Feminism / by Correa Moylan Walsh.

  • Correa Moylan Walsh
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Feminism / by Correa Moylan Walsh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and its property went to collateral heirs, to the great grief of the last of the line.*® These were the customs of the patriarchal conquering races. The matronymical conquered races were allowed to continue their old laxness.*7 ‘The lower classes could marry for pleasure: the upper classes had to observe considerations of duty. The patriar- chal system is, in fact, an oligarchical one, unworkable throughout the mass of the people, at all events after society has developed beyond the simplicity of the pastoral or early communal agricul- tural stage. In itself it contains an inherent flaw. For it implies that every father of a family shall have one son to continue his name and inherit his estate, and one daughter to be married off to a neighbour’s son, in return for a daughter received from a neigh- bour in marriage to the son. In the male line, one son is enough, all others are a superfluity. The eldest is begotten to fulfil a duty, the rest for love.*® To divide the estate among them would soon dissipate it, and impair the power of defence. Moreover, the homestead, with the tombs of the ancestors, did not admit of division. or these reasons the eldest son was given all the prop- erty, or at least all the authority ; and to him came the family seat. In fact, many ancient states were ordered on the principle that they were composed of a fixed number of families, each with its own indivisible and inalienable landed estate, which was handed on from generation to generation.’® Consequently all other sons and daughters but the eldest constituted a problem. Yet other sons and daughters are a necessity ; for nature is not kind enough to furnish every married couple with just one son and one daugh- ter, and if every couple contented themselves with two children, one might die. Before a son is born, several daughters may come; before a daughter, several sons. Nor would it be safe to employ infanticide and to stop at a first son and daughter, for the same reason that one of them might die. For security several are needed. But these, if they survive, are in the way; for if they receive a share in the landed estate, this must ultimately dwindle to practically nothing, and if they do not, how are they to be provided for? In the rising period, if there are conquests of other countries, they may be married and sent off to settle there, receiving lots in the new territory. But when conquests come to 16 Cf. Iliad, V. 152-8. 17 Note to-day in our southern States, how negroes and negresses are allowed fre- quently to remarry without the formality of divorce, the whites not bothering to en- force with regard to them the laws against bigamy. 18 So said one of the Laws of Manu, IX. 107. : j Ana 19 So in Greece, Fustel de Coulanges, 73. Plato wished to establish, in his ideal state, a fixed number of propertied citizens (not inhabitants), which number was never to be augmented by division or diminished by amalgamation, Laws, V. 740 B, XI. _ 929 A, cf, Republic, IV. 423 C and V. 460 A
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