STOCKTON ECONOMIC CLASS.

Grey River Argus, 18 May 1922, Page 7

STOCKTON ECONOMIC CLASS.

(By Secretary Friend.) The usual good nt t (‘mlauee of the class was held on Sunday and the tures and discussions on the Grecian Gens ami Attic State were thoroughly enjoyed. T’he Grecian Gens.—'The Greeks, at the time of their entrance into history, were on tin* threshold of civilisation. Two full periods of evolution are stretching between the Greeks and the Iroquois gens. Maternal law had > given way to pat crim I Rising private property had made its first open ing in the gentile’ constitution. Accord ing to Grote's History of Greece, the gens of Attica were held together by the following bonds: (1 > ('oninion religious rites, and priests installed exclusively in honour of a certain divi- ; nily—the alleged gentile ancestor, who | was designated by a special by name in . this capacity. (2) A common burial ground. (3) Right of inntual inheri-taii'-e. (4) Obligation to mutually help, protect, and assist one another in case of violence. (5) Mutual right ami duty to intermarry in the gums, in certain cases, especially for orphaned children and heiresses. ((») Possession of com mon property, at least in some cases, and an Archon (supervisor) ami treasurer (dected for this special case. (7) Paternal lineage. (S) Prohibition of intermarrying in the gens except as in cases n I’H 1 ioaed. (9) The right to adopt strangers within the gons. It was exercised by adoption into the family under public formalities. (ID, 'l'lje right to idect and depose the Archons ' (every gens has its Archon i. As to the heredity of this otlice, there is no reliable information, until the end of barbarism, the probability! is always against heredity. The majority of historians were foiled by the gens. They always regarded the gens as a group of families, which prevented them from understanding the nature j and origin of the gentes. Under the ■ gentile constitution the family never I was a unit of organisation, nor could it lie so; because man ami wife necessar- j ily belonged to two different gentes. i The gens was wholly comprised in the phratry, the phratry in the tribe, but ; the family belonged half to the gens of i th'- man, ami half to that of the vre j man. Marx adds to Grotes: ‘‘d’hat the gentes which the Greeks traced to their , mythologies are older than the inytho- ! logics. The latter, together with their ; gods and demi-gods, were created by I the gentes.’’ | The constitution of the Greek tribes j were as follows: (1) The permanent an- | thority was the council (bule), origi- ’ gaily composed of the gentile Archons. Later, when their number ineieased, a selection was made in such a way that the aristocratic element was develop id ami strengthened, d'he public meet ing (agora) called by the council in which every man could demand a word. The primordial democracy was still in force, and by this standard the infill once and position of the council and of the basileus must be judged. (3) The military chief (basileus). In Greece under paternal law Hie office of the basileus was generally transmitted to fhi' son or one of the sons. lii the Grec'an constitution of heroic times we find the old gentilism fully alive, but we also perceive the beginnings of tin 1 (dements that undermine it—paternal law ami the inherit a m-e of properly by the father’s children. Accumulation of wealth and power apart from the gens, and the ' format ion of the first rudiments of hereditary nobility ami monarchy and slavery. Only one think was missing, an institution that lent the character of perpetuity, not only to the newly-rising division in classes, but also to the right of the possessing classes to exploit ami rule the non-pos-sessing classes. T’his institution was found. T'hc state arOsc.