84 were divided among his sons, the first receiv ing a larger share as his birthright, but gen erally endowed with no other advantage than an honorary precedence. The internal af fairs of the patriarchal family were originally beyond the influence of public law. Each family was an independent little state repre sented by its head, the patriarch. The con vention, or congress, of such patriarchs be longing to the same clan or tribe, became the Councils of Elders or the "Heads of the Houses" that are frequently mentioned in the Bible. These bodies met for the pur pose of discussing matters pertaining to the common welfare, but not for the purpose of regulating or in any way interfering with the internal affairs of the family which re mained solely under the control of its own head, the patriarch. In course of time, as public opinion concerning the proper regu lation of the rights and duties of the mem bers of the family crystallized, public law began to interfere with the affairs of the family. The patriarchal family, like the modern corporation, was immortal. When the patriarch died the family continued; the temporary head had passed away, and another took his place. Great care was taken to prevent the family from becoming actually extinct, and its existence was guarded by various enactments such as the Law of the Levirate Marriage and the Law relating to the Marriage of Heiresses. The former (Deuteronomy XXV, 5-10), provided that where one died, leaving a widow, but no children, it became the duty of his brother to marry the widow, and her first born suc ceeded to the name of the brother who had died, so that "his name be not put out of Israel." This did not mean that the name of the deceased individual should be pre served, but that by a legal fiction the family of which he was the representative should be preserved. The law of the Marriage of Heiresses (Numbers XXXVI, 8), provided that daughters possessing an in heritance must marry within the family of
the tribe of their father. At this stage of the history of the law the tribe was considered the larger family, within which the inheri tance must remain. The union of all the members of the family under the supremacy of the patriarch resulted in the strengthening of family soli darity, so much so that the act of any mem ber of the family was deemed the act of all, a theory that was extended from the family to the clan, then to the tribe, and eventually to the entire Jewish nation. Each of these political bodies was composed of persons who claimed a common ancestry, and who were united not only by the ordinary social and political bonds, but also by the ties of blood. Originally this theory of responsibility was literally understood, and when a man committed a crime his children and even his grandchildren suffered for it, for the crime was a corporate act, not merely the act of the individual, who was the agent. This system gave rise to the. blood feuds. Kins men naturally sided with their own blood in such quarrels, and the lines of division be tween the contending parties were drawn as tight as those between the rival houses of Montague and Capulet. Children were pun ished for the crimes of their parents, and parents were punished for the crimes of their children. When any member of the family suffered a wrong, it became the duty of the others to redress and avenge it. This theory of solidarity also affected the nature of the property rights of the family. As the patriarch was merely the temporary head of the family, which theoretically con tinued to exist after his death, and as his possession of the property was more in the nature of a trust for the benefit of the family than an actual ownership, he could not divert the property from the family by giv ing it away or selling it to another. In the very early history of the patriarchal system, the patriarch was undisputed master. He was the head of the family because he was the oldest and strongest, and he had a right
