Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/57

 CHAP. I. RELIGIOX TUB CONSTITUENT PRINClPi.E. 51 and Roman laws, that we shall have occasion to ex- amine further along. Nor is the family principle natural affection. For Greek and Roman law makes no account of this senti- ment. The sentiment may exist in the heart, but it is not in the law. The father may have affection for his daughter, but he cannot will her his property. The laws of succession — that is to say, those laws which most faithfully reflect the ideas that men had of the- family — are in open contradiction both with the order of birth and with natural affection.' The historians of Roman laws, having very justly remarked that neither birth nor affection was the foun- dation of the Roman family, have concluded that this- foundation must be found in the power of the father or husband. They make a sort of primordial institu- tion of this power; but they do not explain how this power was established, unless it was by the superiority of strength of the husband over the wife, and of the father over the children. Now, we deceive ourselves sadly when we thus place force as the origin of law. We shall see farther on that the authority of the father or husband, lar from having been a first cause, was itself an effect ; it was derived from religion, and was established by religion. Superior strength, therefore, was not the principle that established the family. The members of the ancient family were united by something more powerful than birth, affection, or phys- ical strength ; this was the religion of the sacred fire, and of dead ancestors. This caused the family to form ' It must be understood that we here speak of the most an- cient law. We shall soon see that, at a later date, these eav!y laws were modified.