The Stateless Societies Of The Primitive Times

Origins are always obscure, write Maclver. It may be particularly true of the origin of the State, which is shrouded in the darkness of the primitive ages. There are no written records of the way the primitive people lived. Nevertheless, anthropology, archaeology, proto-history and other studies and discoveries about the primitive times have aided us in understanding the social life of the primitive peoples. From all these sources we know that the earliest human society was matriarchal in form.

The primitive matriarchal society was without any ‘State or political authority whatsoever. However, when Man began to produce things by labour of his hands and had invented tools and techniques to produce them, the matriarchal society changed slowly into a new form, viz., the patriarchal society.

The patriarchal society of prehistory was still a Stateless society. It consisted of the families, which were grouped into clans. Several clans formed a tribe. A family was headed by its male member, father or grandfather, and consisted of his wife or wives, and their children, along with a few slaves and dependents. Its aim was the control of sex life and property of the group. It raised a number of problems for the primitive patriarchal society, which led to the regulation of marriage and family relations, the regulation of property relations, inheritance of family property, barter or sale of goods, etc.

These problems were solved by exercising social control by the authority of the eldest male head of the family or clan and regulated by tribal customs. In course of time, this social control assumed a strictly political form when it was exercised by the authority of the council of tribal elders and by a tribal chief. Besides sex and property many other factors also, contributed to this transformation of social control into political control. They were, briefly, religion and war. Religion was mainly magic and consisted of ancestor-worship and nature. The whole clan or tribe participated in religious rites, led by its elders and chiefs.

Common worship strengthened the unity of the tribe, created by its kinship relations. Furthermore, unlike the earlier matriarchal society, the patriarchal society was tom by the wars of the clans and tribes. Man began to kill man. Common needs of defence and war necessitated military leadership and control. Thus a successful military leader became the political head of the tribe. He was the first king or ruler in the history of mankind. This is how the patriarchal society gave rise to the tribal State—the first State in human history.

The map of the world illustrates these changes even today. The primitive aborigines of Australia (the Bushmen as the British colonizers call them) and the primitive people in Indonesia, Malaya, etc., are still living in the matriarchal stage. They know nothing about political organization or State. On the other hand, the savage communities and peoples of South and East Asia, Africa and America had progressed up to the patriarchal society and tribal State. But the civilised peoples of Asia, Europe and North Africa had since long evolved higher forms of political organization.

 

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