Some ancient legislators, as Lycurgus and Romulus, made an equal
division of lands. A settlement of this kind can never take place except
upon the foundation of a new republic; or when the old one is so
corrupt, and the minds of the people are so disposed, that the poor
think themselves obliged to demand, and the rich obliged to consent to a
remedy of this nature.
If the legislator, in making a division of this kind, does not enact
laws at the same time to support it, he forms only a temporary
constitution; inequality will break in where the laws have not precluded
it, and the republic will be utterly undone.
Hence for the preservation of this equality it is absolutely
necessary there should be some regulation in respect to women's dowries,
donations, successions, testamentary settlements, and all other forms of
contracting. For were we once allowed to dispose of our property to whom
and how we pleased, the will of each individual would disturb the order
of the fundamental law.
Solon, by permitting the Athenians, upon failure of issue
[1]
to leave their estates to whom they pleased, acted contrary to the ancient
laws, by which the estates were ordered to continue in the family of the
testator;
[2]
and even contrary to his own laws, for by abolishing debts he had aimed at
equality.
The law which prohibited people having two inheritances
[3]
was extremely well adapted for a democracy. It derived its origin from the
equal distribution of lands and portions made to each citizen. The law
would not permit a single man to possess more than a single portion.
From the same source arose those laws by which the next relative was
ordered to marry the heiress. This law was given to the Jews after the
like distribution. Plato,
[4]
who grounds his laws on this division, made the same regulation which had
been received as a law by the Athenians.
At Athens there was a law whose spirit, in my opinion, has not been
hitherto rightly understood. It was lawful to marry a sister only by the
father's side, but it was not permitted to espouse a sister by the same
venter.
[5]
This custom was originally owing to republics, whose spirit
would not permit that two portions of land, and consequently two
inheritances, should devolve on the same person. A man who married his
sister only by the father's side could inherit but one estate, namely,
that of his father; but by espousing his sister by the same venter, it
might happen that this sister's father, having no male issue, might
leave her his estate, and consequently the brother who married her might
be possessed of two.
Little will it avail to object to what Philo says,
[6]
that although the Athenians were allowed to marry a sister by the father's side, and
not by the mother's, yet the contrary practice prevailed among the
Lacedmonians, who were permitted to espouse a sister by the mother's
side, and not by the father's. For I find in Strabo
[7]
that at Sparta, whenever a woman was married to her brother she had half his portion for
her dowry. Plain is it that this second law was made in order to prevent
the bad consequences of the former. That the estate belonging to the
sister's family might not devolve on the brother's, they gave half the
brother's estate to the sister for her dowry.
Seneca
[8]
speaking of Silanus, who had married his sister, says that
the permission was limited at Athens, but general at Alexandria. In a
monarchical government there was very little concern about any such
thing as a division of estates.
Excellent was that law which, in order to maintain this division of
lands in a democracy, ordained that a father who had several children
should pitch upon one of them to inherit his portion,
[9]
and leave the others to be adopted, to the end that the numbers of citizens might
always be kept upon an equality with that of the divisions.
Phaleas of Chalcedon
[10]
contrived a very extraordinary method of rendering all fortunes equal, in
a republic where there was the greatest inequality. This was that the rich
should give fortunes with their daughters to the poor, but receive none
themselves; and that the poor should receive money for their daughters,
instead of giving them fortunes. But I do not remember that a regulation of
this kind ever took place in any republic. It lays the citizens under such hard and
oppressive conditions as would make them detest the very equality which
they designed to establish. It is proper sometimes that the laws should
not seem to tend so directly to the end they propose.
Though real equality be the very soul of a democracy, it is so
difficult to establish that an extreme exactness in this respect would
not be always convenient. Sufficient is it to establish a census
[11]
which shall reduce or fix the differences to a certain point: it is
afterwards the business of particular laws to level, as it were, the
inequalities, by the duties laid upon the rich, and by the ease afforded
to the poor. It is moderate riches alone that can give or suffer this
sort of compensation; for as to men of overgrown estates, everything
which does not contribute to advance their power and honour is
considered by them as an injury.
All inequality in democracies ought to be derived from the nature of
the government, and even from the principle of equality. For example, it
may be apprehended that people who are obliged to live by their labour
would be too much impoverished by a public employment, or neglect the
duties attending it; that artisans would grow insolent, and that too
great a number of freemen would overpower the ancient citizens. In this
case the equality
[12]
in a democracy may be suppressed for the good of the state. But this is
only an apparent equality; for a man ruined by a public employment would
be in a worse condition than his fellow-citizens; and this same man, being
obliged to neglect his duty, would reduce the rest to a worse condition than
himself, and so on.
