Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/465

Rh everywhere we find it leading either to destruction of daughters, or to low estimation and ill-treatment of them. Through long ascending stages of social life the desire thus arising persists; as instance the statement of Herodotus, that every Persian prided himself on the number of his sons, and it is even said that an annual prize was given by the monarch to the Persian who could show most sons living. Obviously the social motive, thus coming in aid of the parental motive, served to raise the status of male children above that of female.

A reason for the care of sons implied in the passage of Ecclesiasticus which says, "He left behind him an avenger against his enemies," is a reason which has weighed with all races in barbarous and semi-civilized states. The sacred duty of blood-revenge, earliest of recognized obligations among men, survives so long as societies remain predominantly warlike; and it generates an anxiety to have a male representative who shall retaliate upon those from whom injuries have been received. This bequest of quarrels to be fought out, traceable down to recent times among so-called Christians, as in the will of Brantôme, has, of course, all along raised the value of sons, and has so put upon the harsh treatment of them a check not put upon the harsh treatment of daughters—whence a further differentiation of status.

The development of ancestor-worship, which, enjoining sacrifices to be made by each man at the tombs of his immediate and more remote male progenitors, implies anticipation of like sacrifices to his own ghost by his son, initiates yet another motive for cherishing sons—adds to the parental regard for children a feeling which tells in favor of males rather than of females. The effects of this motive are at the present time shown us by the Chinese, among whom the death of an only son is especially lamented, because there will be no one to make offerings at the grave, and among whom the peremptory need for a son hence arising is held to justify the taking of a concubine, though, "if a person has sons by his wife (for daughters never enter into the account), it is considered derogatory to take a handmaid at all." On recalling Egyptian wall-paintings and papyri, and the like evidence furnished by Assyrian records, showing that sacrifices to ancestors were performed by their male descendant—on remembering, too, that among ancient Aryans, Hindoo, Greek, Roman, the daughter was incapable of this function, and that sons were, therefore, required for maintaining the family-cult—we are shown how this developed form of the primitive religion, while it strengthened filial subordination, added an incentive to parental care—of sons, but not of daughters.

In brief, then, the relations of adults to young among human beings, originally like those among animals, began to assume higher forms under the influence of the several desires—to obtain an aider in fighting enemies, to provide an avenger for injuries received, and to