Rights in the Family
Appendix 9. (1364 (FN 186)).
In the initial ages of humanity generative power must have been stronger and paternal elements more deeply ingrained both because bodies were constituted more robustly and because the free, individual element was undeveloped. Nature and the species played a much greater part than the individual. This must explain the very ancient origin of nobility, the prevalent superiority of some lineages, the power of the oriental family and the division of the castes. In this connection it is well worth reading book 10 of the Mânava-Dharmasâstra, or Laws of Manu, which speaks about the mingling of the four Indian castes. Every possible combination of birth is considered the beginning of a different lineage with different moral characteristics and a name of its own. Each line had different tasks assigned to it according to the aptitudes which were generally supposed to be found there. The moral indications of the despised line are given as follows:
| Anyone born of a despicable mother into a base class, but not well known and apparently honourable (even if not so in fact), will undoubtedly be recognised by his actions. In this low world, absence of noble feelings, vulgarity of speech, cruelty and negligence of duties denote a person who owes his life to a despicable mother. A person of abject birth has the natural wickedness of his father or mother, or of both, an origin he can never conceal. No matter how distinguished a person's family, if he is born into a despised class, he shares more or less visibly in the natural perverseness of his parents. (Bk. 10: 57-60) |
Again:
| A being called Ougra is born from the union between a Kshatriyas and a Sûdra girl. Such a being is ferocious in his actions, desirous of cruelty, and shares in the nature of the warrior and the servile class. . . A son born from an excommunicated Brahmin is naturally perverse and called, according to the country, Avantya, Vatadhana, Ponchpadha and Saikha. (Bk. 10: 9, 21) |
We see here how the behaviour of a new lineage resulting from the different possible unions between the four castes is determined. The descendants improve or are determined according to their union with descendants at different levels of generosity. The descendants of a Sûdra can climb through seven generations to the nobility of Brahmin lineage by contracting marriage seven times successively with a Brahmin (bk. 10: 64, 65). Now and then, however, in Indian traditions we find mention of the efficacy of the individual element. For example:
| By virtue of their austerities and the merit of their fathers, all can, in every age, attain a higher birth here below among human beings, just as they can fall to a lower condition. (Bk. 10: 64) |
Here we see that some power is granted to individual virtue, but the merit of the parents is still associated with it.
Prevalent opinions are for the most part a mirror of the civil-moral state of the human race. If the History of Humanity were to be written by a more broad-minded author than we have seen so far, the writer would have to investigate the strength of the influence of these two elements, species and individual, at every age of the world (cf. SP, 406-418). The relative degree of influence and development of these two elements can sometimes be measured with greater accuracy than people believe. Opinions, at least, express it with total precision. Here are some examples.
In the following passage of the above-mentioned Mânava-Dharmasâstra we see that the two elements, the individual and the family or species, counterbalance each other:
| After comparing a Sûdra who fulfils the duties of the honourable classes with someone of the distinguished classes who behaves like a Sûdra, Brahma himself said: `They are neither equal nor unequal because their evil conduct establishes a relationship between them.' (Bk. 10: 73) |
Here, Brahma dare not place a Brahmin of evil behaviour above a Sûdra of good behaviour out of respect for the individual virtue of the latter. Neither dare he place him below the Sûdra because of the honour in which he holds the generous lineage of the Brahmin. Hence, at that time the two concepts conflicted with each other. M. Chézy maintains that the Mânava-Dharmasâstra can be attributed to the 13th century BC (Journal des Savants, 1831). If this were true (his date is probably too ancient) and if documents relative to the dominant opinion at the time about the degree of prevalence of the individual and family elements were brought together, we would perhaps discover that the individuality of the human being began to develop and assert itself about the 10th century BC in such a way that it countered the prevalent influence of the family element, procreation.
In divine Scripture, from the 15th century BC, God commanded the Hebrews, of whose need he was aware, not to kill fathers for the crimes of their sons, nor sons for the crimes of their fathers (Deut 24: 16). The precept, although limited to killing, was found very difficult to observe and was not always observed. Nor was it always possible to observe it in the 11th century: David himself believed that he had to give in to the demands of the Gibeonites and hand over to them seven sons of Saul to be crucified for the sins of their father (2 Sam 21) whose depraved descendants they wished to eradicate. In the 9th century, it was considered extraordinary that Amaziah, king of Juda, did not kill sons for the crimes of their fathers (2 Kings 14; 2 Chron 25).
Only at the beginning of the 6th century BC (a century well known for a new movement throughout humanity) did the concept of individual justice shine in the minds of the people to whom punishment for the crime of one's father now seemed strange and unjust. So they complained, and God solemnly promised the Hebrews that the practice would no longer be carried out. His promise is in Ezechiel 18, beginning:
| The word of the Lord came to me again: `What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge"? As I live, says the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. |
The Lord goes on to promise them that only the person who has sinned will die, not the father, nor the son for him, provided the son does not imitate his father in evil, or the father is not guilty of the same evil as his son, or the guilty person repents.
But individual justice shining brightly in the minds of people is totally different from real progress among descendants by force of individual free will. The individual did indeed progress continually in awareness of his free power to resist tendencies he had received at birth from his perverse predecessors, but he certainly did not succeed in conquering his evil inclinations. This was to be the great task of the grace of the future Redeemer; God himself promised it to the Hebrews through another prophet, Jeremiah, saying in so many words: You now understand that only the individual who sins must be punished, not the entire family. You are right, provided the whole family is not depraved or individuals in it resist iniquity, or repent of their evil. But humanity is too weak in itself to resist the depraved inclinations of corrupt nature. My mercy therefore will come to aid your weakness. I promise you that great power will be given you, and that I will then be able to make a new c ovenant with you, such as has never existed before.
| In those days they shall no longer say: `The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.' But every one shall die for his own sin; each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord; I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jer 21: 29-33) |
The Saviour, therefore, the only Saviour with healing grace, rendered the individual, free element powerful and superior to all the evil instincts inherent in lineage. Since the time of Christ, anyone who makes use of his Sacraments can conquer every obstacle that blocks his way to virtue. The individual, regenerated by Christ, improves the lineage itself. Consequently, individual justice in Christianity is fully restored (cf. SP, 476-486).