This,
however, expresses only half the truth. The other half has, we think,
been furnished by Mr. Peacock:
"The most popular explanation in the last [eighteenth] century was the
calumny known as _mercheta mulierum_, now known as a malignant fable
popularized by novelists and playwrights. Another suggestion is that it
is a custom that has survived from some prehistoric race; a third that
it has grown up at different points...." Mr. Peacock regards the last as
the most likely. "It is only when the population becomes relatively
dense that land, apart from what it produces, is of any value. A time,
however, would soon be reached when land would have a value of its own.
The good soil would soon be taken up, and in the days of a primitive
mode of culture third-rate land would be valueless. Then the
house-father would be forced by circumstances to make provision, ere his
death, for the sons sharing the ancestral domain between them.
"Here we have the origin of gavelkind--a form of devolution more widely
spread than even ultimo-geniture or Borough English. Gavelkind, however,
could be but a temporary provision. As the population grew, so it would
be absolutely necessary that the young men of the household should make
new settlements for themselves. This fact accounts in its measure for
the vast shifting of the population that took place when the Roman
Empire was in its protracted death-agony.
Pages:
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281