CHAPTER XXVI STRATIFICATION BESIDES the social layers which result from conquest there are layers which form within a people in consequence of certain processes. Such stratification is virtually a social disease which checks the natural sifting of human beings, clogs the rise of capables and the descent of incapables, benumbs the higher faculties of the masses, arrests the circulation of sympathy and, if not remedied, ends in the paralysis, perhaps the break-up, of the group. Examples of stratified society are numerous enough in both ancient and modern times. CHAP. Stratifica tion Is a Social Disease Babylonia Old Babylonia under King Hammurabi “was a group of city- Ancient provinces in process of unification through the influence of a nationalized religion, a powerful centralized government, a closely interdependent commerce, and a well-recognized legal system which protected property rights and stimulated agriculture and industry. The state was personified in the priest-king, in whom were joined personal prestige and divine authority. Crown lands were held under a feudal tenure by a class of priests, devotees, nobles, military and civil officials, in whose interest the laws were in certain respects carefully framed. To presumably the same social status belonged a class of landowners, bankers, and merchants. Next in the social scale came the tradesmen and artisans, followed by the tenant farmers who held their lands under the metayer system. In the next stratum were the free wageearning laborers; while last of all came a great body of house and other slaves, upon whose labor the entire economic structure was largely based." "Babylonian society was pyramidal. The King was the apex, and the broad base rested upon a foundation of slaves. Social control was mediated from class to class. Caste and status are embedded in the code. In precise tariffs human values are set forth." 2 1 Vincent, "The Laws of Hammurabi," American Journal of Sociology, Vol. IX, p. 741. Ibid., p. 753 СНАР. Caste in Roman Empire The caste system of the later Roman Empire was not built up by Roman conquests but was the product of forces within sothe Later ciety. Says Dill: "An almost Oriental system of caste has made every social grade and every occupation practically hereditary, from the senator to the waterman on the Tiber, or the sentinel at a frontier post. In a society where poverty is almost branded with infamy, poverty is steadily increasing and wealth becoming more insolent and aggressive. The middle or bourgeois class was almost extinguished. Roman financial administration was paralysed, and at its close the real victors and survivors were the great landholders, surrounded by their serfs and dependents.' Inherit- Society a Pagoda of Several Stories "The tendency of the later Empire was to stereotype society by compelling men to follow the occupation of their fathers, and preventing a free circulation among different callings and grades of life. The man who brought the grain of Africa to the public stores of Ostia, the baker who made it into loaves for distribution, the butchers who brought pigs from Samnium, Lucania or Bruttium, the purveyors of wine and oil, the men who fed the furnaces of the public baths, were bound to their callings from one generation to another. It was the principle of rural serfdom applied to social functions. Every avenue of escape was closed. A man was bound to his calling not only by his father's but by his mother's condition. Men were not permitted to marry out of their guild. If the daughter of one of the baker caste married. a man not belonging to it, her husband was bound to her father's calling. Not even a dispensation obtained by some means from the imperial chancery, not even the power of the Church could avail to break the bond of servitude." In the fourth century A.D. Roman society formed a pyramid. At the base was the plebs, comprising the corporations of artisans and merchants. In the middle came the smaller proprietors, distinguished into simple curiales and principales. The top story comprised those who had the title of Roman senator. These classes were strictly separated. "There is nothing in common," said the law, "between the curiales and the senators, between the plebeians and the curiales." All these classes paid taxes, but not the same taxes. The members of the collegia paid special contributions to the state, but bore none of the municipal burdens. 3" Roman Society," p. 100. 4 Ibid., p. 194. CHAP. XXVI Sympathy Down in but Only through Layer The curiales bore the burden of public charges and those of the city. Senators paid heavy taxes directly to the Empire. These taxes were paid into different hands. Each class had its heads. Corporations had their syndics, the curiales their duumvirs, or their Defender. The senators had chiefs in every province and moreover defensores senatus. Each class came under a special jurisdiction, for each man must be judged only by his peers. Extends How horizontal social feeling becomes in a caste society is Not Up or brought out by Dill: "It is difficult for a modern man to con- Society, ceive the bounded view of society taken by people like Sym- out machus and Sidonius, the cold, stately self-content, the absence one's of sympathy for the masses lying outside the charmed circle of Social senatorial rank, the placid faith in the permanence of privilege and wealth, the apparent inability to conceive, even in the presence of tremendous forces of disruption, that society should ever cease to move along the ancient lines. They had little care for any but their own caste and family, as the representatives of GraecoRoman culture. With what was regarded as a laudable ambition to add to the honours' of the family, and a strenuous devotion to the study and imitation of the great authors, there seemed to the stately noble no reason why the calm ceremonious senatorial life should not go on forever. Society had been elaborately and deliberately stereotyped. As a rule, whatever a man's energy or ambition, he was doomed to work out his life on the precise lines which his ancestors had followed. All ideas of improvement were nipped in the bud, blasted by the stifling. atmosphere of a despotism which, with whatever good intentions, received no guidance or inspiration from the thoughts or needs of the masses, and spent all its strength in maintaining unchanged the lines of an ancient system, instead of finding openings for fresh development. The same immobility reigned in the education of the privileged class. They felt no material need to stimulate invention and practical energy, and their academic training only deepened and intensied the deadening conservatism of unassailable wealth and rank." 5 In eighteenth-century France I per cent. of the population belonging to the privileged orders possessed half the soil and this the richest and best improved half. A third of the soil was held by absentee lords who, having abandoned their castles to live * Ibid., p. 176. Castin the Old France CHAP. Fixed Japan at court, had lost sympathy with their people and considered only how to squeeze revenue out of them. The resident lords, in order that they might hunt as their ancestors did when France was half-wild, preserved game until the peasant's crops were devoured, while he was forbidden to rear fences which might hamper the chase. The clergy claimed exemption from taxation and all they contributed to the state was a free-will offering. The nobles were free of taille, corveé, and military conscription. More than half of what was spent on the army went to the officers, not one of whom could be a plebeian. To be a captain it was necessary to prove four degrees of nobility. All ecclesiastical properties went to abbés and bishops of noble family. All high posts, ecclesiastical and lay, and all sinecures, were reserved for nobles and their protegés. When Commodore Perry opened relations with Japan its social of Feudal organization embraced: first, the throne and the court nobles; second, the military class, daimyos and samurai; third, the common people or heimin. The function of the Mikado was to mediate between his heavenly ancestors and his subjects while all affairs of state were entrusted to the Shogun and the military class. The court nobility, descendants of former mikados, comprised one hundred and fifty-five families. They ranked above the feudal chiefs, filled the court offices, and devoted themselves to literature and art. Legal Rec- About fifty-five out of a thousand of the population were hereditary samurai who served as retainers of the two hundred and fifty-five daimyos or chiefs of great feudal estates. Hali of the peasants' assessed income went to these feudal chiefs and their retainers. Below this class come about fifteen-sixteenths of the population known as heimin, or commoners. They were divided into three classes: husbandmen, artisans and traders, the last standing lowest. Below these came the eta (defiled folks) and the hinim (outcasts), altogether about a million people. In Russia, until half a century ago, the law recognized, besides the clergy, four social orders, viz., nobles, merchants, townsmen and peasants. The Code contained no less than sixteen hundred articles relating to "classes, orders, or conditions." The right of holding serfs was reserved to the nobility. The higher orders were exempt from the obligation to render military service and to pay a poll tax. The peasants were tried by courts of their |