it may be a.s.sumed that his own earnings went first, and that only in extreme cases would the ancestral land of the family be sold. Even then, in Israelite law, it was expected that the land would be _redeemed_ by the nearest relative,(222) so that the result would be that the land would go out of the family only when no relative could be found rich enough to pay the fine out of his chattels.

(M111) It is interesting to find a.n.a.logous provisions in the customs of Gavelkind of ancient Kent. Under the system of Gavelkind equal division of property amongst sons obstinately held its own against the incursions of the right of primogeniture; and the connection of the family with their land seems to have been regarded as especially privileged in spite of the growth of Feudalism.

"If any tenant in Gauelkinde be attainted of felonie, for which he suffereth execution of death, the king shall have all his _goods_, and his heire forthwith after his death shall be inheritable to all his _landes_ and tenements which he held in Gauelkinde in fee, and in inheritance: and he shall hold them by the same services and customes as his auncestors held them: whereupon, it is said in Kentish:

"The father to the boughe, "And the sonne to the ploughe."(223)

(M112) It had become customary to allot to a b.a.s.t.a.r.d son who was prevented by his birth from ranking with his brothers, and who had no place in the kindred, some smaller substance as a means of subsistence.

(M113) Odysseus pretends he was in this position, and relates how his proud brothers allotted him but a small _gift_ (pa??a d?sa?) and a house as his portion.(224)

Isaeus mentions that, only on the acquiescence of the true son, was admission granted to a b.a.s.t.a.r.d into the phratria. Even then he was not apparently taken into his father's family, but allotted a farm (?????? ??) by his brother and, as it were, launched into the world to start a family of his own, without any further claim upon the property of his father.(225)

His introduction and admission to a phratria and deme, as a descendant of an old family, so far removed the stigma of his birth as to give him the t.i.tle of citizen, and thus afforded him the qualification for holding land. Yet the knowledge of his real parentage bereft him of the right of sharing equally with the rest of his father's sons, and compelled him to be satisfied with the bare means of subsistence wherewith to found and continue a house of his own.(226)

(M114) When citizens.h.i.+p was conferred upon a beneficent stranger, it was the custom at the same time to a.s.sign him and his descendants a house and some land. We hear of grants on such occasions consisting of a ?????? in the plain, a house, and a garden free of taxes; a _half_-?????? in the plain, a house and a garden of half the area of the preceding grant, &c.

In the fourth century B.C. a similar grant takes the form of so many plethra as a patrimony or ever. Sometimes, as at Sparta in the second century B.C., the estate was allotted to the newly-made citizen only on condition of residence within the borders of the State.(227)

- 3. The Householder In India: The Guest.

(M115) Sir Henry S. Maine in his _Early Law and Custom_(228) quotes Narada in ill.u.s.tration of the composition of the early Indian family. A son "is of age and independent in case his parents be dead: during their lifetime he is dependent, even though he be grown old."

Further information on this subject is afforded by the Ordinances of Manu, where the position of the first-born with regard to his younger brothers is given at some length.(229)

(M116) "After both the father and the mother (are dead), the brothers, having come together, should divide the paternal inheritance: for while the two (parents) are alive the (sons) have no power (over the property).

"Now the eldest (or best) alone may take the paternal property without leaving anything, and the remaining (brothers) may live _supported by him_ just as (if he were their) father."(230)

(M117) "By means of the eldest (son) as soon as he is born a man becomes possessed of a son, and is thus cleared of his debts towards the manes; therefore this (eldest son) deserves the whole (inheritance)."

Likewise: "If among brothers born of one father, one should have a son, Manu said _all those brothers_ would be possessed of sons by means of that son."(231) But this seems to apply only to the son born to the eldest, for if a younger brother married before the eldest and performed the daily sacrifices, he sent himself, his brother, and his wife "to h.e.l.l."(232)

The eldest, if he performs his duty, "causes the family to flourish" and "is most honoured among men." He alone is "duty-born," through him his father "pays his debt"; other sons are only "born of desire." As long as his conduct is befitting, he must be honoured "like a father, like a mother," but if not, he only receives the respect of an ordinary relative.(233)

The brothers may live together in this way,(234) but if they divide and live apart, the separate ceremonies necessitated by their separate households will multiply the performance of religious duties, to the advantage of all.

(M118) The t.i.tle of _Householder_, moreover, was more than a name.

"As all beings depend on air, so all orders depend on the householder."

"Because men of the three (other) orders are daily supported by the householder alone with knowledge and with food, therefore the householder (is) the chief order. That order must be upheld strenuously by one desiring an imperishable heaven, and who here desires perpetual happiness...."

"The seers, manes, G.o.ds, beings, and guests also make entreaty to those heads of families for support. (This duty must, therefore,) be done by a man of discernment."(235)

"As all rivers, ... go to (their) resting-place in the ocean, so men of all orders depend on the householder."(236)

Let a householder perform the household rites according to rule with the marriage fire and the accomplishment of the five sacrifices and the daily cooking. The sacrifices are:-

Teaching the Veda is the Veda sacrifice: Offering cakes and water is the sacrifice to the manes: An offering to fire (is the sacrifice) to the G.o.ds: Offering of food (is the sacrifice) to all beings: Honour to guests is the sacrifice to men.

"Whoever presents not food to those five, the G.o.ds, guests, dependents, the manes, and himself, though he breathe, lives not."(237)

(M119) The guest takes a very high place, and his presence is a revered addition to the family sacrifices; so much so that it was thought necessary to state definitely that "if the guest appears after the offering to all the G.o.ds is finished, one should give him food as best one can, but should not make (another) offering."(238)

The same virtue seems to have been considered by the Greeks also to lie in the presence of the guest. In Euripides' Elektra, Aigisthos, hearing from Orestes that he and his friend are strangers, promptly invites them to share as his ????st??? in his impending sacrifice of a bull to the nymphs, promising to send them on their way in the morning.(239)