The origin and development of the moral ideas

The new religion was anything but unfavourable to this process of emancipation. The ethical precept of filial piety was changed by Christ. His church was a militant church. He had come not to send peace but a sword, “to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother.”182 Being chiefly addressed to the young, the new teaching naturally caused much disorder in families. Fathers disinherited their converted sons,183 and children thought that they owed no duty to their parents where such a duty was opposed to the interests of their souls. According to Gregory the Great, we ought to ignore our parents, hating them and flying from them when they are an obstacle to us in the way of the Lord;184 and this became the accepted theory of the Church.185 Nay, it was not only in similar cases of conflict that Christianity exercised a weakening influence on family ties which had previously been regarded with religious veneration. In all circumstances the relationship between child and parent was put in the shade by the relationship between man and God. “Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in Heaven.”186 “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”187 At the same time the fifth commandment, though modified by considerations which would never have occurred to the mind of an orthodox Jew, was left formally intact. Obedience to parents was, in fact, repeatedly enjoined by St.

Paul as a Christian duty.188 It was regarded as a prerequisite for the veneration of God. “If we do not honour and reverence our parents, whom we ought to love next to God, and whom we have almost continually before our eyes, how can we honour or reverence God, the supreme and best of parents, whom we cannot see?”189

Ancient, deep-rooted ideas die slowly. Whilst among Teutonic peoples the grown-up child is recognised both by custom and law as independent of the parents, and the parental authority over minors is regarded merely in the light of guardianship,190 the Roman notions of paternal rights and filial duties have to some extent survived in Latin countries, not only through the Middle Ages, but up to the present time. “Above the majesty of the feudal baron,” says M. Bernard, “that of the paternal power was held still more sacred and inviolable. However powerful the son might be, he would not have dared to outrage his father, whose authority was in his eyes always confounded with the sovereignty of command.”191 Du Vair remarks, “Nous devons tenir nos pères comme des dieux en terre.”192 Bodin wrote, in the later part of the sixteenth century, that, though the monarch commands his subjects, the master his disciples, the captain his soldiers, there is none to whom nature has given any command except the father, “who is the true image of the great sovereign God, universal father of all things.”193 According to edicts of Henry III., Louis XIII., and Louis XIV., sons could not marry before the age of thirty, nor daughters before the age of twenty-five, without the consent of the father and mother, on pain of being disinherited.194 And even now in France considerable power is accorded to parents, not only by custom and public sentiment, but by law.

A child cannot quit the paternal residence without the permission of the father before the age of twenty-one, except for enrolment in the army.195 For grave misconduct by his children the father has strong means of correction.196 A son under twenty-five and a daughter under twenty-one could not until 1907 marry without parental consent;197 and even when a man had attained his twenty-fifth year and a woman her twenty-first, both were still bound to ask for it, by a formal notification.198

The parental authority depends, in the first place, on the natural superiority of parents over their children when young, and on the helplessness of the latter; and for similar reasons the daughter, though grown-up, still remains in her father’s power. Parents are, moreover, considered to possess in some measure proprietary rights over their offspring, being their originators and maintainers;199 and in various cases, it seems, the father is also regarded as their owner because he is the owner of their mother. Filial duties and parental rights to some extent spring from the children’s natural feeling of affection for their parents,200 particularly for their mother,201 and from the debt of gratitude which they are considered to owe to those who have brought them into existence and taken care of them whilst young.202 The authority of parents is much enhanced and extended by the sentiment of filial reverence, as distinct from mere affection. From their infancy children are used to look up to their parents, especially the father, as to beings superior to themselves; and this feeling, which by itself has a tendency to persist, is all the more likely to last even when the parents get old, as it is based not only on superior strength and bodily skill, but on superior knowledge, which remains though the physical power be on the wane. Among savages, in particular, filial regard is largely regard for one’s elders or the aged.

The old men represent the wisdom of the tribe. “Long life and wisdom,” say the Iroquois, “are always connected together.”203 Throughout all West Africa the aged are “the knowing ones.”204 In his work on the Algerian natives M. Villot observes:—“Les vieillards, au milieu des sociétés barbares, représentent la tradition qui tient lieu de patrie; la science des coutumes et usages qui remplacent la loi; la connaissance des généalogies qui fixe les degrés de parenté et sert de base à la détermination des titres de propriété. Pour ces causes, aussi bien qu’en raison de leur faiblesse et de leurs cheveux blancs, le respect pour les vieillards est de règle au milieu des indigènes.”205 Among people who possess no literature the old men are the sole authorities on religion, as well as on custom. In Australia the deference shown to them is partly due to the superstitious awe of certain mysterious rites which are known to them alone, and to the knowledge of which young persons are only very gradually admitted.206 Moreover, old age itself inspires a feeling of mysterious awe. The Moors say that, when getting old, a man becomes a saint, and a woman a jinnía, or evil spirit—there is something supernatural in both. Among the East African Embe “it is only by means of the rankest superstition that the old men are able to maintain their supremacy over the hot-blooded youths”; they convince the warriors, by presenting them with some magic emblem, that in the hands of the sages alone rest the fate and fortune of those who fight in a battle.

And old women, also, are often believed to possess supernatural power, in which case their influence, in spite of the subservient position of their sex in general, is almost as great as that of a medicine-man.207 According to the beliefs of the natives of Western Victoria, witches always appear in the form of an old woman.208 Among the Maoris some of the aged women exercise the greatest influence over their tribes, being supposed to possess the power of witchcraft and sorcery.209 Among the Abipones, says Charlevoix, “the old women take upon them to be great witches; and it would be no easy matter to convert them.”210 In Arabia, as well as in Morocco, old women are always believed to be skilled in sorcery.211

The beliefs held regarding the dead also influence the treatment of the aged whose lives are drawing to an end. Certain African tribes treat their old people with every kindness in order to secure their goodwill after death.212 A missionary in East Africa heard a negro say with reference to an old man, “We will do what he says, because he is soon going to die.”213 The Omahas “were afraid to abandon their aged on the prairie when away from their permanent villages lest Wakanda should punish them”;214 and in this case it seems that Wakanda, at least originally meant the ghost of the dead. The Niase is an egoist ever in his respect for the old, because he hopes that they will protect and assist him when they are dead.215 In China the doctrine that ghosts may interfere at any moment with human business and fate, either favourably or unfavourably, “enforces respect for human life and a charitable treatment of the infirm, the aged, and the sick, especially if they stand on the brink of the grave.”216 The regard for the aged and the worship of the dead are often mentioned together in a way which suggests that there exists an intrinsic connection between them.

Of the Dacotahs Prescott observes, “Veneration is very great in some Indians for old age, and they all feel it for the dead.”217 The worship of ancestors is a distinguishing characteristic of the religious system of Southern Guinea; the “profound respect for aged persons, by a very natural operation of the mind, is turned into idolatrous regard for them when dead.”218 “The Barotse chiefly worship the souls of their ancestors…. Cognate to this worship of ancestors is the great respect displayed for parents and the old—especially the eldest of a family or tribe.”219 Among the Herero “the tomb of a father is the most important of all holy places, the soul of a father the oracle most often consulted.”220 The Aetas of the Philippine Islands “have a profound respect for old-age and for their dead.”221 The Ossetes “show the greatest love and veneration to their parents, to old age generally, and especially to the memory of their ancestors.”222 In cases like these, however, it is impossible accurately to distinguish between cause and effect. Whilst the worship of the dead is, in the first place, due to the mystery of death, it is evident that the regard in which a person is held during his lifetime also influences the veneration which is bestowed on his disembodied soul.