Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/129

 CHAP. IX. MORALS OF THE ANCIENT FAMILY. 123 <lerived from the right of the strongest. It had its foundation in a belief which all shared alike, and it found its limits in this same belief For example : the father had the right to exclude his son from the fam- ily ; but he well knew that if he did this the family ran a risk of becoming extinct, and the manes of his ances- tors of falling into eternal oblivion. He had the right to adopt a stranger ; but religion forbade him to do this if he had a son. He was sole proprietor of the goods; but he had not, at least originally, aright to alienate them. He could repudiate his wife ; but to do this he had to break the religious bond which mar- riage had established. Thus religion imposed ujDon the father as many obligations as it conferred rights. Such for a long time was the ancient family. The spiritual belief was sufficient without the need of the law of force, or of the authority of a social power to constitute it regularly, to give it a discipline, a govern- ment and justice, and to establish private law in all its details. CHAPTER IX. Morals of the Ancient Family. History does not study material facts and institu- tions alone ; its true object of study is the human mind: it should aspire to know what this mind has believed, thought, and felt in the different ages of the life of the human race. We described, at the opening of this book, the an- cient opinion which men held concerning their destiny after death. We have shown how this creed produced