Among the Circassians "a stranger who intrusts himself to the patronage of a woman, or is able to touch with his mouth the breast of a wife, is spared and protected as a relation of the blood, though he were the enemy, nay even the murderer of a similar relative." The inhabitants of Barèges in Bigorre have, up to recent times, preserved the old custom of pardoning a criminal who has sought refuge with a woman.2 1 Yet another factor remains to be mentioned as a cause of the subjection in which married women are held by many peoples of culture. We have noticed that in archaic civilisation the father's power over his children is extreme, that the State whilst weakening or destroying the clan-tie strengthened the family-tie, and that the father was invested with some part of the power which formerly belonged to the clan. This process must also have affected the status of married women. The husband's power over his wife is closely connected with the father's power over his daughter; for, by giving her in marriage, he generally transfers to the husband the authority which he himself previously possessed over her as a paternal right. In modern civilisation, on the other hand, we find, hand in hand with the decrease of the father's power, a decrease of the husband's authority over his wife. But the causes of the gradual emancipation of married women are manifold. Life has become more complicated; the occupations of women have become much more extensive; their influence has expanded correspondingly, from the home and household to public life. Their widened interests have interfered with that submissiveness which is an original characteristic of their sex. Their greater education has made them more respected, and has increased their independence. Finally, the decline of the influence exercised by antiquated religious ideas is removing what has probably been the most persistent cause of the wife's subjection to her husband's rule. 1 Pallas, Travels through the Southern Provinces of the Russian Empire, i. 404. sq. 2 Fischer, Bergreisen, i. 60. CHAPTER XXVII SLAVERY SLAVERY is essentially an industrial institution, which implies compulsory labour beyond the limits of family relations. The master has a right to avail himself of the working power of his slave, without previous agreement on the part of the latter. This I take to be the essence of slavery; but connected with such a right there are others which hardly admit of a strict definition, or which belong to the master in some cases though not in all. He is entitled to claim obedience and to enforce this claim with more or less severity, but his authority is not necessarily absolute, and the restrictions imposed on it are not everywhere the same. According to a common definition of slavery, the slave is the property of his master,' but this definition is hardly accurate. It is true that even in the case of inanimate property the notion of ownership does not involve that the owner of a thing is always entitled to do with it whatever he likes; a person may own a thing and yet be prohibited by law from destroying it. But it seems that the owner's right over his property, even when not absolute, is at all events exclusive, that is, that nobody but the owner has a right to the disposal of it. Now the master's right of disposing of his slave is not necessarily 1 Nieboer, Slavery as an Industrial System, p. 4 sqq. Dr. Nieboer himself defines slavery as "the fact, that one man is the property or possession of another beyond the limits of the family proper" (ibid. p. 29). exclusive; custom or law may grant the latter a certain amount of liberty, and in such a case his condition differs essentially from that of a piece of property. The chief characteristic of slavery is the compulsory nature of the slave's relation to his master. Voluntary slavery, as when a person sells himself as a slave, is only an imitation of slavery true and proper; the person who gives up his liberty confers upon another, by contract, either for a limited period or for ever, the same rights over himself as a master possesses over his slave. If slavery proper could be based upon a contract between the parties concerned, I fail to see how to distinguish between a servant and a slave. Dr. Nieboer has recently with much minuteness examined the distribution of slavery and its causes among savage races. It appears from his work that slavery is unknown in Australia, and in Oceania is restricted to certain islands. In the Malay Archipelago, on the other hand, it prevails very extensively. Among the aboriginal tribes of India and the Indo-Chinese Peninsula it is fairly common, whereas no certain traces of it are found among the lower races of Central Asia and Siberia, with the exception of the Kamchadales. In North America it exists along the Pacific Coast from Behring Strait to the northern boundary of California, but beyond this district it seems to be unknown. In Central and South America there are at any rate several scattered cases of it, and if our knowledge of the South American Indians were less fragmentary, many other instances might perhaps be added. In savage Africa there are only one or two districts where no certain cases of slavery are encountered, whilst large agglomerations of slave-keeping tribes occur on the Coast of Guinea and in the district formed by Lower Guinea and the territories bordering the Congo.1 Slaves are kept only where there is employment for them, and where the circumstances are otherwise favourable to the growth of slavery. Its existence or non-existence. Nieboer, op. cit. p. 47 sqq. in a tribe largely depends on the manner in which that tribe lives. Among hunters it hardly occurs at all. Mr. Spencer justly observes that, "in the absence of industrial activity, slaves are almost useless; and, indeed, where game is scarce, are not worth their food." Moreover, they would have to be procured from foreign tribes, and to prevent such slaves from running away would be almost impossible for hunters who roam over vast tracts of land in pursuit of game, especially if the slaves also were engaged in hunting. For a small community of hunters -and their communities generally are small-it might even be dangerous to keep foreign slaves in their midst." Among fishing tribes, on the other hand, slavery is much more common, attaining a special importance among those who live on or near the Pacific Coast of North-Western America. These tribes have an abundance of food, they have fixed habitations, they live in comparatively large groups, and trade and industry, property and wealth, are well developed among them. In consequence, they find the services of slaves useful, and, at the same time, the slaves have little chance of making their escape.* Of the pastoral tribes referred to in Dr. Nieboer's list only one half keep slaves, and among some of these slavekeeping is said to be a mere luxury. To pastoral peoples, as such, slave labour is of little moment. Among them subsistence depends much more on capital than on labour, and for the small amount of work which is required free labourers are easily procured. As Dr. Nieboer observes, among people who live upon the produce of their cattle, a man who owns no cattle, i.e. no capital, has no means of subsistence. Accordingly, among pastoral tribes we find rich and poor men; and the poor often offer themselves as labourers to the rich."5 Pastoral peoples have thus no strong motives for making slaves, but at the same 1 Spencer, Principles of Sociology, iii. 459. Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 43 sqq. Hildebrand, Recht und Sitte, p. I sqq. 3 Nieboer, op. cit. p. 191 sqq. 5 See also Hildebrand, op. cit. p. 38 sq. time "there are no causes preventing them from keeping slaves. These tribes are, so to speak, in a state of equilibrium; a small additional cause on either side turns the balance. One such additional cause is the slave-trade; another is the neighbourhood of inferior races." All those pastoral peoples who keep slaves live in districts where an extensive slave-trade has for a long time been carried on. The slaves are often purchased from slave-traders, and in several cases they belong to an inferior race.1 “ 2 Among agricultural peoples slavery prevails more extensively; further, it is more common among such tribes as subsist chiefly by agriculture than among incipient agriculturists, who still depend on hunting or fishing for a large portion of their food. In primitive agricultural communities nobody voluntarily serves another, because subsistence is independent of capital and easy to procure. "All freemen in new countries," says Mr. Bagehot, "must be pretty equal; every one has labour, and every one has land; capital, at least in agricultural countries (for pastoral countries are very different), is of little use; it cannot hire labour; the labourers go and work for themselves.' Hence in such countries, if a man wants another to work for him, he must compel him to do it— that is, he must make him his slave. This holds true of most savage countries, namely, of all those in which there is much more fertile land than is required to be cultivated for the support of the actual population; but it does not hold true of all. Where every piece of land fit for cultivation. has been appropriated, a man who owns no land cannot earn his subsistence independently of a landlord; hence free labourers are available, slaves are not wanted, and slavery is not likely to exist. And even where there are no poor persons, but everybody has a share in the resources. of the country, the use of slaves cannot be great, since a man who owns a limited capital, or a limited quantity of land, can only employ a limited number of labourers. |