Caste and Race in India c10: Chapter VI. Elements of Caste Outside India
Caste and Race in India c10
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Chapter VI. Elements of Caste Outside India
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WITH the elements of Indian caste before us it will be instructive to see if any one or many of them in combination characterize any other community, civilized or tribal. In our quest for these elements we shall pass under review Egypt, Western Asia, China, Japan, America, and the tribal peoples on the one hand and Rome and tribal Europe on the other.
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In Egypt during the Pyramid age there were three principal classes—the land-owners, the serfs and the slaves, the last two being distinguished from the first by the fact of their owning no land.¹ During the Eighteenth Dynasty, to judge from the classification made in an official census, there seem to have been at least four classes. They were the soldiers—who included among them all free persons of the middle class, not engaged in any of the other callings—the priests, the craftsmen, and the serfs. The first two classes had so many common interests that they were clearly distinguished from the rest.² Yet in actual influence and possession of wealth the clergy were far superior to the soldiers.³ And they had by then formed themselves into a huge sacerdotal organization.⁴ The social situation is thus summarized by Petrie: "When we look at the various classes of the country, it is evident that there was, very naturally, a large amount of hereditary succession to office and to business. We see the same in England or any other country, although everyone is free to change his occupation as he prefers. In Egypt, on the contrary, no artisan was allowed to have another trade or employment, or be reckoned in any other class. Hence, once in a trade, it was impossible to move out of it, and the natural facility of a boy learning his father's trade tended to fix each generation into the same line. Thus the impression which the Greeks received when stepping into such a society was that its structure was a group of genea or hereditary tribes."¹ It was not only the artisan who was prevented from attempting to enter another calling but it appears that a member of other lower classes as well was not allowed to follow any other occupation than that of his father. As a result, offices often remained in the same families for many generations. Thus we are told in the inscriptions that the office of architect continued in a certain family for twenty-three generations.² The goldsmith's art as well as that of the painter and the sculptor was traditionally handed down from father to son.³ As regards the three middle-class professions, viz. those of a priest, a scribe, and a warrior, though generally they ran in the same families, yet there was no restriction against any one following any of these callings, even if one's father might not have professed that particular calling but had carried on one of the other two. Nay, one and the same man, on suitable occasions, could be a priest, a military or naval commander or could act as a scribe and an official. "A general in the army could marry the daughter of a priest, and his children could be scribes, priests or public functionaries."⁴ By the time of the early Ptolemies, however, and possibly earlier, only persons descended from priests could enter their profession. They had secured for the members of their class exemption from poll-tax.⁵ Under the influence of their scribes, who were trying to exalt their own profession over the others, the Egyptians came to hold the agriculturists as well as the able craftsmen in light esteem.⁶
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¹ Breasted, (2), p. 67.
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² Breasted, (1), p. 246.
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³ Maspero, p. 305.
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⁴ Breasted, (1), p. 247.
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¹ Petrie, pp. 11-12. ² Spencer, iii, p. 422. ³ Erman, p. 460. ⁴ Wilkinson, i, p. 159, a note by Dr. S. Birch. ⁵ A. M. Blackman, in Ency. of R. and E., vol. x, p. 299 (b). ⁶ Erman, p.
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Among the Sumerians the aristocracy of the city was formed by the priests and the officials, while the free land-holding citizens formed the middle class, who worked their lands with the help of the slaves.⁷ The fragments of Sumerian laws that have come down to us recognize no inequalities among these classes of the community.⁸ But in the Code of Hammurapi, the nature and amounts of fines and punishments are mostly determined by the class-status of the offender and the sufferer.¹ The law of limb for limb was restricted to those cases only where the sufferer belonged to the highest class, physical injuries in other cases being generally compensated for by fines. For a physical injury inflicted by a patrician on a plebeian the fine was one-third that which a plebeian would have had to pay if he had caused it to his equal. In the case of theft, the patrician paid thrice the fine that the plebeian had to pay. While divorcing a wife, for whom no bride-price was paid, the patrician had to pay her thrice the award that was demanded of a plebeian. The surgeon's fees depended on the status of the patient: the higher the status, the larger the fees.²
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⁴⁴⁶ Breasted, (1), p. 169. ⁷ Breasted, (2), p. 119. ⁸ Brooks, p. 88.
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¹ Jastrow, p. 208.
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² Johns, p. 74, and pp. 44-68 of the Code of Hammurapi edited by him.
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Woolley thinks that this class-system was military in its origin, and that was the reason why the lives of the patricians, who formed the regular army, were valued more than those of the non-combatant citizens.³ This theory enables us to explain why in those cases where property was involved the higher classes had also greater responsibilities.
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³ Woolley, p. 97.
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Whether all the males that were either descended from the same parents or were adopted in the family actually carried on the trade of the family is not quite clear. "Certainly many men who carried on a trade were 'sons' of the trade-father, but apparently not all."⁴ And a clause in the code of Hammurapi lends support to the view that to enter into a particular trade, which was not followed by one's father, one had to seek legal adoption into a family that carried on that trade.⁵ In some cities the trades had their distinct quarters.⁶
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⁴ Johns, p. 121.
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⁵ Brooks, p. 44.
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⁶ Johns, p. 121.
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A slave could marry a free woman, the offspring being regarded as free. No disgrace seems to have attached to such a marriage, and such a free woman could bring with her a marriage-portion as if she had married in her own rank.⁷
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⁷ Ibid., pp. 75, 180.
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In the earliest period of the Iranian civilization, i.e. before 700 B.C., three classes of society are often mentioned, priests, warriors, and husbandmen, but the fourth class, formed by artisans, is only once mentioned, though there is frequent reference to the work carried on by members of this class, viz. goldsmith, blacksmith, mason, etc. The origin of these classes is attributed to Zarathushtra.¹ According to the Shāh Nāmah, however, the four classes were made by Yima.² In the Sasanian period, A.D. 226-651, we get more frequent references to these classes, and their relative position is also more well-defined. The priests are likened to the head of man, the warriors to his hands, the husbandmen to his stomach, and the artisans to his feet. Further, we are told that the members of the last class engaged also in trade and commerce. The four classes were credited with different virtues, good nature being that of the premier class, resourcefulness and manliness of the second, strenuous tillage of the third, and diligence and skill of the fourth. It is further observed that "the work of the priest is of the highest merit, and the lowest in the scale of usefulness is the work of the fourth class, more particularly their work of trade and commerce."³
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¹ Dhalla, p. 65.
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² Ibid., p. 296.
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³ Ibid., p. 7.
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The profession of the priest seems to have been hereditary from the earliest times when the classes began to be recognized. By the Sasanian period it was held to be the natural order to follow the occupation of one's ancestors. And if anyone wanted to try a profession other than the one of his class, he was allowed to do so only if, on examination, he proved to be a man of marked talent.⁴
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⁴ Ibid., p. 78.
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It was only in the late period of Iranian history that there came to be any impediments to intermarriage between the different classes of society, the priestly class arrogating to itself the right of marrying girls from the laity, though refusing to give theirs to the lay youths.⁵ Intermarriage of a Zoroastrian with a non-Zoroastrian was condemned in strong terms.⁶
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⁵ Ibid., p. 295.
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⁶ Ibid., p. 304.
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In China it is supposed that society has, from time immemorial, been divided into four orders, viz. gentlemen, agriculturists, artisans, and merchants. Gentlemen were all the members of the governing class, the members of the civil service, admission to which depended on a literary test, open to almost all who would like to try their luck and intelligence. "No profession except that of serving the State entitles a man to be called a ‘gentleman’.” Banker, barrister, physician, priest, merchant-prince, manufacturer, engineer, none of these could be styled a gentleman on the strength of either his profession or wealth. “The sole cachet of aristocracy is literary attainment which has given its proofs.”¹ There was a slightly lower grade division of this class which was formed by those who had qualified for the civil service and yet had to be on the waiting list for lack of suitable appointments. These were known as the scholars.² Next in order stood the workers of the soil, agriculture being regarded, from very early times, a very noble calling. The social ladder was not quite complete with the traders. There still remained the barbers and their sons who were reckoned among the pariah classes and were debarred from competing for the civil service.³ According to Confucius, the people were divided into five classes, which in the descending order of social prestige were scholars, farmers, artisans, merchants, and servants, soldiers being always included in the last group.⁴
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¹ Brinkley, xi, pp. 202-4. ² Ibid., pp. 120-46. ³ Brinkley xi, pp. 208-9. ⁴ Bashford, p. 43. ⁵ Douglas, p. 110. ⁶ Werner (1), Table I. ⁷ Brinkley, x, p. 132. ⁸ Spencer, iii, p. 422.
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Ranks were distinguished by different head-dresses, garments, badges, etc.⁵ None whose parents were engaged in one of the degrading occupations, like menial service, play-acting or brothel-keeping, was allowed to compete for the civil service.⁶ One of the emperors forbade the use of silk garments or carriages by merchants; and in order to render that calling unpopular he levied heavy taxes on them.⁷
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Except the civil service, it appears that most of the other occupations were customarily hereditary. One of the Chinese books lays it down as a rule that “the sons of officers ought always to be officers, the sons of artisans ought always to be artisans. The sons of merchants ought always to be merchants, and the sons of farmers ought always to be farmers”.⁸
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Marriages between officials and actresses or singing girls were not allowed. In the case of nobles of hereditary rank entering into such a union the penalty was degradation to a lower class.¹ Play-actors, policemen, and boatmen had to marry women of their own class. No slave could marry a free woman.²
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¹ Möllendorff, p. 20.
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² Werner (2), p. 40.
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In Japan during her military age—twelfth century to the middle of the nineteenth century A.D.—society was divided into five distinct groups. Hereditary soldiers, the Samurai, were the foremost of these. Farmers, artisans, and traders followed next in order. The fifth class was formed by two groups called the Eta and the Hinin, who were the Pariahs and outcasts of the community.³ Every occupation that brought a man into contact with unclean things, such as the corpses of human beings, the carcasses of animals, and offal of all descriptions, was degraded.⁴ Occupations that catered for the sensuous side of man as well as those that did not carry a fixed scale of remuneration were regarded as low.⁵ The degrading callings, and some others like stone-cutting and casting of metal, were relegated to the outcasts.⁶ After the Revolution a change was brought about in the social classification, and at the present day there are three classes established by law. These are the nobility, the gentry, and the common people, who include farmers, artisans, and merchants. The first two classes constitute only five per cent of the population, the rest being commoners. Every householder is required to nail up over his door a ticket with his name and class inscribed thereon.⁷
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³ Longford, pp. 69-70.
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⁴ Brinkley (2), vol. ii, p. 41.
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⁵ Ibid.
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⁶ Ibid., p. 40.
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⁷ Chamberlain, p. 95.
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During the eight centuries of military feudalism preceding the Revolution the Samurai was a being apart. His conduct was governed by special canons and special tribunals judged his offences. If he was temporarily imprisoned and had to be presented at a court, he was carried in a closed sedan-chair, while a common prisoner was marched through the streets.
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The tribunal that adjudicated on matters relating to temples and shrines was distinct from that which had jurisdiction in the case of artisans, merchants, and others, and there was yet another tribunal to try questions relating to the agriculturists. During the latter part of the seventeenth century separate jails were built: one for the Samurai and priests, another for the merchants and peoples, and a third for the farmers. Till the latter part of the seventeenth century it had not been usual to send a Samurai to gaol for any crime.¹ The Eta had to live on the outskirts of towns and villages and were governed by their own headmen. Prejudice against this unfortunate class of people was so great that it long survived the removal of their legal disabilities in 1871, serving as a theme for novelists.²
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¹ Brinkley, iv, pp. 64-6, 76.
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² Brinkley (2), vol. ii, p. 50.
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The outcasts could not marry persons of the higher classes.³ During the feudal age intermarriage among the various recognized classes of society required special permission.⁴
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³ Spence, p. 25.
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⁴ Hose and McDougall, i, p. 98.
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In Mexico, as a result of its conquest by the Europeans, the population is divided into three main well-marked groups with numerous sub-divisions. The highest class is formed of members who have a more or less pure Spanish descent, the half-breed coming next, and the pure Indians forming the lowest class.⁵ When the Spaniards captured Mexico they found that the sons generally learned the trades and entered the professions of their fathers. "The different trades were arranged into something like guilds, having each a particular district of the city appropriated to it, with its own chief, its own tutelary deity, its peculiar festivals."⁶
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⁵ Ibid., p. 347.
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⁶ Chamberlain, pp. 149-50.
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Among the Kayans and Kenyaks of Borneo there are three classes, the upper, middle, and the slave.⁷ The Maoris distinguish the following orders in their society: the sacerdotal chiefs of smaller tribal divisions, the skilled artisans and other professionals, the bulk of the comparatively poor population and lastly the slaves taken captive in war.⁸ The Samoans recognize six classes: The chiefs, priests, landed gentry, large landowners, commoners, and slaves, the first not being wholly uniform.⁹ But the most distinct and unbridgeable gulf lies between the patricians and the plebeians—the two main divisions of society comprising the above classes.¹⁰ Tahitian society was divided into classes that were insuperably distinct from one another. The privileged class was composed of the reigning king, the chieftains, and their relations. Next in rank came the gentry and the farmers, artisans and fishermen forming the next class. The lowest class comprised servants and slaves.¹ Among the Hawaiians, society was marked by an exclusive class-division, all persons belonging by birth to one of the three classes. The *ariis* or the nobles, the *hakuaina* or land-proprietors and the priests, the *canaka-mowree* or the common people, comprising the small farmers, artisans and professionals, fishermen and labourers.²
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⁷ Ency. of R. and E., viii, p. 459 (b).
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⁸ Spencer, vol. iii, pp. 422-45.
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⁹ Lowie, pp. 340-7.
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¹⁰ Ibid., p. 349.
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¹ Featherman, ii *b*, p. 37.
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² Ibid., p. 244.
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In some parts of Fiji the people are divided into small independent bodies with smaller groups within each, these latter being called *Matanggali*. In some cases the Matanggali of a tribe have different functions, and some of these groups among the ordinary people are differentiated by the possession of special occupations.³
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³ Rivers, pp. 264-5. N.B.—The account of the Fijian and the Samoan classes given by A. M. Hocart makes it quite clear that these systems are copied from the Hindu caste system. See the summary appearing in *Nature*, 7th April, 1923, p. 551.
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The people of Borneo nearly always marry within their class, though persons of the middle class sometimes do marry females of the slave class.⁴ In the Carolinas, apart from the slaves, there are two classes, the lower of which is forbidden to touch the higher on pain of death. Further they are not allowed to carry on fishing and seafaring nor to marry with members of the higher class.⁵ Africa provides us with a very interesting case of obligatory endogamy. The smiths often form a social group kept distinct from the rest of the community to which they belong by having to marry within their group.⁶
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⁴ Hose and McDougall, pp. 71-2.
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⁵ Hobhouse, *Morals in Evolution*, 1916, p. 274, f.n. 5.
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⁶ Rivers in *Ency. of R. and E.*, viii, p. 424 (*b*).
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In South Arabia there were two classes of Pariahs. One class, comprising the artisans, was regarded as the subordinate menials of the dominant class. Its members were required to live on the outskirts of the towns, and though admitted into the mosques were not allowed to visit Arab houses. The other class of Pariahs was regarded as still inferior, and its members were not allowed to enter even the mosque, though they were devout Mohammedans.⁷
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⁷ Featherman, v, p. 424.
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There is enough evidence to show that the Arabs had no law of endogamy. But they did not like to intermarry with people who had different tastes and customs.¹
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¹ Smith, W. Robertson, pp. 74-5, and f.n. 2.
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In ancient Rome the populace was for a long time divided into three groups—the patricians, the plebeians, and the slaves. Of these the first two classes comprised all the free men. It is a matter of common knowledge that the evolution of political institutions in Rome was largely the result of a conflict between the patricians, the politically privileged class, and the plebeians who were politically insignificant. Up to the time of Servius Tullius the patricians alone ranked as citizens. Their marriage was regarded as sanctified and lawful. They had the special powers of testamentary disposition. None but they could consult the gods of Rome by a specially sacred procedure.² The plebeians were the artisans and craftsmen of Rome. Their marriages were not celebrated with the religious ceremony to which the patricians were accustomed, and were looked upon by the latter as not involving the legal consequences of marriage.³ This disparity between the class and the mass in their political as well as socio-religious rights was gradually removed, so that by 287 B.C. the two groups were placed on a footing of equality.⁴ During the early part of the Empire, the development of economic life had advanced so far that specialized arts and crafts had formed guilds. Thus the shoemakers had amongst them various divisions like boot-makers, sandal-makers, slipper-makers, and ladies' shoe-makers. Workers in the same craft and trade congregated at Rome and elsewhere in Italy in special districts.⁵ Roman laws of the fifth century of the Christian era reveal the upper class as cut off from the masses. Every social grade and occupation was "practically hereditary, from the senator to the waterman on the Tiber, or the sentinel at a frontier post".⁶ There was a tendency to stereotype social life by preventing free circulation among different callings and grades in society.⁶ The Theodosian Code compelled a youth to follow the employment of his father.⁷
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² Ibid., pp. 11-12.
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³ Friedländer, vol. i, p. 147.
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⁴ Muirhead, p. 6.
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⁵ Leage, p. 14.
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⁶ Dill, pp. 228-33.
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⁷ Lambert, p. 12.
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In prehistoric Rome endogamy existed to this extent that marriage was arranged within the limits of the gens.¹ Generally marriage could take place only between parties that were equal in their political rights. Thus a free man could not wed a freed woman without the special permission of the Senate.² In the fifth century A.D. men were not permitted to marry out of their guild. If the daughter of a member of the baker-caste married a man not belonging to it, her husband had to adopt her father's calling.³
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¹ Warde Fowler, in Ency. of R. and E., viii, p. 468 (a).
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² Leffingwell, p. 30.
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³ Dill, op. cit., p. 233.
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In Anglo-Saxon England society was divided into three well-marked classes of people: The nobleman, the common freeman, and the slave. There seems to have been also a fourth class called the "Lact". It represented a class "intermediate between freemen and slaves, which was rather infrequent in England though very common among the Teutonic peoples of the Continent".⁴ This class, which was a feature peculiar to Kentish society, seems to have had three sub-divisions differing in their wergelds, with wergelds of 80, 60, and 40 shillings respectively.⁵ The first class had two divisions, a higher and a lower order, the higher order, whose immediate overlord was the king, being subject to higher charges and heavier fines. The membership of the class was partly inherited and partly acquired. Possession of a certain amount of land by a family continuously for three generations bestowed permanent nobility on the members of that family.⁶ The second class comprised all the free persons of English blood who were not members of the first class. Though there were many sub-divisions in this class we find no evidence of any difference in wergeld,⁷ "the fixed sum with which a person's death must be atoned for to his kindred or which he might in some cases have to pay for his own misdoing." The nobleman's wergeld was six times that of a commoner's; and his oath also was worth as much.⁸ The slave being unfree was not a legal person and as such had no wergeld.
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⁴ Attenborough, p. 177.
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⁵ Chadwick, p. 112.
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⁶ Ibid., pp. 79-84.
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⁷ Ibid., p. 85.
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⁸ Pollock and Maitland, p. 33.
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The clergy seem to have been regarded as members of the nobility; yet there was a special scale of wergeld for them. A priest, who was a nobleman previous to his taking orders, could have the option of demanding either the wergeld that was proper to his original rank or one that was due to him because of his ecclesiastical rank.¹
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¹ Ibid., p. 34.
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If a slave stole the property of a freeman he had to pay twice the amount as compensation, while if the theft was committed by a freeman he paid thrice. If it was the priest's property that was stolen ninefold compensation had to be paid.² If a man's servant killed a nobleman, whose wergeld was three hundred shillings, the owner had to surrender the servant and pay the price of three men; but if he killed a commoner, whose wergeld was only a hundred shillings, then the owner paid the price of only one man in addition to surrendering the homicide. If a priest killed a man—any freeman—he was ejected from the monastic order and his property confiscated.³ Fornication with a nobleman's serving maid was to be compensated for by double the sum of money that had to be paid in the case of the same offence being committed in respect of the serving maid of a commoner. If a man committed adultery with the wife of a servant, he had to pay compensation, while if he did the same with the wife of a freeman he had to procure a second wife in addition to compensation. If a betrothed woman of the commoner class was guilty of fornication, she was ordered to pay 60 shillings as compensation to the surety of the marriage; if she belonged to the higher class, this amount was to be greater in proportion to her wergeld. "If anyone rapes the slave of a commoner, he shall pay 5 shillings to the commoner, and a fine of 60 shillings. If a slave rapes a slave, castration shall be required as compensation." For illicit union a nobleman had to pay double the commoners' compensation.⁴ Breaking into the premises of a nobleman had to be atoned for by thrice or six times the fine that had to be paid for the same offence against a commoner. In the scale of compensation that a man had to pay for fighting in the house of another the same proportion had to be maintained between the two classes.⁵ A priest could clear himself of any charge by a simple declaration; a clerk had to place his hand on the altar accompanied by three men of his class, while a commoner was required to clear himself by the collective oath of himself and three of his own class.¹ "If a nobleman who holds land neglects military service, he shall pay 120 shillings and forfeit his land ; a nobleman who holds no land shall pay 60 shillings ; a commoner shall pay a fine of 30 shillings for neglecting military service."²
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² Ibid., pp. 10-75.
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³ Ibid., pp. 81-3.
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⁴ Attenborough, pp. 5, 17.
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⁵ Ibid., pp. 7, 9, 15, 25, 78, 75.
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¹ Ibid., p. 29.
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² Ibid., p. 53.
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By the thirteenth century the law of status had become relatively insignificant, and the law of tenure had risen into prominence. Accordingly the lawbooks have very little to say about the ranks of men and a great deal about tenures. "In the main all free men are equal before the law. Just because this is so, the line between the free and the unfree seems very sharp." And even this distinction is very apt to appear in practice as a difference in tenures. The clergy was gaining in importance. Every ordained clerk was subject to special rules of ecclesiastical and secular law. If he committed any of the crimes known as felonies, he could be tried only by an ecclesiastical court. A layman assaulting a clerk had to submit to a trial by the ecclesiastical as well as by the temporal tribunals.³
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³ Pollock and Maitland, pp. 407, 412, 439, 441.
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By the fifteenth century commercial spirit had grown so much that the dwindling ideas of status had come to be replaced by social distinctions based on the possession of wealth, even land being regarded as a mere manifestation and a source of wealth. The failure of the sumptuary laws of this period is a measure of the futility of keeping the old class divisions.⁴
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⁴ Abram, p. 72.
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In Scandinavia during the early Middle Ages the following scheme of social classes was in force: highborn men comprising the kingly families and their immediate liegemen; the nobles; the great landed middle class, including all grades of freeholders; freed men and their descendants of many generations; and slaves. It was possible for members of lower rank to rise to the superior grade both by marriage as well as by accumulation of wealth. Yet the social stratification made its mark on social etiquette and legal and sacerdotal affairs. Thus, in the great banqueting halls seats were so arranged that the lowliest members might be accommodated nearest the door. "Class discrimination was, however, felt most in connection with legal and governmental matters, in determining the amount of wergeld which must be paid if a member of the population was wronged or killed, in the composition of the juries, and in the exercise of legislative and judicial power at the political assemblies." In the public cemeteries of the Christian church the nobles were buried in the most sacred ground, nearest to the church, while the other classes had their burying places at further distances in the descending order of their rank, the slaves being relegated to the ground nearest the wall of the churchyard.¹
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¹ Williams, pp. 35-6.
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During mediaeval times all over Europe trades and crafts were highly organized. There was a certain lack of freedom, therefore, about the choice of a trade or a craft. Thus in England, where smithcraft was held in special esteem, no villain was allowed to carry on that craft without his lord's permission.² When the important crafts came to be organized into guilds, anyone who desired to practise a particular craft had to join the guild as a journeyman to take his training in that craft. At first, it seems, admission was unrestricted and the conditions fairly light, thus making the guilds more or less free associations of persons, engaged in crafts and pledged to instructing the new generation in the means of getting their livelihood. But in later times, about the thirteenth century, they degenerated into family coteries. The widow of a guildsman might carry on the trade of her husband or could confer the freedom of the guild on her second husband if he was following the same trade. But if she married a man not belonging to the same craft, not only could she not confer the freedom of the guild on her new husband but she herself was excluded from the guild. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the restrictions on admission to craft-guilds became more and more rigorous, and the handicrafts became practically the monopolies of a few families.
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² Traill, vol. i, p. 104.
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About the same time in Germany a candidate for admission into a guild had to furnish proofs of pure birth in order to be worthy of such admission. Whole classes of people were being excluded from the guilds on the pretence of some infamy attaching to their birth, so much so that, after the sixteenth century, legislation had to be passed to remedy this growing evil. Apprentices, who proved the purity of their birth, had to undergo heavy expenses and during their probation had to undertake long travel, extending over as many as five years, before they could set up as masters of their crafts. Further, before a craftsman could set up independent practice, he had to prepare a masterpiece, which generally was a very costly and a useless article. The sons of master-craftsmen were, on the other hand, free from all these prohibitive conditions. In effect the guilds became clubs of families, hereditarily carrying on the particular crafts.
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"The punishments decreed by the craft-guilds consisted in the payment of fines, or in earlier times in certain qualities of wax, or of beer or wine to be drunk at their feasts." Offences like forging led to exclusion from the guild and withdrawal of the right to practise the craft.¹ The members of each craft usually occupied the same locality. Thus in London, the weavers concentrated in Cannon Street, smiths in Smithfield, and so on. "Such a grouping must have enormously strengthened the sense of corporate life in each craft."²
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¹ Toulmin Smith (Lujo Brentano in), pp. cxxvi-vii, cxxxii, cxlix-cli.
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² Ashley, p. 90.
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Though the crafts, the practice of which was from very early times hedged in by many restrictions, had become more or less hereditary, the learned professions and commerce had begun to offer fresh fields for the intelligent youths. "The church had always provided clever youths with an opportunity of rising in the world." Toward the end of the fourteenth and throughout the following century, it seems, the clergy were largely recruited from the middle classes and even from serfs, the economic changes rendering the profession less attractive to the members of the upper classes. In the fifteenth century the legal profession also opened up possibilities of a brilliant career.³
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³ Abram, pp. 90, 106.
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In the cities of Europe guilds were ranked according to the recognized importance of their trades. The principle on which the occupations were rated was evidently not the vital importance of the needs which were supplied by them. "The status of a profession seems to have depended on whether it was more or less honourable, lucrative or ancient. The place of honour was reserved for those crafts in which brainwork took precedence over manual work. They were regarded as more honourable, evidently because in the dualistic conception which governed Christian societies, spirit was placed above matter, the intellectual above the animal part of man." The occupations demanding intellectual work alone came to be designated "liberal" professions, as contrasted with those involving manual labour, these latter being termed "servile". In the university towns the professors occupied the first rank and shared with the nobles the privilege of walking on the wall side of the pavement. The doctors also belonged to this category, though their brethren of lower origins, the surgeon-barbers, were relegated to a lower status on account of their partiality for surgical operations. Though craftsmen usually were rated low, the goldsmiths had secured a high rank. Dealers in articles that were to be brought from distant countries, like spices and furs, were ranked very high. Bankers, moneychangers, and wholesale dealers were distinguished not only because their professions required quickness of perception, complicated calculations, wide range of vision and rare thought, but also because of their show of wealth. "It is easy to see that in the priority accorded to the great industrial and commercial guilds, the second of the principles we have mentioned was at work, namely, that a craft was considered more or less honourable according to the wealth it yielded . . . It was undoubtedly for this reason that the butchers, who had numerous assistants working under their orders and who made considerable profit, sometimes managed in Paris to be included among the 'Six Guilds'." Home crafts suffered from internal competition and thus were ranked rather low. At Florence the baker and bread-makers came last in the list of the twenty-one official guilds.¹
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¹ Renard, pp. 57-61.
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It was in keeping with these ideas of occupational dignity that in France a member of the nobility had his noble state suspended if he carried on trade or handicraft, incompatible with the profession of arms.¹
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¹ Brissaud (2), p. 300.
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The laws of the Anglo-Saxons laid it down that none was to seek in marriage a mate outside one's class, so that if a person of lower status married a woman of a higher class he was to perish.² By the fifteenth century in England this rule of endogamy had almost vanished, so much so that one of the usual methods by which the needy nobles replenished their empty purses was by marrying the daughters or widows of rich merchants. Such marriages went a long way in fusing the upper and the middle classes.³ In France, in the later period of the Roman Empire, the workmen, employed in the manufactures of the State like that of arms, were not allowed to marry their daughters outside their group.⁴ In the eyes of the tribal law the only legal marriage that could take place was between free-born people of equal status. The free woman who married her own slave lost her freedom, and had her property confiscated, and the slave was killed on the wheel. Where a free man married either his slave or a freed woman, neither the wife nor the issue of the union attained the rank of the man.⁵ During the feudal age, however, legitimate children took the status of their father, the principle that gentility came from the father being gradually recognized. If a free woman married a nobleman she attained his status but not so a servile woman.⁶ In Germany "the consequences of equality of birth in private law made themselves felt in the law of family and inheritance. Only an equal born member of the estate had the right of exercising guardianship over minors and women. And only between those equal in birth was there a right of inheritance". Originally members of different status-groups could not contract a legal marriage. A free woman's marriage with a slave meant loss of freedom to the woman or of life to the slave. Under the influence of Christianity the rigour of laws against unequal marriages was much lessened, such unions being regarded as only inferior marriages and the issue as quite legitimate. But the higher status of one of the parties could not be conferred on the other, the issue being naturally relegated to the status of the lower-born. Exceptionally the children of a union, where the wife was a free woman and the husband half-free or unfree, were allowed to inherit the natural freedom of their mother. In the newer grouping of society on the occupational basis "the principle of equal birth was less and less heeded". Only the higher nobility has still clung to it.¹
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² N. K. Sidhanta, The Heroic Age of India, pp. 186-7.
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³ Abram, p. 80. N.B.—Compare the practice of the Japanese Samurai, in the middle of the eighteenth century, of adopting into their families the sons of rich commoners to replenish their treasury; Yosoburo Takekoshi, The Economic Aspects of the History of the Civilization of Japan, 1930, vol. ii, pp. 452-3.
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⁴ Brissaud (2), p. 48.
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⁵ Brissaud (1), pp. 158-9.
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⁶ Brissaud (2), pp. 201, f.n. 6, 298.
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¹ Huebner, pp. 92-4, 99.
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To sum up, distinction by birth has been usually recognized by many primitive peoples and almost all the major civilizations of ancient times. The primitive peoples, in so far as their arts and crafts are neither many, nor highly specialized, have few classes whose status is fixed. But wherever status is recognized, privileges and restrictions in the matter of the choice of avocation are very common. Restriction on the choice of one's mate based on birth is comparatively infrequent among them. In tribal England, in Rome, and in Asiatic civilizations, occupations not only tended to become hereditary but were actually prescribed to be followed by specific classes and graded in certain order as high and low. Specialized occupations had come to form themselves into units of community life. Society was divided into two, three, four, or five well-marked status-groups, intermarriage between which was often prohibited. The Chinese civilization, before it was influenced by Indian ideas, seems to have been the freest in its social grouping.
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Well-marked status-groups within a society, distinguished from one another by rights and disabilities, separated from one another by the absence of freedom of intermarriage, may, therefore, be considered to be a common characteristic of the mental background and social picture of the Indo-European cultures. Specialization of occupations, accompanied by solidarity within specific occupations and great unfreedom about their choice, was a feature common to the ancient and mediaeval times. The circumstances that led to the abolition of distinctions, based on birth and occupation, in Rome and in England are peculiar to each and cannot be gone into here. Suffice it for us to remember that in each case it was the special conditions, making for political unity and commercial aggrandisement, that slowly killed the ideas of status by birth and removed the unfreedom of occupation.
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*Note.* It has not been possible to check all the references in this chapter as I could not get all the books in Bombay (G. S. G.).