Asian Affairs, Vol. 25, No. 3 :69-75, July-September, 2003.
CDRB
publication
BOOK REVIEW
Lewis Henry Morgan. Ancient Society. Tucson: The University of
Arizona Press. 1995. 110 pages.
A
NCIENT SOCIETY 1 BY LEWIS HENRY MORGAN IS CONSIDERED
as a hallmark in social anthropology where he delineated
social evolution and kinship organization in great details. Morgan
presented different ethnical periods and discussed their subsistence,
government, family type, marriage terminology and property and
inheritance in connection with different ethnical periods. Part one
of the book deals with inventions and discoveries in relation to seven
ethnical periods. Part 2 with the growth of the idea of the
government, part 3 and 4 describe the growth of the ideas of the
institutions of family and property. The main theme of the book is to
present stages of social evolution and associated social institutions.
Stages of Social Evolution: Morgan divided social evolution into
three ethnic periods. His classifications of stages of social evolution
are as follows:
1.
Lower Status of Savagery: From the infancy of the human
race to the commencement of the next period, subsistence
upon fruits and nuts
2.
Middle status of savagery: It started from the acquisition of
fish subsistence and knowledge of the use of fire.
3.
Upper status of savagery: From the invention of the bow
and arrow to the next period
4.
Lower status of Barbarism: From the invention of the art of
pottery, to etc.
5.
Middle status of Barbarism: It started from the domestication of animals in the eastern hemisphere and in the
western from the cultivation of maize and plants by
irrigation, with the use of adobe brick and stone.
CopyrightCDRB, ISSN 0254-4199
ANCIENT SOCIETY
6.
Upper status of Barbarism: It started from the invention of
the process of smelting iron, with the use of iron tools to
etc.
7.
Status of Civilization: from the invention of phonetic
alphabet, with the use of writing, to the present time.
Morgan thought these stages were connected in natural and
necessary sequences and wanted to prove it by the gradual
evolution of human’s mental and moral power that come through
inventions and discoveries in relation to development of domestic
institutions such as government, family type, subsistence, language
etc.
Morgan distinguished five different subsistence types, the first
two originated in the period of savagery and the last three in
barbarism. Five types are as follows:
1.
Natural subsistence upon fruits and roots on a restricted
habitat.
2.
Fish subsistence-upon this species of food, mankind
became independent of climate and of locality.
3.
Farinaceous subsistence through cultivation.
4.
Meat and milk subsistence: In the Eastern hemisphere after the domestication of animals that gradually introduced
a new mode of life
5.
Unlimited subsistence through field agriculture: After the
introduction of production technique by using the animal
power.
Morgan thought that principal institutions of mankind were
developed from few germ of thought and restrained everywhere by
natural logic of human mind and its limitation. One can argue that
Morgan neglected different factors such as the effect of
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ANCIENT SOCIETY
ASIAN AFFAIRS
environment, which ultimately will determine the subsistence
pattern, and as such the development of ideas will be different in
different areas. To form such stages Morgan mainly argued on the
basis of historical data that may face questions in its validity as well
as placing them in different stages such as the Polynesian in savage
stage and so on.
and institutions, the aggregation of wealth in walled cities and
thereafter changes in the mode of life established political society in
place of gentile society.
Growth of the Idea of Government: In Ancient Society Morgan
mostly discussed the growth of the idea of the government. Morgan
thought all forms of government are reducible to two plans. He was
of opinion that in the latter part of the period of savagery, and the
entire period of barbarism, mankind in general was organized in
gentes, phratries and tribes that was based on purely personal
relation. He termed this as Societas. The gens is the unit of the
organization. The gens, the phratry, the tribe and the confederacy of
the tribes created a people or nation (populas). The second is founded
upon territory and upon property and Morgan distinguished it as
state (Civitas).
Morgan, to illustrate his point, elicited examples from many
societies such as the Iroquois, and supported his argument that
these societies were based on gens, conformed descent in female
line. They had less property and formed the state as in Societies.
But with the growth of property the descent system started to change
which ultimately shacked societies based on such systems. Morgan
also has shown changes in gens in different societies such as the
Iroquois to the necessity of a political system. Morgan was of
opinion that it was irresistible demand of an improving society that
the ultimate form of government came out of gens. As he points out
in the Hellenes and in the Grecian states the changes were limited
to: firstly, descend changed to male line, Secondly, intermarriage in
the gens was permitted only in case of female orphans and
heiresses and thirdly, children gained the absolute inheritance of
father’s property. But to Morgan it was property that gradually
moulded institutions to prepare the way for political society.
Morgan also recorded few schemes of legislation that had been tried
in various Grecian communities to overthrow the gentes. Morgan
viewed that among the Athenians, the development of municipal life
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Morgan thought the mode of transformation could be best
described by examples from Athenian society y means of where gens
failed to serve and by means of which it was replaced. In the way of
transition once the city life was developed it needed magistrates,
municipal officers, military based on public revenues that
augmented the duties of council of chiefs that ran gens and this
process gradually took power away from it. The idea of formation of
political society was the result of experience gathered in this and
previous stages that led to coalescence of tribes (Act of Theseus)
where they were intermingled by obliterating territorial lines.
Morgan recorded from history for nation of different offices in
Athenian’s history that led to the progress of knowledge with
respect to the tenure of offices, their duration and their elective
conditions irrespective of gens. Morgan thought the free election of
chief was remarkable advantage of knowledge, which allowed a
competition of candidates. At this time, the council of chief though
remained but the power was coordinated between the agora or the
assembly of people which Morgan treated as the surest progress of
Athenian people in knowledge and intelligence and it is through
such logical operations of human mind that institutions evolved
from lower to higher forms. Morgan took the instance that toward
the political society the man (with personal influence and genius)
finally appeared in Cleisthenes-the founder of the second great plan
of government where the society was based on demes, where
citizens had to registrar and enrol their property. Thus, the
inhabitants were an organized body politic with powers of local
self-governance. The body was democratically elected. After the deme,
the local tribe (consisted of ten demes) and finally the Athenian
commonwealth or state organized the body politic represented by a
senate, an ecelesia, the court of areogagens, the Archons and judges
and the body of elected military and naval commanders. Thus the
government was based on territory and property.
Morgan drew examples from many other societies, such as, the
Roman to illustrate his points. He collected huge amounts of
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ANCIENT SOCIETY
historical data to prove the successive stages of development of the
idea of government in connection with the experience human had
and their logical sequence to build up an idea of a more improved
state. The vast amount of data he produced before the audience is
astonishing.
Evolution of Family: Morgan listed different types of family, as it
existed in different ethnical periods. He suggested an evolutionary
sequence from primitive promiscuity to monogamy. They are the
following:
1.
The Consanguine Family: It was founded upon the
intermarriage of brothers and sisters in a group and the
Malayan exhibited this system. It was typical of lower
savagery state.
2.
The Punaluan family: It was founded upon the intermarriage of several brothers (cousins) to each other’s wives as a
group and of several sisters to each other’s husbands in a
group as evidenced in such terminologies as that of the
Iroquois. It excluded brothers and sisters from marriage
relations giving the Turanian and Ganowanian system of
consanguinity and affinity. It is evident in the middle
savagery state.
These two types of families belong to the period of savagery
3.
The Syndyasmian Family: It was founded upon pairing of a
male with a female under the form of marriage, but without
an exclusive cohabit ion. Divorce or separation was at the
option of both husband and wife. Morgan placed it in the
lower barbaric stage of evolution.
4.
The patriarchal family: It was founded upon marriage of
one man to several wives. Pastoral life on the plains in limited areas supported this family in the middle status of
barbarism.
5.
The monogamian family: It was founded upon the marriage
of one man with one woman with an exclusive cohabitation; the latter constituting the essential element of the
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institution. Rise of property and settlement of lineal
succession to estates gave birth to the monogamian family.
To Morgan the ides of family has been a growth through
successive stages. Other than the syndyasmian and the patriarchal
each type of family was influential to the changing system of
consanguinity. Morgan though the most primitive system of
consanguinity was among the Polynesian which he called the
Malayan system that came with the first form of family, the Consanguine, but with the prohibition of marriage between brothers and
sisters came the punaluan family that followed the Turanian
system of consanguinity.
Morgan was of opinion that social institutions such as gentile
organization and property with its inheritance played vital role in
changing family. The third great system of consanguinity, the Aryan
system superseded the Turanian system. The existence of families,
especially three radical ones were, to Morgan, proved by these three
well-marked system of consanguinity, founded upon three forms of
marriage. Morgan placed Malayan and Turanian system under
classificatory system and the system of Aryan, Semitic under
descriptive system of terminology. Morgan thought Malayan was
the earliest because no conception of a system more elementary
than this could be formed. Morgan collected examples of societies
that even did not recognized sex within blood relations and explained
that they rest upon the intermarriage of own and collateral brothers
and sisters in a group. After the establishment of the gentile
organization it was modified to Turanian system that proved the
existence of punaluan family and was overthrown by monogamian
family. The Aryan system of consanguinity proves the appearance
and establishment of monogamy as Morgan opined that the
monogamian family created the Aryan, Semitic and Uralian system
of consanguinity. Compared to the growth of the idea of
government, Morgan’s sequences of evolution of family are based
on weak examples and sometime the audience can get frustrated if
he is looking for exact points of transition. He examines different
kin terms and assumes their system of consanguinity to theorize
the evolution of family. This is questionable because the time-span,
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ANCIENT SOCIETY
he is dealing with is so long that widely opens some scopes for
overlapping of data to draw a single conclusion.
Property Inheritance and Descent: Morgan thought the growth of
the idea of property is closely connected with inventions and
discoveries. In the oldest form of ownership the tribes held land in
common. In the upper savagery property was distributed among
gens members and thereafter among agnetic kindred and later on
exclusively among children. Morgan, like other institutions, draws
examples from many societies to prove this evolution. For
instance- from the history of Grecian tribe he opined that in the
upper stages of barbarism it had changed to male line due to the
influence of increased property.
Ancient Society has serious influence on academic circles.
Morgan argued that matriarchy and communal property preceded
patriarchy and private property successively. Marx thought it was
supporting his materialistic position and started note taking of the
book. Later on, Engels completed the book “The Origin of Family,
Private Property, and the State” which is considered as a hallmark in
Marxist literature. Many criticized Morgan’s scheme as it
presupposes an evolution from simple to complex, underdevelopment to progress and the basic notion that everything pass through
the same linear sequence underneath which works the psychic unity
of mankind. Morgan is remembered in anthropology basically for
two things. Firstly, for his fieldwork which was very uncommon
among the earlier anthropologists and secondly, for his
contribution to kinship studies, Particularly, the classificatory
system of kinship where brothers and sisters were called by the
same term. This was extremely important because it provided clues
for unpacking the pre-history of human.
Md. Nazmul Hasan Chowdhury
Note : 1) This book was first published in 1877.
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