Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/72

66 come extinct: all aflfection and all natural right had to give way before this absolute rule. If the sterility of a marriage was due to the husband, it was no less necessary that the family should be continued. In that case, a brother or some other relative of the husband had to be substituted in his place. The child born of such a connection was held to be the son of the husband, and continued his worship. Such were the rules among the ancient Hindus. We find them again in the laws of Athens, and in those of Sparta. So powerful was the empire of this religion! So much did religious duty surpass all others!

For a still stronger reason, ancient laws prescribed the marriage of the widow, when she had had no children, with the nearest relative of her husband. The son born of such a union was reputed to be the son of the deceased. The birth of a daughter did not fulfil the object of the marriage; indeed, the daughter could not continue the worship, for the reason that on the day of her marriage she renounced the family and worship of her father, and belonged to the family and religion of her husband. The family, like the worship, was continued only by the males—a capital fact, the consequences of which we shall see farther on.

It was, therefore, the son who was looked for, and who was necessary; he it was whom the family, the ancestors, and the sacred fire demanded. "Through him," according to the old laws of the Hindus, "a father pays the debt due to the manes of his ancestors, and assures immortality to himself." This son was not less