In this Chapter we will look in more extensive detail at the family structures used by our ancient predecessors. It may seem complicated at first but remember that these supposedly not terribly sophisticated people developed it organically and understood it intuitively. It was not written down or drawn in diagrammatic form. It just was.
The following three diagrams show the family, and gentilic family trees and how the relationships between the relatives are different from those in a traditional nuclear family structure. I put myself in this gentilic family tree as an example.
Diagram 1 shows my family tree. The names in bold are all those who share the same gentilic family name as myself. The names in italics take their gentilic family name from their own mothers.
At the top, we can see that my Great Grandmother (GGM) shares her name with her sister and her brother.
Then we see my GGM’s daughter – my Grandmother. Again, we can see that she takes the same name, as do her brother and sister. Notice that in the first two tiers (generations), we see that, when the male has children, these children do not retain the gentilic name but instead take their name from their mother.
DIAGRAM 1
Sister _ Brother _ Great Grandmother, Husband – Brother
children children |
|
Brother _ Sister _ Grandmother, Husband – Brother – Brother
children children | children children
|
Brother _ Sister _ Mother, Father – Brother – Sister
| | | | |
children children sister ME brother children children
Now we look at the third tier – my Mother’s generation. Again we see that her brother and sister retain the gentilic name.
We can see that, in a similar manner to a patriarchal system, this matriarchal system passes the name down, but through the female line. We can also see that my father does not take the name of my mother but retains his own gentilic name that is different from mine.
So far, we can see that the matriarchal gentilic system differs only from ours in that it is matriarchal, not patriarchal.
Diagram 2 shows the same people as above and again it shows in bold those members who have the same gentilic name as me.
But this time it shows the names that I myself personally call them in a traditional nuclear family structure.
DIAGRAM 2
Great Great Aunt _ Great Great Uncle _ Great Grandmother, GreatGrandfather _ Great Great Uncle
|
Great Uncle _ Great Aunt _ Grandmother, Grandfather _ Great Uncle _ Great Uncle
|
Uncle _ Aunt _ Mother, Father – Uncle – Aunt
| | | | |
cousins cousins sister ME brother cousins cousins
I have omitted the children from higher up the tree – we have names for these (second cousins, aunts once removed etc) but this does not inform the argument so I omit them.
So as we know, we see one mother, one father, one brother and one sister. Everyone else is removed from the family structure with more distant titles, like cousin and uncle. This is the nuclear family.
And finally, Diagram 3. Again, this shows the same people as in the first diagram and again, those who share my gentilic name are in bold.
But this time it shows the names that I myself personally call them in a gentilic family structure.
DIAGRAM 3
GGM _ GGF _ Great Grandmother, GGF _ GGF
|
GF _ GM _ Grandmother (GM), GF – GF – GF
|
Father _ Mother _ Mother, Father – Father – Aunt
| | | | |
brother, sister brother, sister sister, ME, brother brother, sister cousins
Straight away we see that the number of my immediate relatives has expanded enormously. Instead of two siblings, I have eight – four more on my Mother’s side and two more on my father’s side. And shared between us, we have eight parents.
Instead of one mother, I have two – my birth mother and her sister. Notice that in the case of my birth father’s sister, I do not call her mother. She is Aunt.
Instead of one father, I have three – in this case my birth father and then also my birth mother’s brother, and my birth father’s brother.
And when I look up to my Grandmother’s generation, we can see that I now have two grandmothers – my birth grandmother and her sister.
And now I have four grandfathers – my birth grandfather, his two brothers, and my birth grandmother’s brother.
Next, when I look up to my Great Grandmother’s generation on the top tier, I see that she had a brother and a sister. These are still direct family relatives and I do not call them Great Great Uncle and Aunt – these are my Great Great Grandfather and Great Great Grandmother.
Now we look at my Great Great Grandmother’s sister. The next thing to note is that all her children, and all the children of her daughters – and all the children of their daughters – all share her name- the same name as me.
Now we can see from our gentilic name just how many of us there are. And we are all part of the same family. But it is not called a family. It is called a Gens.
We are now talking about large numbers of people bonded together by blood and by name in the Gens.
And beyond that, if I look at my generation and I look across to my mother’s brother’s children, they do not share my name but we share half of the same blood and I still call them brothers and sisters. We are not of the same name, the same gens, but we are more than likely to coalesce into the same Phratry, or Fraternity. And they are called brother and sister, just the same as the others.
The important thing to understand is that my brothers and sisters are given the same title because they are to me the same thing, without distinction. The same is true of my mothers. We may be a little more possessive these days than they were then but children understand better than their parents that they are not possessions to be owned exclusively.
And so the numbers escalate and we recognise our true relations with each other. And the power and security of our sheer number.