Armenian Legends and Festivals Part 7

SECTION 3. MARRIAGE

Elaborate and gay as are the festivities of betrothal, the celebrations of marriage are so much more so that one is inclined to look upon the essential religious ceremony as a pretext for the merry-making. [171]

The interval of a month which ordinarily intervenes between engagement and marriage is devoted to making the necessary preparations for the wedding. The bridegroom must get ready the promised ornaments, a white wedding-dress for his bride, a fine veil to cover her face, and a pair of shoes, a rather strange combination of gifts. One wonders also why the necessary gloves and silk stockings are not included. The young lady on her part prepares her trousseau including garments of various sorts, bits of jewelry, a wooden chest filled with her clothing, a mirror, a nuptial bed with the necessary accessories, and a few cooking utensils; altogether an outfit quite as varied and singular as the gifts of the bridegroom, but certainly practical and sensible enough. Two days before the wedding, which usually occurs on a Sunday afternoon, invitations are sent out to friends and relatives, and musicians are secured. On the eve of the ceremony, the G.o.dfather invites the bridegroom with his friends to a Turkish bath, where they go to the accompaniment of music and singing. This part of the celebration is full of laughter and song, and is continued on the forenoon of the next day in the home of the bridegroom, when the barber comes to shave him in the presence of the guests and musicians, who sing and play as on the preceding evening at the bath. The occasion is one of importance for the barber, who brings all sorts of perfumes which are purchased by the guests and poured over the bridegroom; he receives not only a large fee for his service but also a double price for the scented extracts. The young man is then dressed up while the priest and choir children who have arrived sing canticles.

In the meantime very similar festivities occur in the home of the bride, partic.i.p.ated in by her young girl friends and relatives, except that they are not characterized by the same spirit of loud laughter and rejoicing. On the eve of the wedding the girls gather around her to sing melancholy songs, in considerable contrast with the gay, spirited music and singing taking place in the Turkish bath at the same time. Having shared the sadness, they place a rose leaf on the palm of each hand of the bride, which is covered with henneh, a green Persian powder made into paste, after which each hand is carefully bandaged up. So the poor sad girl must go to bed, to sleep if she can. On the next morning her friends again arrive to take the bandages off her hands, to dress her, and to sing and dance about her. Except for the print of the rose leaf, the henneh leaves the hands orange red, which is supposed to be beautiful. The songs and dancing are again of a decidedly melancholy tone. Her white dress, together with the coat of the bridegroom, must be blessed by the priest, a ceremony which the church functionary performs alone, both articles being sent to him early in the morning. Preliminary to the day's events, and before breakfast, both bride and bridegroom, being previously confessed, go separately to church, where they take communion. This done, the festivities described follow, bride and bridegroom are dressed, and all is in readiness for the ceremony which occurs in the late afternoon or evening.

The bride must ride to church on horseback, and having arrived she is dismounted, and later remounted without touching her feet to the ground, which rather c.u.mbersome performance is accomplished through the help of a brother or relative, who also rides the bride's steed while the ceremony takes place within, for the horse is not to be left riderless. The procession to the church is accompanied by musicians. Before the rail which separates the choir from the body of the church, two wooden chairs are placed, upon which the couple sit down while the people present kneel on the mats covering the floor. When the time comes for the blessing of the priest, the couple arise, step inside the choir s.p.a.ce, and stand facing each other between the high altar and two witnesses, their foreheads touching. In this position they receive the sacrament of matrimony, answering in the affirmative the questions of the priest regarding their duties to each other and to their children. Of the bride is demanded perfect faithfulness to conjugal duties, entire obedience to the husband of whom care, patience, wisdom, and love are required. The priest, taking the right hand of the bride and placing it in the hand of the bridegroom, says, "According to the divine order G.o.d gave to our ancestors, I give thee now this wife in subjection. Wilt thou be her master?" "Through the help of G.o.d I will," answers the bridegroom. The priest then asks the woman, "Wilt thou be obedient to him?" to which is answered, "I am obedient according to the order of G.o.d." These questions are repeated and replied to thrice, in evident implicit belief that once would not be sufficient. Finally, the priest ties to each of their heads a cord and cross, which is again removed by him late at night in the home with special ceremony, and it is only after this performance that the couple may enter the nuptial chamber.

After the ceremony at the church the procession starts back for the home of the bridegroom's father, the bride riding upon her horse, musician playing, and choir boys singing. The water-carriers, who have supplied drinking water, break their jars noisily before the bridegroom, drenching his marriage costume and giving rather an abrupt signal to the G.o.dfather whose business it is to tip them. Noisily the procession moves along the streets until it arrives at the gate of the house. In days past it was the custom at this point in the ceremony to place a sheep ready to be sacrificed at the feet of the young couple, the poorer people contenting themselves with chickens. The butcher put his knife to the neck of the sheep saying, "May G.o.d thus put all your enemies under your feet, Amen, Amen." Then pieces of coin mixed with raisins, pistachios, and other bits of nuts or dried fruits are showered over the people from the windows above, while the G.o.dfather leads the bridegroom within to the crowd of men, and the G.o.dmother leads the bride to the women, everybody trying to kiss the cross on their heads. The bride is then placed in the seat of honor and in her arms is laid first a little boy, and then a little girl, so that the first child may be a boy and if perchance the will of G.o.d be otherwise at least a girl. Each guest now comes to the bride to place at her feet a fruit in season. The bridegroom is called "the prince of the feast" and must never quit his seat of honor. If he does leave his chair he must place an object belonging to him upon his seat, and if he should at any time omit to do so, the a.s.sembly makes the G.o.dfather pay the necessary forfeit, which is usually a dinner. Towards nine, the guests take their leave, having eaten and sung to their uttermost desire. [172]

Living in the home of her patriarchal father-in-law, the young wife is subject to the severest restraints. She must wear a lightly fitting veil enclosing her face below the eyes, without which she can not appear even in the house. [173] She wears a close fitting bodice fastened at the neck with silver clasps, full trousers of rose colored silk gathered in at the ankles by a filet of silver; her feet are bare, a silver girdle of curious workmanship loosely encircles her waist, and a long padded garment, open down the front, hangs from her shoulders. Not a single word must she utter to any member of the household, except when alone with her husband, and then only such as may be absolutely necessary, until she has given birth to her first child. Then she may speak to her nursling, after a while to her mother-in-law, later to her own mother, and by and by to the young girls of the household, but never in all her life may she have word with a young man not a relative. During her first year of married life, she may not go out of the house except for two visits to the church. Every morning and at the end of each meal she must pour water over the hands of her father- and mother-in-law, and for a certain time after marriage, when visitors come, she must kiss their hands, except of course, for men, before whom she may not even appear. [174]

Apart from these troublesome restraints the young wife is treated with the utmost solicitude, and in some parts, even the peasant wife is not allowed to do outdoor work. In the mountain villages of Persian Armenia, however, the women do all the tilling in the fields, wearing their veils over their mouths as they work. [175] The author here quoted states that husbands never see the mouths of their wives, who not only must not speak during the first year of married life, or until a child is born, but also may not converse freely with their husbands until six years of married life have elapsed. [176]

In such fashion the sanct.i.ty of the marriage relation is strictly guarded, and as one would suppose, illegitimate births are unknown in Armenia. Intermarriage among relations is forbidden, and until recent years, divorce has been unknown. [177] As for the taboo on speech, it is calculated not so much as an inducement to the production of offspring as to preserve harmonious relations between the various members of the patriarchal household. Even the patriarch with all his authority would find difficulty in preserving proper decorum of speech and manners in so heterogeneous a household, if every newly acquired daughter-in-law were given a free rein in the use of her tongue. As the neophyte is made to understand his position by a brutal initiation, so the young wife is kept from a.s.suming command over the female household by the placing of a moral valuation upon the silence which alone is compatible with the essential modesty regarded as the first and chief of virtues among wives. In the household of the patriarch there is a great deal to be done in common, and unfortunately the occasion for mutual aid is not sufficient to bring about the desired cooperation. Hence singleness of command and authority is a necessary condition, not only of efficiency, but also of peace, for it can not be supposed that so many daughters-in-law would work together in harmony. It would be a mistake, therefore, to regard the customary silence as an inducement to child-bearing.

Identifying itself with the common events of life, such as birth, marriage, and death, the church has not only given a religious meaning to these occasions but has also sanctioned and even encouraged the festivities that accompany them. These festivities have up to this point been occasions for rejoicing, with the single and significant exception of the melancholy singing of the bride's friends on the eve and day of her wedding. There is a perfect naturalness about all the merry-making and festivals so far considered, and this is no less characteristic of the funeral celebrations now to be taken up. The description of these will conclude my treatment of the last group of festivals, which are more properly festival-ceremonies, or ceremonies that have been made the occasion of festivity.

SECTION 4. FUNERAL

The funerals, as one would naturally suppose, are more ceremonious, more ritualistic, and although there is now generally a minimum of festivity connected with them, this has not always been so. [178]

When the condition of a sick person is beyond hope, the priest is notified and the person is given confession, communion, and extreme unction. After death the eyes and mouth are closed, the body washed and dressed up in the newest and cleanest clothes to be had, and the arms crossed on the breast. [179] Two candles are kept burning until the day of the funeral, one at the foot and one at the head of the coffin. Sad, wooden bells are sounded, and guests are invited to pay their last respects. Coffee is served to them, but without sugar, as a sign of grief. Mourning women are secured, who eulogize the departed and weep and lament until the priests begin their chanting. The corpse is now taken to the church in a special coffin which is covered with a black velvet cloth adorned with small white crosses, among the wealthy, but among the poor the body is wrapped in linen and laid in a simple bier, carried by relatives and friends. At the head of the procession, which marches very slowly and chants on the way, there are carried a great cross and two lighted torches, followed by the priests and then by the coffin. The pa.s.ser-by must stop and cross himself many times. At the church the coffin is laid down, and if the relatives are wealthy each person in the church is provided with a small wax candle which is kept lighted during the service. While the ceremony proceeds the body is blessed with holy water and perfumed with incense, after which the procession re-forms to accompany the body to the cemetery. The chanting is kept up all the way. At the cemetery the body is lowered into its last resting-place, and the priest, after making the sign of the cross on the four corners of the grave, throws three shovelfuls of earth into it and three more on the coffin. The people imitate by throwing three handfuls of dust, and the ceremony completed, all return to the home of the deceased where they partake of steaming broth prepared by the neighbors and friends, and recite prayers for the soul of the dead. This latter practice, as said before, is a pagan survival, as is also the chanting of ma.s.s for the departed, which occurs three days later, at which time broth is again distributed, but this time to the poor as a sacrifice to the dead. The grave is blessed on the third day, again on the ninth, at the close of the third month, and for the last time, at the close of the year.

The funeral of a priest is performed with much splendor. [180]

The procession makes a circuit of all the churches, and stopping at different places, portions of the gospel are read. If the priest be of high rank, as an archbishop, or a bishop, he is carried in an open coffin and in a sitting posture, dressed up in official vestments, in which position he is interred in the courtyard of the church. Farmers send sheep to be killed and given to the poor as a sacrifice. The Greeks in Constantinople also carry their dead in an open coffin, but this is because a Greek official who was a refugee prisoner in Constantinople at the time of the war of the Turks with the Greeks, endeavored to get himself carried out of the country by feigning death and boxing himself up in a coffin. But the Turks discovered the ruse and it was enacted by the sultan that thereafter all Greeks must be carried to their graves in open coffins. The custom in respect to the Armenian bishops, however, has no connection with this.

In some parts of Armenia, as for example in Erzerum, the snow lies so deep in winter-time that burial is well-nigh impossible. During spring-time, with the melting of the snow, coffins have been found perched up on tree tops. This was related by an Armenian boy I know of, who lived in the vicinity of Erzerum. Curious customs of the past have left their marks. In Tarsus, for example, there are Armenian graves ranged about a tree which is a.s.serted to have been planted by St. Paul, each provided with a stone upon which has been carved a symbol of the deceased, for the merchant, a representation of weights and measures, for the blacksmith, an anvil and hammer, for the scribe, an inkstand and pen, and for the industrious housewife, a distaff and spindle. In the cemetery of Nakhitchevan is a large building in which the mourners have a great repast after the funeral, and in certain other graveyards, Dubois found innumerable pieces of broken pitchers and crockery, which were probably broken, as the custom is, to ward off the evil spirit of the dead.

These four ceremonies complete the third and last group of festivals described. I have called them ceremonies because fundamentally that is what they are, but they are to be distinguished sharply from the many church ceremonies I have not so much as mentioned, by reason of their festival or social value which alone makes them proper subject-matter for this thesis. The relation between these ceremonies as revealed in the common procession, as well as in the religious ceremony necessary to each is due largely to the fact that they have to do with the most ordinary, and yet most extraordinary of life's events, birth, betrothal, marriage, and death.

Reviewing them from the standpoint of their social or festival value, it is obvious that the marriage celebration easily takes first place, the betrothal festivities second, baptism and funeral third. There is the rather uncouth, perhaps, but none the less spontaneous gaiety of the friends of the bridegroom, not only on the eve of the wedding-day when they go to the bath, but also on the morning of the wedding-day when the unfortunate youth is a.s.suredly cured of any addiction he might have to the use of perfumes. I should imagine that the music would begin to bore the young men by the time the barber arrives, since the musicians also accompany the rejoicing of the night before, and yet it may be said that there could be nothing more convenient or ingenious devised to carry over a lull in the merry-making, for after all, the young men could not well be singing, joking, laughing, and teasing all the time. In striking contrast is the melancholy rejoicing of the party of young women at the home of the bride. But where there is dancing and singing there can not well be weeping, although no doubt it is more natural for the bride to be thoughtful on her wedding-day, than for the bridegroom, for it is the former who leaves her home to spend the rest of her days in a very new, very strange, perhaps even unkindly world. There is still another reason for the melancholy, in that the girl must know she is bidding farewell forever to the delights and joys and freedom of childhood, for although to-day she may speak and sing and make merry, to-morrow morning she must be silent and prepared to pour water over the hands of her father- and mother-in-law. Henceforth it is for her to be submissive, obedient, docile, uncomplaining even at heart, for what use will it be to complain, and though her most cherished dreams may be of motherhood, does she not also have spirit, and why must it be broken? Is she then only a chattel to be sold into everlasting bondage? It is all too evident, even to the dullest of brides, that the happiness of childhood is forever past, and the brighter one can hardly fail to feel that she has been bartered for the bit of gold about her waist or neck.

There is then the very highest of social value to be attributed to both of these festivities, and largely because in each group of people, the young men on one side, the young women on the other, there is perfect community of feeling, mutual understanding, and freedom of thought and expression. In comparison with these gatherings, the mixed a.s.sembly at the house of the bridegroom after the marriage ceremony is of little importance. The succession of events covering a period of nearly thirty-six hours, of which only a few, and perhaps none at all, are spent in sleep by the members of the bridal party, must certainly begin to have its effect by the time the little baby doll is placed in the lap of the bride.

The betrothal party is always out for a good time, for they realize that the merry-making is to be an all-night affair. There is the procession with its candles lighting up the darkened streets, the music and singing filling all s.p.a.ce, the humorous little artificialities in the house of the bride,--real enough, at least ceremoniously, from the standpoint of the family,--the syrup, the attempted stealing of utensils, the return procession, the singing, music, and dancing at the home of the young bridegroom-to-be, without stop until dawn. All of this makes a rather complete occasion, even for young people.

Baptism and funeral rites come nearest being pure ceremonies. But even the baptismal rite has its procession to and from the church partic.i.p.ated in by all the friends and relatives of the family, and though the event is an occasion neither for rejoicing nor for sorrow, it is important enough, occurring as it does but once in the lifetime of each individual. There are, to be sure, the social calls that follow the ceremony. But the event can not be said to have any attraction for the young; and if this is true of baptism, it is still more true of funerals. Nevertheless there is the distinct psychological value of each, calling up as they do various a.s.sociations, as the baptism of this one, or the death of another one, and thus keeping alive the deepest experiences of life. If they are crude and offensive to more delicate tastes, it must be remembered that a belief is represented in the concrete fashion essential to the simple mind, a mode of representation necessary to the best of intellects even though on another plane.

CHAPTER V

SUMMARY

Such are the festivals treated in the second and last part of this thesis. Is it true that they form a vehicle of expression for the national sentiment created by the large ma.s.s of social material of which the legends of Part One are a considerable and important portion? Again it will be necessary to remind ourselves of the chief sentiments included within Armenian national sentiment, i.e., the sentiment of loyalty to the church, the sentiment of reverence amounting almost to worship for the ancient glory of the nation, and the sentiment of love for the country. It would be ridiculous to suppose that every festival was designed to give expression to some one of these sentiments. But that these sentiments are given very clear, very real outward expression in the great majority of the celebrations described, should be so evident at this point as to make further exposition unnecessary. In the summer Festival of Vartavar, the spring Festival of Mihr, Vartan's Day, and in the consecration of the Katholikos there is the proud and reverent looking back to the times when Armenia was an independent nation; the festival ceremonies of the third group, baptism, betrothal, marriage, and funeral, though they are not positive expressions of the sentiments of loyalty to the church, are yet so completely interwoven with the church and dependent upon it that one is compelled to regard the feeling as something to be taken for granted, while in most of the festivals of the second group, Christmas, Easter, Maundy Thursday, and the Blessing of the Grapes especially, the sentiment is given a more positive expression. As for the sentiment of love for the country, that is identified especially with Vartavar and Vartan's Day. It is evident, therefore, that each of these festivals and festival-ceremonies forms a medium more or less evident as the case may be, for the expression of one or more or all of the sentiments that make up Armenian national sentiment. Some of them are not to be cla.s.sified as readily as this, as for example, the festival of Ascension morning, or Fortune-Telling Day, in which the dominant sentiment is one of romantic love, or in the Blessing of the Water, where the desire for a gain in health or wealth is the main psychological fact.

Each one of these festivals, however, is a great deal more than the putting into activity of some of the above sentiments. In many of them the play-instinct is clearly evident, while in a few such as Vartavar, the whole self, with all its sentiments, instincts, tendencies, and emotions, is given the fullest and most unrestrained freedom. A festival, if it is anything, is a letting loose of the reins; there is nothing to hinder, nothing to keep back, nothing to hide, nothing to fear, and the self reaches out in a higher consciousness of fullness and completeness of living. As such it would be the greatest of fallacies to suppose any one of the festivals to be restricted to a particular sentiment. Nevertheless, it is clear, that the festivals do const.i.tute vehicles of expression for the sentiments that make up Armenian national sentiment.

CONCLUSIONS

The general conclusions to which this study unmistakably gives rise are in respect to the national traits of the Armenian people. These traits have been brought out both explicitly and implicitly in connection with the various legends and festivals considered, and it is my purpose, therefore, to summarize and substantiate them at this point. They include, first, the superst.i.tiousness, second, the conservatism, third, the self-sufficiency, and lastly the familism of the people.

First of these qualities, superst.i.tiousness, may be ascribed in large measure to geographical isolation. The country to be sure, is so situated as to form a highway from Europe to the Mesopotamian valley, and from Asiatic Russia to the Mediterranean, and although it has been overrun by a.s.syrians, Greeks, Parthians, Romans, Persians, Turks, Egyptians, and still others, yet we must speak of it as isolated, for the science that has brought remote countries into contact has not affected Armenia to any considerable degree. Subject to a backward nation, lacking all modern means of communication, the country is shut off and the plows of civilization have not yet furrowed the social soil of superst.i.tion. How general these superst.i.tions are is brought out especially by the festivals described, many of which have given rise to a superst.i.tion or a group of superst.i.tions. From Vartavar, there came the belief that the dust from the sacred altar served as a talisman for children learning their A B C's; the spring fire festival gave rise to the practice of taking home a glowing brand for good luck; there is the belief that the blessed water will cure various diseases, and that the oil sc.r.a.ped from the anointed foot with a walnut given by the priest after washing the feet at the ceremony of Maundy Thursday, will keep a supply of b.u.t.ter throughout the year. And then there are the beliefs in the miraculous power of the holy oil, manufactured with due ceremony every four years at Sis; in the healing power of the various sacred relics kept at Etchmiadzin and other places, and ten thousand others. There are also beliefs not of a religious character as the above, such as the one in regard to the tetagush, the little locust-eating bird, which is supposed to be attracted by Ararat spring water. The same superst.i.tion obtains in other parts of the country with the difference that the inconvenience of obtaining Ararat spring water makes it necessary for the people to believe in the peculiar efficacy of other springs. These ill.u.s.trations are sufficient, and although it could hardly be proved that Armenians are more innately superst.i.tious than the Anglo-Saxon ancestors who believed only a few generations ago in the power of the malignant eye, and that an innocent person might pa.s.s through fire unharmed, yet their superst.i.tious nature and beliefs are present-day facts explained most completely on the ground of comparative isolation from the rest of the world.

Second of the national characteristics of the people clearly brought out by this study is their conservatism. This may also be traced in large measure to their secluded condition, but in larger proportion is it due to the solidarity and national consciousness, which naturally consider innovations as foreign, and intrusions of foreign cultures, ideals, customs, and manners as hostile. That this is true is indicated conclusively by the fact that in Constantinople, where Armenian culture has naturally come in conflict with that of the Greek, the Turk, and the European, the Armenians have not at all given up their ways to imitate any of the three peoples mentioned. To be sure they have not adhered rigidly to the old beliefs and practices of the interior. Comparison has resulted in subst.i.tution, and conflict between the rational and irrational, the utile and the inutile, has meant displacement, but invariably by something distinctly different from the usages and practices current among Turk or European. That is, Armenians are themselves centers of imitation by fellow Armenians who, though they follow the lines suggested by their fellow countrymen, scorn to imitate even the European, whose superiority is generally recognized in Constantinople. The Armenian, recognizing no superior, has merely modified his own practices, usages, manners, and customs to suit his changed environment. And therefore I say that the characteristic Armenian conservatism is due rather to a strong feeling of nationality than to isolation.

The conservatism of the church has been an important element. Refusing to have anything to do with the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon, the church became independent and has maintained a policy of the most rigid ultra-conservatism ever since. Says Ormanian:

The Armenian church would have nothing to do with this transaction (Chalcedon) which was prompted by a design that had no bearing on theology. She remained firm in her original resolve, and ever maintained an att.i.tude of ultra-conservatism. She set herself to resist every new dogmatic utterance said to emanate from revelation, as well as every innovation which could in any way pervert the primitive faith. [181]

That this same spirit is reflected in the social life of the people is something one would naturally expect, in view of the important influence of the church over the entire life of the people. As the father of the Alan princess replied when requested to give the hand of his daughter to Artasches, "From whence shall brave Artasches give thousands upon thousands and ten thousands upon tens of thousands unto the Alans in return for the maiden?" so to-day the first question that is asked when the hand of a young Armenian girl is requested in marriage is "What can he give for his bride?" The practice of wife purchase has only changed in that the required riches are given to the bride instead of to the father of the bride. Occasionally a young man is pressed to the point of mortgaging property in order to obtain the necessary funds, and it has been known that in many such cases the young bride found her treasure gone shortly after her marriage, her master having taken it to pay off his mortgage. So parents arrange for the marriage of their children, the young wife is delivered up to her husband as the obedient and submissive servant, children are baptized after they have scarcely opened their eyes, and church ceremonies are conducted much as they have been for generations.

The self-sufficiency of the Armenian people has been indicated in the repeated failures of missionary religions and foreign cultures to alter appreciably the native folkways and mores. In spite of political subordination to Islam, the Gregorian church has held tenaciously to its ideals and has successfully maintained its independence. The distinctive social tradition,--which includes the political and the religious traditions,--has remained intact in the face of recurrent invasion, va.s.salage, and persecution. The Armenian will not be a.s.similated. Death is preferable to the loss of those intangible realities that make the people a distinctive group. When Haic, the patriarchal progenitor of the race, was invited to "soften his hard pride," and to return to the kingdom of the G.o.d Bel, the alternative, war, was chosen. In the year 450, when the Persian fire-worshippers invited the Armenians to change their faith, the answer again was war. The reply to the decision of Chalcedon ill.u.s.trates the same spirit. Likewise through the centuries of the immediate past the ever recurring answer to the Turk has been war. Powerless to a.s.similate the Armenian people, the Turk has had to annihilate or be annihilated. The self-sufficiency of the people thus reveals itself in the will to maintain the distinctive social tradition, regardless of cost or sacrifice.

The characteristic familism reveals itself not only in the customs of family life, but also in the very nature of the Armenian. In Russian Armenia there is a very active propaganda carried on by Russian girls to secure Armenian husbands because of the domesticity of the latter, which is in striking contrast to the adventurous unfaithfulness of the Russian husband, whose house becomes his prison, from which he therefore flees, leaving his wife and children to shift for themselves. The discontented Russian may be a more attractive lover for his "Wanderl.u.s.t" and restlessness, but he is a less attractive husband for the same reason. An Armenian husband belongs in his home, where he lives in the hope that some day he may be the father of a huge household of married sons and grandsons. A young Armenian I know spoke to me of his wish that some day his father might collect the scattered sons and unite them and their families in a single household. This desire is so general among Armenians as to make it evident that the family is the all-important social unit. No reputation is so great as that carried by a good family name, nor is there any so d.a.m.ning as that which goes with a bad family name. And why is the young bride kept silent for years if not to ensure the all-essential family-unity, family-solidarity, and family-continuity,--that is, continuity of family tradition, manners, and customs? And why is the "patria-potestas" well-nigh unlimited if not for precisely the same reason? Nor is the taboo upon the young bride, according to which she may not speak to any young man not a relative during her entire life of marriage, of no significance in this connection. It too precludes family disruption, or blemish on the family name. Divorce and infidelity are very rare, all family differences having no tribunal outside the patriarch, who considers his greatest misfortune to be a lack of family integrity or oneness. Thus a son who has been swayed by Protestantism dares not clash with his father, and has no choice but to run away, while a daughter whose wishes are contrary can be disobedient only at the cost of breaking the family connection, to prevent which she is usually ready to make any sacrifice. All of this is no accident. Forced to dwell within the circle of the family group for seven, eight, or nine months during the year without so much as opening his door, because of the severity of winter, the life of the patriarch is inevitably centered in his household, and therefore also the self of each member is merged into the larger unit. This familism throws additional light on some of the conclusions I have insisted upon, for nothing so fosters conservatism as a substantial family solidarity; what could be more instrumental in pa.s.sing on the national sentiment, and finally, what could be more favorable to the development of the self-sufficiency, the independence of Armenian character? In speaking of "familism and the well-knit family" Ross says; "Worshippers of the spirit of the hearth, they are more aloof from their fellows, slower therefore to merge with them or be swept from their moorings by them. It seems to be communion by the fire-side rather than communion in the public resort that gives individuality long bracing roots. The withdrawn social self, although it lacks breadth, gains in depth, etc." [182]

Any socially well-knit people possessing a distinctive social tradition, and characterized by a highly developed national consciousness, may make its contribution to the world's work, if it is given the necessary freedom. As the period of the Arsacidae kings brought forth the golden age of Armenian literature, so greater achievements may follow the political independence that is hoped for, and for which Armenians have valiantly struggled. Lord Bryce writes of the Armenian race, "It is the only one of the native races of Western Asia that is capable of restoring productive industry and a.s.sured prosperity to the now desolate region that was the earliest home of civilization." In the past, the energy of the people has been wasted in ceaseless conflict. Given a guarantee of territorial integrity, and partic.i.p.ation in the affairs of government with the hope of future autonomy, the energies of strife will be diverted to the work of peace. Not until then can the high calling expressed in the words of Lord Bryce be realized.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abeghian, A. Der armenische Volksglaube. Leipzig. 1899.

Agathange. Histoire du regne de Tiridate. In Langlois, Collection des historiens de l'Armenie.

Anonymous. Easter service. Survey 36:167.