Friedrich Engels - The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (Chap. 4) lyrics

THE GRECIAN GENS Greeks, Pelasgians and other nations of the same tribal origin were constituted since prehistoric times on the same systematic plan as the Americans: gens, phratry, tribe, league of tribes. The phratry might be missing, as e. g. among the Dorians; the league of tribes might not be fully developed in every case; but the gens was everywhere the unit. At the time of their entrance into history, the Greeks were on the threshold of civilization. Two full periods of evolution are stretching between the Greeks and the above named American tribes. The Greeks of the heroic age are by so much ahead of the Iroquois. For this reason the Grecian gens no longer retains the archaic character of the Iroquois gens. The stamp of group marriage is becoming rather blurred. Maternal law had given way to paternal lineage. Rising private property had thus made its first opening in the gentile constitution. A second opening naturally followed the first: Paternal law being now in force, the fortune of a wealthy heiress would have fallen to her husband in the case of her marriage. That would have meant the transfer of her wealth from her own gens to that of her husband. In order to avoid this, the fundament of gentile law was shattered. In such a case, the girl was not only permitted, but obliged to intermarry within the gens, in order to retain the wealth in the latter. According to Grote's History of Greece, the gens of Attica was held together by the following bonds: 1. Common religious rites and priests installed exclusively in honor of a certain divinity, the alleged gentile ancestor, who was designated by a special by-name in this capacity. 2. A common burial ground. (See Demosthenes' Eubulides.) 3. Right of mutual inheritance. 4. Obligation to mutually help, protect and a**ist one another in case of violence. 5. Mutual right and duty to intermarry in the gens in certain cases, especially for orphaned girls or heiresses. 6. Possession of common property, at least in some cases, and an archon (supervisor) and treasurer elected for this special case. The phratry united several gentes, but rather loosely. Still we find in it similar rights and duties, especially common religious rites and the right of avenging the d**h of a phrator. Again, all the phratries of a tribe had certain religious festivals in common that recurred at regular intervals and were celebrated under the guidance of a phylobasileus (tribal head) selected from the ranks of the nobles (eupatrides). So far Grote. And Marx adds: "The savage (e. g. the Iroquois) is still plainly visible in the Grecian gens." On further investigation we find additional proofs of this. For the Grecian gens has also the following attributes: 7. Paternal Lineage. 8. Prohibition of intermarrying in the gens except in the case of heiresses. This exception formulated as a law clearly proves the validity of the old rule. This is further substantiated by the universally accepted custom that a woman in marrying renounced the religious rites of her gens and accepted those of her husband's gens. She was also registered in his phratry. According to this custom and to a famous quotation in Dikaearchos, marriage outside of the gens was the rule. Becker in "Charikles" directly a**umes that nobody was permitted to intermarry in the gens. 9. The right to adopt strangers in the gens. It was exercised by adoption into the family under public formalities; but it was used sparingly. 10. The right to elect and depose the archons. We know that every gens had its archon. As to the heredity of the office, there is no reliable information. Until the end of barbarism, the probability is always against strict heredity. For it is absolutely incompatible with conditions where rich and poor had perfectly equal rights in the gens. Not alone Grote, but also Niebuhr, Mommsen and all other historians of cla**ical antiquity, were foiled by the gens. Though they chronicled many of its distinguishing marks correctly, still they always regarded it as a group of families and thus prevented their understanding the nature and origin of gentes. Under the gentile constitution, the family never was a unit of organization, nor could it be so, because man and wife necessarily belonged to two different gentes. The gens was wholly comprised in the phratry, the phratry in the tribe. But the family belonged half to the gens of the man, and half to that of the woman. Nor does the state recognize the family in public law. To this day, the family has only a place in private law. Yet all historical records take their departure from the absurd supposition, which was considered almost inviolate during the eighteenth century, that the monogamous family, an institution scarcely older than civilization, is the nucleus around which society and state gradually crystallized. "Mr. Grote will also please note," throws in Marx, "that the gentes, which the Greeks traced to their mythologies, are older than the mythologies. The latter together with their gods and demi-gods were created by the gentes." Grote is quoted with preference by Morgan as a prominent and quite trustworthy witness. He relates that every Attic gens had a name derived from its alleged ancestor; that before Solon's time, and even after, it was customary for the gentiles (gennêtes) to inherit the fortunes of their intestate deceased; and that in case of murder first the relatives of the victim had the duty and the right to prosecute the criminal, after them the gentiles and finally the phrators. "Whatever we may learn about the oldest Attic laws is founded on the organization in gentes and phratries." The descent of the gentes from common ancestors has caused the "schoolbred philistines," as Marx has it, much worry. Representing this descent as purely mythical, they are at a loss to explain how the gentes developed out of independent and wholly unrelated families. But this explanation must be given, if they wish to explain the existence of the gentes. They then turn around in a circle of meaningless gibberish and do not get beyond the phrase: the pedigree is indeed a fable, but the gens is a reality. Grote finally winds up—the parenthetical remarks are by Marx: "We rarely hear about this pedigree, because it is used in public only on certain very festive occasions. But the less prominent gentes had their common religious rites (very peculiar, Mr. Grote!) and their common superhuman ancestor and pedigree just like the more prominent gentes (how very peculiar this, Mr. Grote, in less prominent gentes!); and the ground plan and the ideal fundament (my dear sir! Not ideal, but carnal, anglice "fleshly") was the same in all of them." Marx sums up Morgan's reply to this as follows: "The system of consanguinity corresponding to the archaic form of the gens—which the Greeks once possessed like other mortals—preserved the knowledge of the mutual relation of all members of the gens. They learned this important fact by practice from early childhood. With the advent of the monogamous family this was gradually forgotten. The gentile name created a pedigree by the side of which that of the monogamous family seemed insignificant. This name had now the function of preserving the memory of the common descent of its bearers. But the pedigree of the gens went so far back that the gentiles could no longer actually ascertain their mutual kinship, except in a limited number of more recent common ancestors. The name itself was the proof of a common descent and sufficed always except in cases of adoption. To actually dispute all kinship between gentiles after the manner of Grote and Niebuhr, who thus transform the gens into a purely hypothetical and fictitious creation of the brain, is indeed worthy of "ideal" scientists, that is book worms. Because the relation of the generations, especially on the advent of monogamy, is removed to the far distance, and the reality of the past seems reflected in phantastic imaginations, therefore the brave old philistines concluded and conclude that the imaginary pedigree created real gentes!" The phratry was, as among the Americans, a mother-gens comprising several daughter gentes, and often traced them all to the same ancestor. According to Grote "all contemporaneous members of the phratry of Hekataeos were descendants in the sixteenth degree of one and the same divine ancestor." All the gentes of this phratry were therefore literally brother gentes. The phratry is mentioned by Homer as a military unit in that famous pa**age where Nestor advises Agamemnon: "Arrange the men by phratries and tribes so that phratry may a**ist phratry, and tribe the tribe." The phratry has the right and the duty to prosecute the d**h of a phrator, hence in former times the duty of blood revenge. It has, furthermore, common religious rites and festivals. As a matter of fact, the development of the entire Grecian mythology from the traditional old Aryan cult of nature was essentially due to the gentes and phratries and took place within them. The phratry had an official head (phratriarchos) and also, according to De Coulanges, meetings and binding resolutions, a jurisdiction and administration. Even the state of a later period, while ignoring the gens, left certain public functions to the phratry. The tribe consisted of several kindred phratries. In Attica there were four tribes of three phratries each; the number of gentes in each phratry was thirty. Such an accurate division of groups reveals the fact of a conscious and well-planned interference with the natural order. How, when and why this was done is not disclosed by Grecian history. The historical memory of the Greeks themselves does not reach beyond the heroic age. Closely packed in a comparatively small territory as the Greeks were, their dialectic differences were less conspicuous than those developed in the wide American forests. Yet even here we find only tribes of the same main dialect united in a larger organization. Little Attica had its own dialect which later on became the prevailing language in Grecian prose. In the epics of Homer we generally find the Greek tribes combined into small nations, but so that their gentes, phratries and tribes retained their full independence. They already lived in towns fortified by walls. The population increased with the growth of the herds, with agriculture and the beginnings of the handicrafts. At the same time the differences in wealth became more marked and gave rise to an aristocratic element within the old primordial democracy. The individual little nations carried on an unceasing warfare for the possession of the best land and also for the sake of looting. Slavery of the prisoners of war was already well established. The constitution of these tribes and nations was as follows: 1. A permanent authority was the council (bule), originally composed of the gentile archons, but later on, when their number became too great, recruited by selection in such a way that the aristocratic element was developed and strengthened. Dionysios openly speaks of the council at the time of the heroes as being composed of nobles (kratistoi). The council had the final decision in all important matters. In Aeschylos, e. g. the council of Thebes decides that the body of Eteokles be buried with full honors, the body of Polynikes, however, thrown out to be devoured by the dogs. With the rise of the state this council was transformed into the senate. 2. The public meeting (agora). We saw how the Iroquois, men and women, attended the council meetings, taking an orderly part in the discussions and influencing them. Among the Homeric Greeks, this attendance had developed to a complete public meeting. This was also the case with the Germans of the archaic period. The meeting was called by the council. Every man could demand the word. The final vote was taken by hand raising (Aeschylos in "The Suppliants," 607), or by acclamation. The decision of the meeting was supreme and final. "Whenever a matter is discussed," says Schoemann in "Antiquities of Greece," "which requires the participation of the people for its execution, Homer does not indicate any means by which the people could be forced to it against their will." It is evident that at a time when every able-bodied member of the tribe was a warrior, there existed as yet no public power apart from the people that might have been used against them. The primordial democracy was still in full force, and by this standard the influence and position of the council and of the basileus must be judged. 3. The military chief (basileus). Marx makes the following comment: "The European scientists, mostly born servants of princes, represent the basileus as a monarch in the modern sense. The Yankee republican Morgan objects to this. Very ironically but truthfully he says of the oily Gladstone and his "Juventus Mundi": 'Mr. Gladstone, who presents to his readers the Grecian chiefs of the heroic age as kings and princes, with the superadded qualities of gentlemen, is forced to admit that, on the whole we seem to have the custom or law of primogeniture sufficiently, but not oversharply defined.' As a matter of fact, Mr. Gladstone himself must have perceived that a primogeniture resting on a clause of 'sufficient but not oversharp' definition is as bad as none at all." We saw how the law of heredity was applied to the offices of sachems and chiefs among the Iroquois and other Indians. All offices were subject to the vote of the gentiles and for this reason hereditary in the gens. A vacancy was filled preferably by the next gentile relative—the brother or the sister's son—unless good reasons existed for pa**ing him. That in Greece, under paternal law, the office of basileus was generally transmitted to the son or one of the sons, indicates only that the probability of succession by public election was in favor of the sons. It implies by no means a legal succession without a vote of the people. We here perceive simply the first rudiments of segregated families of aristocrats among Iroquois and Greeks, which led to a hereditary leadership or monarchy in Greece. Hence the facts are in favor of the opinion that among Greeks the basileus was either elected by the people or at last was subject to the indorsement of their appointed organs, the council or agora, as was the case with the Roman king (rex). In the Iliad the ruler of men, Agamemnon, does not appear as the supreme king of the Greeks, but as general in chief of a federal army besieging a city. And when dissensions had broken out among the Greeks, it is this quality which Odysseus points out in a famous pa**age: "Evil is the rule of the many; let one be the ruler, one the chief" (to which the popular verse about the scepter was added later on). Odysseus does not lecture on the form of government, but demands obedience to the general in chief. Considering that the Greeks before Troy appear only in the character of an army, the proceedings of the agora are sufficiently democratic. In referring to presents, that is the division of the spoils, Achilles always leaves the division, not to Agamemnon or some other basileus, but to the "sons of the Achaeans," the people. The attributes, descendant of Zeus, bred by Zeus, do not prove anything, because every gens is descended from some god—the gens of the leader of the tribe from a "prominent" god, in this case Zeus. Even those who are without personal freedom, as the swineherd Eumaeos and others, are "divine" (dioi or theioi), even in the Odyssey, which belongs to a much later period than the Iliad. In the same Odyssey, the name of "heros" is given to the herald Mulios as well as to the blind bard Demodokos. In short, the word "basileia," with which the Greek writers designate the so-called monarchy of Homer (because the military leadership is its distinguishing mark, by the side of which the council and the agorâ are existing), means simply—military democracy (Marx). The basileus had also sacerdotal and judiciary functions beside those of a military leader. The judiciary functions are not clearly defined, but the functions of priesthood are due to his position of chief representative of the tribe or of the league of tribes. There is never any mention of civil, administrative functions. But it seems that he was ex-officio a member of the council. The translation of basileus by king is etymologically quite correct, because king (Kuning) is derived from Kuni, Künne, and signifies chief of a gens. But the modern meaning of the word king in no way designates the functions of the Grecian basileus. Thucydides expressly refers to the old basileia as patrikê, that is "derived from the gens," and states that it had well defined functions. And Aristotle says that the basileia of heroic times was a leadership of free men and that the basileus was a military chief, a judge and a high priest. Hence the basileus had no governmental power in a modern sense.[24] In the Grecian constitution of heroic times, then, we still find the old gentilism fully alive, but we also perceive the beginnings of the elements that undermine it; paternal law and inheritance of property by the father's children, favoring accumulation of wealth in the family and giving to the latter a power apart from the gens; influence of the difference of wealth on the constitution by the formation of the first rudiments of hereditary nobility and monarchy; slavery, first limited to prisoners of war, but already paving the way to the enslavement of tribal and gentile a**ociates; degeneration of the old feuds between tribes a regular mode of existing by systematic plundering on land and sea for the purpose of acquiring cattle, slaves, and treasures. In short, wealth is praised and respected as the highest treasure, and the old gentile institutions are abused in order to justify the forcible robbery of wealth. Only one thing was missing: an institution that not only secured the newly acquired property of private individuals against the communistic traditions of the gens, that not only declared as sacred the formerly so despised private property and represented the protection of this sacred property as the highest purpose of human society, but that also stamped the gradually developing new forms of acquiring property, of constantly increasing wealth, with the universal sanction of society. An institution that lent the character of perpetuity not only to the newly rising division into cla**es, but also to the right of the possessing cla**es to exploit and rule the non-possessing cla**es. And this institution was found. The state arose. Footnotes [24] Author's note. Just as the Grecian basileus, so the Aztec military chief was misrepresented as a modern prince. Morgan was the first to submit to historical criticism the reports of the Spaniards who first misapprehended and exaggerated, and later on consciously misrepresented the functions of this office. He showed that the Mexicans were in the middle stage of barbarism, but on a higher plane than the New Mexican Pueblo Indians, and that their constitution, so far as the garbled accounts show, corresponded to this stage: a league of three tribes which had made a number of others tributary and was administered by a federal council and a federal chief of war, whom the Spaniards construed into an "emperor."