The Origin of the Family Private Property and the State by Frederick Engels (classic novels .txt) 📕

[26] Author's note.

The Latin rex is equivalent to the Celtic-Irish righ (tribal chief) and the Gothic reiks. That this, like the German Fürst, English first and Danish forste, originally signified gentile or tribal chief is evident from the fact that the Goths in the fourth century already had a special term for the king of later times, the military chief of a whole nation, viz., thiudans. In Ulfila's translation of the Bible Artaxerxes and Herod are never called reiks, but thiudans, and the empire of the emperor Tiberius not reiki, but thiudinassus. In the name of the Gothic thiudans, or king as we inaccurately translate, Thiudareiks (Theodoric, German Dietrich), both names flow together.

Space forbids a consideration of the gentile institutions found in a more or less pure form among the savage and barbarian races of the present day; or of the traces of such institutions, discovered in the ancient history of civilized nations in Asia. One or the other are met everywhere. A few illustrations may suffice: Even before the gens had been recognized, it was pointed out and accurately described in its main outlines by the man who took the greatest pains to misunderstand it, McLennan, who wrote of this institution among the Kalmucks, the Circassians, the Samoyeds and three Indian nations: the Warals, the Magars and the Munnipurs. Recently it was described by M. Kovalevsky, who discovered it among the Pshavs, Shevsurs, Svanets and other Caucasian tribes. A few short notes about the existence of the gens among Celts and Germans may find a place here.

The oldest Celtic laws preserved for us still show the gens in full bloom. In Ireland, it is alive in the popular instinct to this day, after it has been forced out of actual existence by the English. It was in full force in Scotland until the middle of the eighteenth century, and here it also succumbed only to the weapons, laws and courts of the English.

The old Welsh laws, written several centuries before the English invasion, not later than the 11th century, still show collective agriculture of whole villages, although only exceptionally and as the survival of a former universal custom. Every family had five acres for its special use; another lot was at the same time cultivated collectively and its yield divided among the different families. In view of Irish and Scotch analogies it cannot be doubted that these village communities represent gentes or subdivisions of gentes, even though a repeated investigation of the Welsh laws, which I cannot undertake from lack of time (my notes are from 1869), should not directly corroborate this. One thing, however, is plainly proven by the Welsh and Irish laws, namely that the pairing family had not yet given way to monogamy among the Celts of the 11th century. In Wales, marriage did not become indissoluble by divorce, or rather by notification, until after seven years. Even if no more than three nights were lacking to make up the seven years, a married couple could still separate. Their property was divided among them: the woman made the division, the man selected his share. The furniture was divided according to certain very funny rules. If the marriage was dissolved by the man, he had to return the woman's dowry and a few other articles; if the woman wished a separation, then she received less. Of three children the man took two, the woman one, viz., the second child. If the woman married again after her divorce, and her first husband claimed her back, she was obliged to follow him, even if she had one foot in her new husband's bed. But if two had lived together for seven years, they were considered man and wife, even without the preliminaries of a formal marriage. Chasteness of the girls before marriage was by no means strictly observed, nor was it required. The regulations regarding this subject are of an extremely frivolous nature and in contradiction with civilized morals. When a woman committed adultery, her husband had a right to beat her—this was one of three cases when he could do so without incurring a penalty—but after that he could not demand any other satisfaction, for "the same crime shall either be atoned for or avenged, but not both." The reasons that entitled a woman to a divorce without curtailing her claims to a fair settlement were of a very diverse nature: bad breath of the man was sufficient. The ransom to be paid to the chief or king for the right of the first night (gobr merch, hence the medieval name marcheta, French marquette) plays a conspicuous part in the code of laws. The women had the right to vote in the public meetings. Add to this that similar conditions are vouched for in Ireland; that marriage on time was also quite the custom there, and that the women were assured of liberal and well defined privileges in case of divorce, even to the point of remuneration for domestic services; that a "first wife" existed by the side of others, and that legal and illegal children without distinction received a share of their deceased parent's property—and we have a picture of the pairing family among the Celts. The marriage laws of the American Indians seem strict in comparison to the Celtic, but this is not surprising when we remember that the Celts were still living in group marriage at Cesar's time.

The Irish gens (Sept; the tribe was called clainne, clan) is confirmed and described not alone by the ancient law codes, but also by the English jurists of the 17th century who were sent across for the purpose of transforming the clan lands into royal dominions. Up to this time, the soil had been the collective property of the gens or the clan, except where the chiefs had already claimed it as their private dominion. When a gentile died, and a household was thus dissolved, the gentile chief (called caput cognationis by the English jurists) made a new assignment of the whole gentile territory to the rest of the household. This division of land probably took place according to such rules as were observed in Germany. Until about fifty years ago, village marks were quite frequent, and some of these so-called rundales may be found to this day. The farmers of a rundale, individual tenants on the soil that once was the collective property of the gens, but had been confiscated by the English conquerors, each pay the rent for his respective parcel. But they all combine their lands and parcel it off according to situation and quality. These parcels, called "Gewanne" on the German river Mosel, are cultivated collectively and their yield is divided into shares. Marshland and pastures are used in common. Fifty years ago, new divisions were still made occasionally, sometimes annually. The field map of such a rundale village looks exactly like that of a German "Gehöferschaft" (farming commune) on the Mosel or in the Hochwald. The gens also survives in the "factions." The Irish farmers often form parties that seem to be founded on absolutely contradictory or senseless distinctions, quite incomprehensible to Englishmen. The only purpose of these factions is apparently to rally for the popular sport of hammering the life out of one another. They are artificial reincarnations, modern substitutes for the dispersed gentes that demonstrate the continuation of the old gentile instinct in their own peculiar manner. By the way, in some localities the gentiles are still living together on what is practically their old territory. During the thirties, for instance, the great majority of the inhabitants of the old county of Monaghan had only four family names, i. e., they were descended from four