|
Max Horkheimer (Hrsg.): Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 3. Jg 1933, Heft 3 |
|
|
where they are, as in the case of animals, undifferentiated in their objects to those in which they have become particularised and individualised.
In social groups whose subsistence is derived from hunting, fishing, or any other hand-to-mouth economic source, there is a pronounced solidarity and sentiment of loyalty between all members of the. group. That sentiment coincides with the economic interests of all the members of the group. It is almost impossible or extremely difficult in most regions of the world for an isolated individual, or even two or three individuals, to obtain secure and continuous sustenance by hand-to-mouth hunting or the like. Security of life depends upon cooperation and sharing. Unless the food obtained by the individual be shared with other members of the group, he would run the constant risk of starving. All means of subsistence are accordingly shared in hunting and fishing tribes, the rule being universal and extending to such ridiculous extremes as the communal division of a sprat or of a small piece of cloth. This constitutes primitive communism. It is absolutely imposed by the conditions, and there exists in such social groups no form of property, except weapons and utensils, which are themselves subject to communal use, susceptible of being personally accumulated or advantageous to retain for individual use. On the other hand such communities have a common proprietary right in the hunting or fishing territory. Those territorial rights are very clearly conceived and observed, being amicably agreed upon between friendly clans, or jealously enforced against hostile intruders. The sentiment of solidarity between members of the group is thus reinforced and defined by a common sentiment of antagonism and hostility toward other groups, which are "strangers" or "enemies".
Under those conditions the men, who possess no economic wealth, cannot purchase the right to remove women from their homes and to reckon the women's children as their own. Nor does there exist any inducement or motive to advance the latter claim, since the question of transmission of property does not arise. Sexual association is accordingly matrilocal, under the rule of exogamy. Where clans, camps, or territorial groups are contiguous the observance of matrilocal usage may become lax, and the place of residence of small account. But the wife continues to belong to her clan, her children are likewise members of her clan, and the kinship conventions are matrilinear. They have no reference to a paternal family. Such a family has no economic existence; neither is it represented in social sentiment, nor is it, accordingly, represented in the terms of kinship or in name.
Max Horkheimer (Hrsg.): Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 3. Jg 1933, Heft 3. Librairie Felix Alcan, Paris 1933, Seite 370. Digitale Volltext-Ausgabe bei Wikisource, URL: https://de.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Seite:Zeitschrift_f%C3%BCr_Sozialforschung_Jahrgang_2_Heft_3.pdf/52&oldid=- (Version vom 8.6.2022)
