Woman under socialism Part 4

Its task was mainly to attend to the common religious affairs and to the ceremonial of funerals: to safeguard the mutual obligation of protection and of help against violence: to enforce the right, and, in certain cases, the duty of marrying in the gens, in cases when rich heiresses or female orphans were concerned. The gens, furthermore, administered the still existing common property. But the segmentation of handicraft from agriculture; the ever wider expansion of commerce; the founding of cities, rendered necessary by both of these; the conquest of booty and prisoners of war, the latter of which directly affected the household,--all of these tore to shreds the conditions and bonds of eld.

Handicraft had gradually subdivided itself into a larger number of separate trades--weaving, pottery, iron-forging, the preparation of arms, house and shipbuilding, etc. Accordingly, it pushed toward another organization. The ever further introduction of slavery, the admittance of strangers into the community,--these were all so many new and additional elements that rendered the old const.i.tution of society ever more impossible.

Along with private property and the personal right of inheritance, cla.s.s distinctions and cla.s.s contrasts came into existence. Rich property-owners drew together against those who owned less, or nothing.

The former sought to get into their own hands the public offices of the new commonwealth, and to make them hereditary. Money, now become necessary, created thitherto unknown forms of indebtedness. Wars against enemies from without, and conflicting interests within, as well as the various interests and relations which agriculture, handicraft and commerce mutually produced rendered necessary complicated rules of right, they demanded special organs to guard the orderly movement of the social machinery, and to settle disputes. The same held good for the relations of master and slave, creditor and debtor. A power, accordingly, became necessary to supervise, lead, regulate and harmonize all these relations, with authority to protect, and, when needed, to punish. _Thus rose the State, the product, accordingly of the conflicting interests that sprang up in the new social order._ Its administration naturally fell into the hands of those who had the liveliest interest in its establishment, and who, in virtue of their social power, possessed the greatest influence,--the rich. Aristocracy of property and democracy confronted each other, accordingly, even there where externally complete equality of political rights existed.

Under the mother-right, there was no written law. The relations were simple, and custom was held sacred. Under the new, and much more complicated order, written law was one of the most important requirements; and special organs became necessary to administer it. In the measure that the legal relations and legal conditions gained in intricacy, a special cla.s.s of people gathered shape, who made the study of the law their special vocation, and who finally had a special interest in rendering the law ever more complicated. Then arose the men learned in the laws, the jurists, who, due to the importance of the statutory law to the whole of society, rose to influential social rank.

The new system of rights found in the course of time its cla.s.sic expression in the Roman State, whence the influence that Roman law exercises down to the present.

The inst.i.tution of the State is, accordingly, the necessary result of a social order, that, standing upon the higher plane of the subdivision of labor, is broken up into a large number of occupations, animated by different, frequently conflicting, interests, and hence has the oppression of the weaker for a consequence. This fact was recognized even by an Arabian tribe, the Nabateans, who, according to Diodorus, established the regulation not to sow, not to plant, to drink no wine, and to build no houses, but to live in tents, because if those things were done, _they could be easily compelled to obey by a superior power_ (the power of the State). Likewise among the Rachebites, the descendants of the father-in-law of Moses, there existed similar prescriptions.[17]

Aye, the whole Mosaic system of laws is aimed at _preventing the Jews from moving out of an agricultural state, because otherwise, so the legislators feared, their democratic-communistic society would go under_. Hence the selection of the "Promised Land" in a region bounded, on one side, by a not very accessible mountain range, the Lebanon; on the other side, South and East, by but slightly fertile stretches of land, partly by deserts;--a region, accordingly, that rendered isolation possible. Hence came the keeping of the Jews away from the sea, which favored commerce, colonization and the acc.u.mulation of wealth; hence the rigid laws concerning seclusion from other peoples, the severe regulations against foreign marriages, the poor laws, the agrarian laws, the jubileum,--all of them provisions calculated to prevent the acc.u.mulation of great wealth by the individual. The Jewish people were to be kept in permanent disability ever to become the builders of a real State. Hence it happens that the tribal organization, which rested upon the gentile order, remained in force with them till its complete dissolution, and continues to affect them even now.

It seems that the Latin tribes, which took a hand in the founding of Rome, had long pa.s.sed beyond the stage of the mother-right. Hence Rome was built from the start as a State. The women that they needed they captured, as the legend tells us, from the tribe of the Sabines, and they called themselves after their Sabine wives,--Quirites. Even in later years, the Roman citizens were addressed in the Forum as Quirites.

"Populus Roma.n.u.s" stood for the free population of Rome in general; but "Populus Roma.n.u.s quiritium" expressed the ancestry and quality of the Roman citizen. The Roman gens was of father-right stamp. The children inherited as consanguineous heirs; if there were no children, the relatives of the male line inherited; were none of these in existence, then the property reverted to the gens. By marriage, woman lost her right to inherit her father's property and that of his brothers. She had stepped out of her gens: neither she nor her children could inherit from her father or his brothers: otherwise the inheritance would be lost to the paternal gens. The division in gentes, phratries and tribes const.i.tuted in Rome for centuries the foundation of the military organization, and also of the exercise of the rights of citizenship. But with the decay of the paternal gentes and the decline of their significance, conditions shaped themselves more favorably for woman. She could not only inherit, but had the right to administer her own fortune.

She was, accordingly, far more favorably situated than her Greek sister.

The freer position that, despite all legal impediments, she gradually knew how to conquer, caused the elder Cato, born 234 before our reckoning, to complain: "If, after the example of his ancestors, every head of a family kept his wife in proper subjection, we would not have so much public bother with the whole s.e.x."[18]

So long as the father lived, he held in Rome the guardianship over his daughter, even if she were married, unless he appointed another guardian himself. When the father died, the nearest male of kin, even though declared unqualified as an agnate, came in as guardian. The guardian had the right at any time to transfer the guardianship to any third person that he pleased. Accordingly, before the law, the Roman woman had no will of her own.

The nuptial forms were various, and in the course of centuries underwent manifold alterations. The most solemn nuptials were celebrated before the High Priest, in the presence of at least ten witnesses. At the occasion, the bridal pair, in token of their union, partook together from a cake made of flour, salt and water. As will be noticed, a ceremony is here celebrated, that bears great resemblance to the breaking of the sacramental wafer at the Christian communion. A second form of nuptials consisted in possession. The marriage was considered accomplished if, with the consent of her father or guardian, a woman lived with the chosen man a whole year under one roof. A third form of nuptials was a sort of mutual purchase, both sides exchanging coins, and the promise to be man and wife. Already at the time of Cicero[19] free divorce for both sides was generally established; it was even debated whether the announcement of the divorce was necessary. The "lex Julia de adulteriis," however, prescribed that the divorce was to be solemnly proclaimed. This decree was made for the reason that women, who committed adultery, and were summoned to answer the charge, often claimed to have been divorced. Justinian, the Christian[20] forbade free divorce, unless both sides desired to retire to a monastery. His successor, Justinian II, however, found himself obliged to allow it again.

With the growing power and rising wealth of Rome, mad-brained vices and excesses took the place of the former severity of manners. Rome became the center from which debauchery, riotous luxury and sensuous refinements radiated over the whole of the then civilized world. The excesses took--especially during the time of the Emperors, and, to a great extent, through the Emperors themselves--forms that only insanity could suggest. Men and women vied with one another in vice. The number of houses of prost.i.tution became ever larger, and, hand in hand with these, the "Greek love" (pederasty) spread itself ever more among the male population. At times, the number of young men in Rome who prost.i.tuted themselves was larger than that of the female prost.i.tutes.

"The hetairae appeared, surrounded by their admirers, in great pomp on the streets, promenades, the circus and theatres, often carried by negroes upon litters, where, holding a mirror in their hands, and sparkling with ornaments and precious stones, they lay outstretched, nude, fan-carrying slaves standing by them, and surrounded by a swarm of boys, eunuchs and flute-players; grotesque dwarfs closed the procession."

These excesses a.s.sumed such proportions in the Roman Empire that they became a danger to the Empire itself. The example of the men was followed by the women. There were women, Seneca reports, who counted the years, not as was the usage, after the consuls, but after the number of their husbands. Adultery was general; and, in order that the women might escape the severe punishments prescribed for the offense, they, and among them the leading dames of Rome, caused themselves to be entered in the registers of the Aediles as prost.i.tutes.

Hand in hand with these excesses, civil wars and the latifundia system, celibacy and childlessness increased in such measure that the number of Roman citizens and of patricians ran down considerably. Hence in the year 16 B. C., Augustus issued the so-called Julian Law,[21] which offered prizes for the birth of children, and imposed penalties for celibacy upon the Roman citizens and patricians. He who had children had precedence in rank over the childless and unmarried. Bachelors could accept no inheritance, except from their own nearest kin. The childless could only inherit one-half; the rest fell to the State. Women, who could be taxed with adultery, had to surrender one-half of their dower to the abused husband. Thereupon there were men who married out of speculation on the adultery of their wives. This caused Plutarch to observe: "The Romans marry, not to obtain heirs, but to inherit."

Still later the Julian Law was made severer. Tiberius decreed that no woman, whose grandfather, father or husband had been or still was a Roman Knight, could prost.i.tute herself for money. Married women, who caused themselves to be entered in the registers of prost.i.tutes, were condemned to banishment from Italy as adulteresses. Of course, there were no such punishments for the men. Moreover, as Juvenal reports, even the murder of husbands by poison was a frequent occurrence in the Rome of his day--the first half of the first century before Christ.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Bachofen's book appeared in 1861 under the t.i.tle, "Das Mutterrecht"

(Mother-right) "Eine Untersuchung ueber die Gynaekokratie der Alten Welt nach ihrer religioesen und rechtlichen Natur," Stuttgart, Krais & Hoffmann. Morgan's fundamental work, "Ancient Society," appeared in a German translation in 1891, J. H. W. Dietz, Stuttgart. From the same publisher there appeared in German: "The Origin of the Family, of Private Property and the State, in support of Lewis H. Morgan's Investigations," by Frederick Engels. Fourth enlarged edition, 1892.

Also "Die Verwandtschafts-Organisationen der Australneger. Ein Beitrag zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Familie," by Heinrich Cunow, 1894.

[The perspective into which the Pleiades of distinguished names are thrown in the text just above is apt to convey an incorrect impression, and the impression is not materially corrected in the subsequent references to them. Neither Bachofen, nor yet Tylor, McLennan or Lubbock contributed to the principles that now are canons in ethnology. They were not even path-finders, valuable though their works are.

Bachofen collected, in his work ent.i.tled "Das Mutterrecht," the gleanings of vast and tireless researches among the writings of the ancients, with an eye to female authority. Subsequently, and helping themselves more particularly to the more recent contributions to archeology, that partly dealt with living aborigines, Tylor, McLennan and Lubbock produced respectively, "Early History of Mankind;"

"Primitive Marriage;" and "Pre-Historic Times" and "Origin of Civilization." These works, though partly theoretic, yet are mainly descriptive. By an effort of genius--like the wood-p.e.c.k.e.r, whose instinct tells it the desired worm is beneath the bark and who pecks at and round about it--all these men, Bachofen foremost, scented sense in the seeming nonsense of ancient traditions, or surmised significance in the more recently ascertained customs of living aborigines. But again, like the wood-p.e.c.k.e.r, that has struck a bark too thick for its bill, these men could not solve the problem they were at. They lacked the information to pick, and they had not, nor were they so situated as to furnish themselves with, the key to open the lock. Morgan furnished the key.

Lewis Henry Morgan, born In Aurora, N. Y., November 21, 1818, and equipped with vast scholarship and archeological information, took up his residence among the Iroquois Indians, by whom, the Hawk gens of the Seneca tribe, he was eventually adopted. The fruit of his observations there and among other Indian tribes that he visited even west of the Mississippi, together with simultaneous information sent him by the American missionaries in the Sandwich Islands, was a series of epoch-making works, "The League of the Iroquois," "Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family," and "Ancient Society,"

which appeared in 1877. A last and not least valuable work was his "Houses and Houselife of the American Aborigines." A solid foundation was now laid for the science of ethnology and anthropology. The problem was substantially solved.

The robust scientific mind of Karl Marx promptly absorbed the revelations made by Morgan, and he recast his own views accordingly. A serious ethnological error had crept into his great work, "Capital," two editions of which had been previously published in German between 1863-1873. A footnote by Frederick Engels (p. 344, Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., English edition, 1886) testifies to the revolution Morgan's works had wrought on the ethnological conceptions of the founder of Socialist economics and sociology.

Subsequently, Frederick Engels, planted squarely on the principles established by Morgan, issued a series of brilliant monographs, in which, equipped with the key furnished by Morgan and which Engels'

extensive economic and sociologic knowledge enabled him to wield with deftness, he explained interesting social phenomena among the ancients, and thereby greatly enriched the literature of social science.

Finally, Heinrich Cunow, though imagining to perceive some minor flaws in some secondary parts of Morgan's theory, placed himself in absolute accord with the body of Morgan's real work, as stated later in the text in a quotation from Cunow; and, following closely in Morgan's footsteps, made and published interesting independent researches on the system of consanguinity among the Austral-Negros.--THE TRANSLATOR.]

[2] In his book against us, Ziegler ridicules the idea of attributing to myths any significance whatever in the history of civilization. In that notion stands betrayed the superficial nature of so-called scientists.

They do not recognize what they do not see. A deep significance lies at the bottom of myths. They have grown out of the people's soul; out of olden morals and customs that have gradually disappeared, and now continue to live only in the myth. When we strike facts that explain a myth we are in possession of solid ground for its interpretation.

[3] Bachofen: "Das Mutterrecht."

[4] Totem-group means generation-group. Each grade or generation has its own totem-animal. For instance: Opossum, emu, wolf, bear, etc., after which the group is named. The totem-animal frequently enjoys great honor. It is held sacred with the respective group, and its members may neither kill the animal, nor eat its flesh. The totem-animal has a similar significance to the patron saint of the guild in the Middle Ages.

[5] In the oldest ward of the city of Prague, there is a small synagogue that comes down from the sixth century of our reckoning, and is said to be the oldest synagogue in Germany. If the visitor steps down about seven steps into the half-dark s.p.a.ce, he discovers in the opposite wall several target-like openings that lead into a completely dark room. To the question, where these openings lead to our leader answered: "To the woman's compartment, whence they witness the service." The modern synagogues are much more cheerfully arranged, but the separation of the women from the men is preserved.

[6] Frederick Engels, "The Origin of the Family."

[7] Frederick Engels, _ubi supra_.

[8] Book of Judges, 20, 21 and sequel.

[9] Bachofen: "Das Mutterrecht."

[10] Of the theater, to which women had no access.

[11] Johann Scherr, "Deutsche Kultur-und Sittengeschichte:" Leipsic, 1887. Otto Wigand. As is known, Suderman deals with the same subject in his play, "Die Ehre."

[12] Plato, "The Republic," Book V.

[13] Leon Bichter, "La Femme Libre."

[14] Bachofen. "Das Mutterrecht."

[15] K. Kautsky, "Die Entstehung der Ehe und der Familie," Kosmos, 1883.

[16] Montegazza, "L'Amour dans l'Humanite."

[17] Joh. David Michaelis, "Mosaisches Recht," Reutlingen, 1793.

[18] Karl Heinzen, "Ueber die Rechte und Stellung der Frauen."

[19] Born 106 before our reckoning.

[20] He lived from 527 to 565 of our reckoning.

[21] Augustus, the son of Caesar by adoption, was of the Julian gens, hence the t.i.tle "Julian" law.

CHAPTER II.

UNDER CHRISTIANITY.