Chapter XXV: The Subjection of Children (2)

The parental authority depends, in the first place, on the natural superiority of parents over their children when young, and on the helplessness of the latter; and for similar reasons the daughter, though grown-up, still remains in her father's power. Parents are, moreover, considered to possess in some measure proprietary rights over their offspring, being their originators and maintainers;[199] and in various cases, it seems, the father is also regarded as their owner because he is the owner of their mother. Filial duties and parental rights to some extent spring from the children's natural feeling of affection for their parents,[200] particularly for their mother,[201] and from the debt of gratitude which they are considered to owe to those who have brought them into existence and taken care of them whilst young.[202] The authority of parents is much enhanced and extended by the sentiment of filial reverence, as distinct from mere affection. From their infancy children are used to look up to their parents, {619} especially the father, as to beings superior to themselves; and this feeling, which by itself has a tendency to persist, is all the more likely to last even when the parents get old, as it is based not only on superior strength and bodily skill, but on superior knowledge, which remains though the physical power be on the wane. Among savages, in particular, filial regard is largely regard for one's elders or the aged. The old men represent the wisdom of the tribe. "Long life and wisdom," say the Iroquois, "are always connected together."[203] Throughout all West Africa the aged are "the knowing ones."[204] In his work on the Algerian natives M. Villot observes:--"Les vieillards, au milieu des sociétés barbares, représentent la tradition qui tient lieu de patrie; la science des coutumes et usages qui remplacent la loi; la connaissance des généalogies qui fixe les degrés de parenté et sert de base à la détermination des titres de propriété. Pour ces causes, aussi bien qu'en raison de leur faiblesse et de leurs cheveux blancs, le respect pour les vieillards est de règle au milieu des indigènes."[205] Among people who possess no literature the old men are the sole authorities on religion, as well as on custom. In Australia the deference shown to them is partly due to the superstitious awe of certain mysterious rites which are known to them alone, and to the knowledge of which young persons are only very gradually admitted.[206] Moreover, old age itself inspires a feeling of mysterious awe. The Moors say that, when getting old, a man becomes a saint, and a woman a _jinnía_, or evil spirit--there is something supernatural in both. Among the East African Embe "it is only by means of the rankest superstition that the old men are able to maintain their supremacy over the hot-blooded youths"; they convince the warriors, by presenting them {620} with some magic emblem, that in the hands of the sages alone rest the fate and fortune of those who fight in a battle. And old women, also, are often believed to possess supernatural power, in which case their influence, in spite of the subservient position of their sex in general, is almost as great as that of a medicine-man.[207] According to the beliefs of the natives of Western Victoria, witches always appear in the form of an old woman.[208] Among the Maoris some of the aged women exercise the greatest influence over their tribes, being supposed to possess the power of witchcraft and sorcery.[209] Among the Abipones, says Charlevoix, "the old women take upon them to be great witches; and it would be no easy matter to convert them."[210] In Arabia, as well as in Morocco, old women are always believed to be skilled in sorcery.[211]

[Footnote 199: _Cf._ _Vasishtha_, xv. 1 _sq._; _Bandháyana Parisishta_, vii. 5. 2 _sq._]

[Footnote 200: For instances of filial affection among savages see Catlin, _North American Indians_, ii. 242; Powers, _Tribes of California_, p. 112 (Mattoal); Selenka, _Sonnige Welten_, p. 34 (Dyaks); Seemann, _Viti_, p. 193; Mathew, 'Australian Aborigines,' in _Jour. & Proceed. Roy. Soc. N.S. Wales_, xxiii. 388.]

[Footnote 201: For instances of great affection for the mother, see Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_, p. 474 (Barea and Kunáma); Winterbottom, _Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone_, i. 211; Park, _Travels in the Interior of Africa_, p. 241; New, _op. cit._ p. 101 (Wanika); François, _Nama und Damara, Deutsch-Süd-West-Afrika_, p. 251 (Mountain Damaras); Rowley, _Africa Unveiled_, p. 164; Lane, _Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians_, p. 70 _sq._; Urquhart, _op. cit._ ii. 265 _sq._ (Turks); Schmidt, _Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 146, 155. It is said in the Talmud that the child loves its mother more than its father, whilst it fears its father more than its mother (Deutsch, _Literary Remains_, p. 55).]

[Footnote 202: _Hsiáo King_, 9 (_Sacred Books of the East_, iii. 479). _Laws of Manu_, ii. 227. Plato, _Leges_, iv. 717.]

[Footnote 203: Loskiel, _History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians in North America_, i. 15.]

[Footnote 204: Kingsley, _West African Studies_, p. 142.]

[Footnote 205: Villot, _M[oe]urs, coutumes et institutions des indigènes de l'Algérie_, p. 47.]

[Footnote 206: Schuermann, 'Aboriginal Tribes of Port Lincoln,' in Woods, _Native Tribes of South Australia_, p. 226. _Cf._ Nelson, 'Eskimo about Bering Strait,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xviii. 304.]

[Footnote 207: Chanler, _op. cit._ pp. 247, 252.]

[Footnote 208: Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 52.]

[Footnote 209: Angas, _Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand_, i. 317.]

[Footnote 210: Charlevoix, _History of Paraguay_, i. 406.]

[Footnote 211: Niebuhr, _Travels in Arabia_, ii. 216.]

The beliefs held regarding the dead also influence the treatment of the aged whose lives are drawing to an end. Certain African tribes treat their old people with every kindness in order to secure their goodwill after death.[212] A missionary in East Africa heard a negro say with reference to an old man, "We will do what he says, because he is soon going to die."[213] The Omahas "were afraid to abandon their aged on the prairie when away from their permanent villages lest Wakanda should punish them";[214] and in this case it seems that Wakanda, at least originally meant the ghost of the dead. The Niase is an egoist ever in his respect for the old, because he hopes that they will protect and assist him when they are dead.[215] In China the doctrine that ghosts may interfere at any moment with human business and fate, either favourably or unfavourably, "enforces respect for human life and a charitable {621} treatment of the infirm, the aged, and the sick, especially if they stand on the brink of the grave."[216] The regard for the aged and the worship of the dead are often mentioned together in a way which suggests that there exists an intrinsic connection between them. Of the Dacotahs Prescott observes, "Veneration is very great in some Indians for old age, and they all feel it for the dead."[217] The worship of ancestors is a distinguishing characteristic of the religious system of Southern Guinea; the "profound respect for aged persons, by a very natural operation of the mind, is turned into idolatrous regard for them when dead."[218] "The Barotse chiefly worship the souls of their ancestors. . . . Cognate to this worship of ancestors is the great respect displayed for parents and the old--especially the eldest of a family or tribe."[219] Among the Herero "the tomb of a father is the most important of all holy places, the soul of a father the oracle most often consulted."[220] The Aetas of the Philippine Islands "have a profound respect for old-age and for their dead."[221] The Ossetes "show the greatest love and veneration to their parents, to old age generally, and especially to the memory of their ancestors."[222] In cases like these, however, it is impossible accurately to distinguish between cause and effect. Whilst the worship of the dead is, in the first place, due to the mystery of death, it is evident that the regard in which a person is held during his lifetime also influences the veneration which is bestowed on his disembodied soul.

[Footnote 212: Arnot, _op. cit._ p. 78, note.]

[Footnote 213: Lippert, _Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit_, i. 229.]

[Footnote 214: Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ iii. 369. _Cf._ _ibid._ p. 275.]

[Footnote 215: Modigliani, _Viaggio a Nías_, p. 467.]

[Footnote 216: de Groot, _op. cit._ (vol. iv. book) ii. 450.]

[Footnote 217: Prescott, in Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes of the United States_, ii. 196.]

[Footnote 218: Wilson, _Western Africa_, p. 392 _sq._]

[Footnote 219: Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_, p. 74 _sq._]

[Footnote 220: François, _op. cit._ p. 192.]

[Footnote 221: Foreman, _op. cit._ p. 209.]

[Footnote 222: von Haxthausen, _Transcaucasia_, p. 414.]

There are thus obvious reasons for the connection between filial submissiveness and religious beliefs; but the chief cause of this connection seems to be the extreme importance frequently attached to the curses and blessings of parents. Among the Nandi in Central Africa, "if a {622} son refuses to obey his father in any serious matter, the father solemnly strikes the son with his fur mantle. This is equivalent to a most serious curse, and is supposed to be fatal to the son unless he obtains forgiveness, which he can only do by sacrificing a goat before his father."[223] Among the Mpongwe "there is nothing which a young person so much deprecates as the curse of an aged person, and especially that of a revered father."[224] The Barea and Kunáma are convinced that any undertaking which has not the blessing of the old people will fail, that every curse uttered by them must be destructive.[225] Among the Bogos nobody takes an employment or gives it up, nobody engages in a business or contracts a marriage, before he has received the blessing of his father or his master.[226] Among the Herero, "when a chief feels his dissolution approaching, he calls his sons to the bedside, and gives them his benediction."[227] The Moors have a proverb that "if the saints curse you the parents will cure you, but if the parents curse you the saints will not cure you." The ancient Hebrews believed that parents, and especially a father, could by their blessings or curses determine the fate of their children;[228] indeed, we have reason to assume that the reward which in the fifth commandment is held out to respectful children was originally a result of parental blessings. We still meet with the original idea in Ecclesiasticus, where it is said: "Honour thy father and mother both in word and deed, that a blessing may come upon thee from them. For the blessing of the father establisheth the houses of children; but the curse of the mother rooteth out foundations."[229] The same notion that the parents' blessings beget prosperity, and that their curses bring ruin, prevailed in ancient Greece. Plato says {623} in his 'Laws':--"Neither God, nor a man who has understanding, will ever advise any one to neglect his parents. . . . If a man has a father or mother, or their fathers or mothers treasured up in his house stricken in years, let him consider that no statue can be more potent to grant his requests than they are, who are sitting at his hearth, if only he knows how to show true service to them. . . . Oedipus, as tradition says, when dishonoured by his sons, invoked on them curses which every one declares to have been heard and ratified by the gods, and Amyntor in his wrath invoked curses on his son Phoenix, and Theseus upon Hippolytus, and innumerable others have also called down wrath upon their children, whence it is clear that the gods listen to the imprecations of parents; for the curses of parents are, as they ought to be, mighty against their children as no others are. And shall we suppose that the prayers of a father or mother who is specially dishonoured by his or her children, are heard by the gods in accordance with nature; and that if a parent is honoured by them, and in the gladness of his heart earnestly entreats the gods in his prayers to do them good, he is not equally heard, and that they do not minister to his request? . . . Therefore, if a man makes a right use of his father and grandfather and other aged relations, he will have images which above all others will win him the favour of the gods."[230] Originally the efficacy of parents' curses and blessings were ascribed to a magic power immanent in the spoken word itself, and their Erinyes, who were no less terrible than the Erinyes of neglected guests,[231] were only personifications of their curses.[232] But in this, as in other similar cases already noticed, the fulfilment of the curse or the blessing came afterwards to be looked upon as an act of divine justice. According to Plato, "Nemesis, the messenger of justice," watches over unbecoming words uttered {624} to a parent;[233] and Hesiod says that if anybody reproaches an aged father or mother "Zeus himself is wroth, and at last, in requital for wrong deeds, lays on him a bitter penalty."[234] It also seems to be beyond all doubt that the _divi parentum_ of the Romans, like their _dii hospitales_, were nothing but personified curses. For it is said, "If a son beat his parent and he cry out, the son shall be devoted to the parental gods for destruction."[235] In aristocratic families in Russia children used to stand in mortal fear of their fathers' curses;[236] and the country people still believe that a marriage without the parents' approval will call down the wrath of Heaven on the heads of the young couple.[237] Some of the Southern Slavs maintain that if a son does not fulfil the last will of his father, the soul of the father will curse him from the grave.[238] The Servians say, "Without reverence for old men, there is no salvation."[239]

[Footnote 223: Johnston, _Uganda Protectorate_, ii. 879.]

[Footnote 224: Wilson, _Western Africa_, p. 393.]

[Footnote 225: Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_, p. 475.]

[Footnote 226: _Idem_, _Sitten der Bogos_, p. 90 _sq._]

[Footnote 227: Andersson, _Lake Ngami_, p. 228.]

[Footnote 228: _Genesis_, ix. 25 _sqq._; xxvii. 4, 19, 23, 25, 27 _sqq._; xlviii. 9, 14 _sqq._; xlix. 4, 7 _sqq._ _Judges_, xvii. 2. _Cf._ Cheyne, 'Blessings and Cursings,' in _Encyclopædia Biblica_, i. 592; Nowack, 'Blessing and Cursing,' in _Jewish Encyclopedia_, iii. 244.]

[Footnote 229: _Ecclesiasticus_, iii. 8 _sq._ _Cf._ _ibid._ iii. 16.]

[Footnote 230: Plato, _Leges_, xi. 930 _sq._ _Cf._ _ibid._ iv. 717.]

[Footnote 231: Aeschylus, _Eumenides_, 545 _sqq._]

[Footnote 232: See _Iliad_, xxi. 412 _sq._; Sophocles, _[OE]dipus Coloneus_, 1299, 1434; von Lasaulx, _Der Fluch bei Griechen und Römern_, p. 8; Müller, _Dissertations on the Eumenides_, p. 155 _sqq._; Rohde, 'Paralipomena,' in _Rheinisches Museum für Philologie_, 1895, p. 7.]

[Footnote 233: Plato, _Leges_, iv. 717.]

[Footnote 234: Hesiod, _Opera et dies_, 331 _sqq._ (329 _sqq._).]

[Footnote 235: Servius Tullius, in Bruns, _Fontes Juris Romani antiqui_, p. 14, and Festus, _De verborum significatione_, ver. _Plorare_: "Si parentem puer verberit, ast olle plorassit, puer divis parentum sacer esto." _Cf._ Leist, _Alt-arisches Jus Civile_, i. 184.]

[Footnote 236: I am indebted to Prince Kropotkin for this statement.]

[Footnote 237: Kovalewsky, _Modern Customs and Ancient Laws of Russia_, p. 37.]

[Footnote 238: Krauss, _op. cit._ p. 119.]

[Footnote 239: Maine, _Early Law and Custom_, p. 243.]

In various instances the rewards or punishments attached to the behaviour of children seem to spring from the belief in parental blessings and curses, although the cause is not expressly mentioned. According to ancient Hindu ideas, a father, mother, and spiritual teacher are equal to the three Vedas, equal to the three gods, Brahman, Vishnu, and Siva.[240] A man who shows no regard for them derives no benefit from any religious observance; whereas, "by honouring his mother, he gains the present world; by honouring his father, the world of gods; and by paying strict obedience to his spiritual teacher, the world of Brahman."[241] As in Greece a person who had assaulted his parent was regarded as polluted by a curse,[242] so according {625} to the sacred law of India, those who quarrel with their father, and those who have forsaken their father, mother, or spiritual teacher, defile a company and must not be entertained at a Srâddha offering.[243] Those who have struck any of these persons cannot be readmitted until they have been purified with water taken from a sacred lake or river.[244] The stain of disobedience towards mother and father is purged away with barley-corns, like food which has been licked at by dogs or pigs, or defiled by crows and impure men.[245] In the Dhammapada it is said that to him who always greets and constantly reveres the aged four things will increase, namely, life, beauty, happiness, and power.[246] The Coreans believe that "the richest rewards on earth and brightest heaven hereafter await the filial child," whereas "curses and disgrace in this life and the hottest hell in the world hereafter are the penalties of the disobedient or neglectful child."[247] It seems to have been a notion of the ancient Egyptians that a son who accepted the word of his father would attain old age on that account.[248] The following is an exhortation which an Aztec gave to his son:--"Guard against imitating the example of those wicked sons who, like brutes that are deprived of reason, neither reverence their parents, listen to their instruction, nor submit to their correction; because whoever follows their steps will have an unhappy end, will die in a desperate or sudden manner, or will be killed and devoured by wild beasts."[249] And if an Aztec married without the sanction of his parents, the belief was that he would be punished with some misfortune.[250] The Aleuts were of opinion that those who were attentive to feeble old men, expecting in exchange their good advice only, would be long-lived and fortunate in the chase and in war, and would not be neglected when growing old {626} themselves.[251] In the Tonga Islands "disrespect to one's superior relations is little short of sacrilege to the gods," and to pay respect to chiefs is "a superior sacred duty, the non-fulfilment of which it is supposed the gods would punish almost as severely as disrespect to themselves."[252] In the same islands great efficacy is ascribed to curses which are uttered by a superior.[253]

[Footnote 240: _Institutes of Vishnu_, xxxi. 7. _Laws of Manu_, ii. 230.]

[Footnote 241: _Institutes of Vishnu_, xxxi. 9 _sq._ _Cf._ _Laws of Manu_, ii. 233 _sq._]

[Footnote 242: Plato, _Leges_, ix. 881.]

[Footnote 243: _Institutes of Vishnu_, lxxxii. 28 _sqq._]

[Footnote 244: _Vasishtha_, xv. 19 _sq._]

[Footnote 245: _Baudháyana_, iii. 6. 5. _Institutes of Vishnu_, xlviii. 20.]

[Footnote 246: _Dhammapada_, 109.]

[Footnote 247: Griffis, _Corea_, p. 236.]

[Footnote 248: _Precepts of Ptah-Hotep_, 39.]

[Footnote 249: Clavigero, _op. cit._ i. 332. Torquemada, _Monarchia Indiana_, ii. 493.]

[Footnote 250: Torquemada, _op. cit._ ii. 415.]

[Footnote 251: Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, _loc. cit._ p. 155.]

[Footnote 252: Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 237, 155.]

[Footnote 253: _Ibid._ ii. 238.]

Why are the blessings and curses of parents supposed to possess such an extraordinary power? One reason is no doubt the mystery of old age and the nearness of death. As appears from several of the cases already referred to, it is not parents only but old people generally that are held capable of giving due effect to their good and evil wishes, and this capacity is believed to increase when life is drawing to its close. The Herero "know really no blessing save that conferred by the father on his death-bed."[254] According to old Teutonic ideas, the curse of a dying person was the strongest of all curses.[255] A similar notion prevailed among the ancient Arabs;[256] and among the Hebrews the father's mystic privilege of determining the weal or woe of his children was particularly obvious when his days were manifestly numbered.[257] But, at the same time, parental benedictions and imprecations possess a potency of their own owing to the parents' superior position in the family and the respect in which they are naturally held. The influence which such a superiority has upon the efficacy of curses is well brought out by various facts. According to the Greek notion, the Erinyes avenged wrongs done by younger members of a family to elder ones, even brothers and sisters, but not _vice versâ_.[258] The Arabs of Morocco say that the curse of a husband is as potent as that of a father. The Tonga Islanders believe {627} that curses have no effect "if the party who curses is considerably lower in rank than the party cursed."[259] Moreover, where the father was invested with sacerdotal functions--as was the case among the ancient nations of culture--his blessings and curses would for that reason also be efficacious in an exceptional degree.[260]

[Footnote 254: Ratzel, _History of Mankind_, ii. 468.]

[Footnote 255: Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, iv. 1690.]

[Footnote 256: Wellhausen, _Reste arabischen Heidentums_, pp. 139, 191.]

[Footnote 257: Cheyne, in _Encyclopædia Biblica_, i. 592.]

[Footnote 258: _Iliad_, xv. 204: "Thou knowest how the Erinyes do always follow to aid the elder-born." _Cf._ Müller, _Dissertations on the Eumenides_, p. 155 _sq._]

[Footnote 259: Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 238.]

[Footnote 260: _Cf._ Nowack, in _Jewish Encyclopedia_, iii. 243 _sq._]

However, the facts which we have hitherto considered are hardly sufficient to account for the extraordinary development of the paternal authority in the archaic State. Great though it be, the influence which magic and religious beliefs exercise upon the paternal authority is, as we have just seen, largely of a reactive character. A father's blessings would not be so eagerly sought for, nor would his curses be so greatly feared, if he were a less important personage in the family. So, too, as Sir Henry Maine aptly remarks, the father's power is older than the practice of worshipping him. "Why should the dead father be worshipped more than any other member of the household unless he was the most prominent--it may be said, the most awful--figure in it during his life?"[261] We must assume that there exists some connection between the organisation of the family and the political constitution of the society. At the lower stages of civilisation--though hardly at the very lowest--we frequently find that the clan has attained such an overwhelming importance that only a very limited amount of authority could be claimed by the head of each separate family. But, as will be shown in a following chapter, this was changed when clans and tribes were united into a State. The new State tended to weaken and destroy the clan-system, whereas at the same time the family-tie grew in strength. In early society there seems to be an antagonism between the family and the clan. Where the clan-bond is very strong it encroaches upon the family feeling, and where it is loosened the family gains. Hence Dr. Grosse is probably right in his {628} assumption that the father became a patriarch, in the true sense of the word, only as the inheritor of the authority which formerly belonged to the clan.[262]

[Footnote 261: Maine, _Early Law and Custom_, p. 76.]

[Footnote 262: Grosse, _Die Formen der Familie_, p. 219.]

But whilst in its early days the State strengthened the family by weakening the clan, its later development had a different tendency. When national life grew more intense, when members of separate families drew nearer to one another in pursuit of a common goal, the family again lost in importance. It has been observed that in England and America, where political life is most highly developed, children's respect for their parents is at a particularly low ebb.[263] Other factors also, inherent in progressive civilisation, contributed to the downfall of the paternal power--the extinction of ancestor-worship, the decay of certain superstitious beliefs, the declining influence of religion, and last, but not least, the spread of a keener mutual sympathy throughout the State, which could not tolerate that the liberty of children should be sacrificed to the despotic rule of their fathers.

[Footnote 263: Monier Williams, _Indian Wisdom_, p. 440, n. 1.]