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7 in regard to different objects, might co-exist in the same person. Thus, although all households had their respective shares in the common estate, one household might become much richer than another. In a time when there were few markets either for the sale of surplus produce or for the purchase of objects of desire, the larger part of any superfluous wealth was naturally expended in the maintenance of permanent retainers, or in the occasional supply of food and equipments. Thus we have two institutions—the village community, and by its side, in favourable conditions, the enlarged independent household under the absolute control of its head. Such apparently was the form of the society in which lived the common forefathers of the great nations of Western Europe. In their original home in Central Asia they lived much as the Rajpút clans now live, as the Highlanders lived two centuries ago, as the Romans lived under their kings, as the Athenians lived before the time of Solon. This was the germ—even yet in some places discernible in its original form—from which, by lineal descent, came the Empire of Rome and the Empire of Byzantium, the chivalry of the Latin nations, the restored sceptre of the united Fatherland, and the long glories of the British Crown.

These clans gave rise to new combinations. Sometimes they formed the model for other associations more or less lasting, which, although the motive for their establishment varied, always assumed the form and followed the rules of a brotherhood. Sometimes new and kindred clans arose in the ordinary course of evolution, and acknowledged an inter-gentile relation similar to the relation which existed between members of the same clan. Sometimes separate clans combined, either for temporary objects, or with the intention of a permanent alliance. One of these forms of union gave rise to what we call the State. Between the