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A Durkheim Fragment Author(s): George Simpson Source: The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 70, No. 5 (Mar., 1965), pp. 527-536 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2774974 Accessed: 25/09/2010 02:22 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://links.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://links.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Journal of Sociology. http://links.jstor.org
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A Durkheim FragmentAuthor(s): George SimpsonSource: The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 70, No. 5 (Mar., 1965), pp. 527-536Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2774974

Accessed: 25/09/2010 02:22

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at

http://links.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you

have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you mayuse content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at

http://links.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of 

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The

American Journal of Sociology.

http://links.jstor.org

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the americaniournal of sociology

Volume LXX Number 5 March 1965

A DurkheimFragment

George Simpson

ABSTRACTIn 1921 Marcel Mauss published from manuscript and with notes of his own the last lecture of a

course on the family which Emile Durkheim had given at the University of Bordeaux in 1892. Thisarticle is an edited English translation, with an introduction by the American editor, of this historicaldocument-one of the earliest indications of the direction some of Durkheim's later work was to takeand an early contribution to the sociology of the family in its own right.

In preparing a book on lmile Durk-

heim containing an arrangementof selec-

tions from his work in sociology with com-

mentaries and a short introduction,* I

sought to include some piece of systematic

thinkingby him on the family. I could findreadily available only an article published

posthumouslyin Revue philosophique(XCI

[January-June, 1921], 1-14). This article,

prefaced by a short note by Marcel Mauss

and edited by him, consists of a lecture

Durkheim had delivered at the University

of Bordeauxin 1892 at the end of a course

on the sociology of the family. This lecture

had been delivered from manuscript. But

the manuscriptas it came down to Mauss

was faulty in spots, and he added to thetext from the notes he had taken as a stu-

dent at that lecture. Mauss also appended

footnotes to the printed version to explain

or expand, on the basis of Durkheim's

general views, sentences and ideas which

by themselvesmight appearabstruse.

Mauss confirms in his preface, written

in 1921, that there is little publicly avail-

able by Durkheim on the sociology of the

family as a specific topic and that Durk-heimnever got around to preparingfor pub-

lication material that he had worked on

relative to it.

I therefore gave up the idea of a sepa-rate section on the family in my book onDurkheim, but not the thought of publish-ing this significant document saved for

sociological posterity by Mauss. The trans-lation of this article hence resuscitates a

neglected documenttucked away for nearly

a half-century in a French journal and

accordinglylost sight of. The article is an

exampleof Durkheim'svery earlysociologi-

cal thinking and shows him to have been

involved with ideas that were to markmuch of his later work in sociology. The

term conjugal family-in recent years so

widely stressed as the accurate description

of the present form-shows up here as one

of long standing with Durkheim, predatingcurrent usage.

In 1892, when he delivered this lecture

on the conjugal family, Durkheim had not

yet published his controversialdissertation

at Paris on the division of labor. But the* George Simpson, Emile Durkheim (New York:

Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1963).

527

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528 THEAMERICANJOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY

emphasis in this lecture on comparativelaw and jurisprudence as indexes of the

state of social relationships at given timesin given societies and of the direction in

which they were changing foreshadowshis

extensive use of them in the Division ofLabor in Society,t both to establish the

types of solidarity he found in the evolu-

tionary scheme and to propound a now

widely recognized, ingenious criminological

theory. Furthermore, this article showsDurkheim to have mapped out the guide-

lines of his later theory of the evolution ofindividualrights and personalautonomy, in

this case shown by the changes that had

taken place in the modern conjugal family

as compared with earlier forms of the

family. Then, too, we discover that Durk-

heim's work on suicide was already under

way and that his ideas on the relation of

marriage and the family to the suicide

rate were beginning to crystallize. Surpris-

ingly, even his idea on the significancethat

occupational or professional groups were

destined to have in future social organiza-

tion shows up here, although generally ithas been assumedthat this idea grew out ofhis work on the division of labor and that it

was publicized first in his preface to thesecond edition of that work in 1902. Final-ly, Durkheim's view of society as the centerof morality appears in rudimentary formin this article on the conjugal family.

Three-quarters of a century ago Durk-heim's thinking must have been an eye-opener to the students at the University ofBordeaux. Durkheim was giving the firstcourses in sociology ever given in France,and the sophisticationthat subject requiresand can arouse when learnedly pursuedmust have stood out boldly against thepretentious bourgeois backdrop of life un-der the Third French Republic.

The translation presented here is a re-finement by me of one first roughedout by

Miss Katharine 0. Parker at my requestthrough the kind offices of Mr. John T.

Hawes of the Thomas Y. Crowell Com-

pany and then gone over by Dr. Louis

Lister. Material which appears in brackets

was inserted by Marcel Mauss as French

editor, and the numbered footnotes are

also his. Mauss put his initials after each

footnote but I have omitted them here.

G. S.

THE CONJUGAL FAMILY

CONCLUSION OF THE COURSE ON THE FAMILY

This is the seventeenth and last lecture

of the course on the family that Durkheim

gave in 1892 at Bordeaux. It was delivered

to us students on April 2 of that year.

For a long time Durkheim had intendedto publish the whole body of his researches

on the family. Shortly before the war how-

ever, while undertaking the publication of

his treatise on ethics, he wavered. He

thought of publishing only the substance

contained in his course on ethics in the

family, which constitutes the second part

of his courseon ethics. The war intervened.Long before his death Durkheim had defi-

nitely given up the project-a project that

everyone who had taken this course wanted

him to complete. He suggested that we pub-lish only his work on ethics in the family.

Durkheim's treatment of the family

could certainly not have been completed

definitively without a great deal of work

concernedwith verification and elucidation.

Knowledge of family law, especially family

law in primitive societies, has come a long

way since 1892.

But, seen again after more than a quarter

of a century, so much of the course is still

so apt and profound that we consider it

t EmileDurkheim,De la division du travailso-cial (Paris, Felix Alcan, 1893) trans. by George

Simpson as Division of Labor in Society (New

York, Macmillan, 1933) and republished by TheFree Press in 1948.

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A DURKHEIMFRAGMENT 529

our duty to allow the widest possible publicto derivebenefit from it.

This concluding lecture is quite short,and Durkheim would no doubt have felt

called upon to expand it. Considerabledata on the history of the family and ofmarriagein the Middle Ages may be found

in Anne'esociologique, beginning with thefirst issue, under the heading "FamilyOrganization," for which Durkheim wasresponsible until his death. These data

would easily help to support this conten-tion.

MARCEL MAUSS

THE CONJUGAL FAMILY

I use this name for the family estab-

lished in societies descended from the Ger-

manic peoples-that is, among the most

civilized peoples of modern Europe. I shall

describe its most essential characteristics

as they emerged through a long evolution

to becomefixed in our Civil Code.

The conjugal family comes about as a

contraction of the paternal family.1 The

latter included the father, the mother, and

all generations descended from them ex-

cepting daughters and their descendants.

The conjugal family consists only of the

husband, the wife, and minor and unmar-

ried children. Among the members of a

group thus constituted there are definite

distinctive kinship relationshipswhich existonly among them and within the limits towhich paternal aut-hority extends. Thefather is responsible for supporting thechild and for his upbringinguntil he attainsmajority.The child in turnis entirelyunder

the father's authority; he controls neitherhis person nor his wealth both of which

are in his father's keeping. He has no civil

responsibility; that belongs to his father.

But when the child is of age to marry

-for the civil majorityof twenty-oneyears

still leaves him under his father's tutelage

as far as marriagegoes-or as soon as thechild, at whatever moment, is legitimatelymarried, all these relationships cease. Thechild henceforth has his own personality,his separateinterests,and responsibilityforhimself. He can, to be sure, continue to liveunder the father's roof, but his presencethere is only a material or purely moralfact; it no longer has any of the legal con-sequences that it had in the paternalfamily.2Cohabitation,moreover, very oftenceases even before the child reaches hiscivil majority. In any event, once thechild is married he generally sets up hisown home. To be sure, he maintains tieswith his parents; he owes them support incase of illness, and he has, inversely, aright to a certain portion of the familywealth for he cannot [in French law] betotally disinherited. These are the onlylegal obligations that have survived [fromearlier family patterns] and the secondseems destined to disappear.Nothing hereresembles that state of perpetual depend-ence that was the basis of the paternalfamily and of the patriarchal family. Weare now face to face with a new familytype. Since the only permanent elementsin it are the husband and the wife, sinceall the childrensooner or later depart fromthe [paternal] homestead,I propose to callthis new family type the "conjugalfamily."

The new element manifested in thisfamily type with regardto internal organi-zation is a shattering of the ancient familycommunism such as never before encoun-

'The preceding lecture had dealt with the pa-

ternal family. This was the name given by Durk-

heim to the family institutions of the Germanic

peoples, which he sharply distinguished from those

of the Roman patriarchal family. The principal

difference lay in the absolute and overwhelming

concentration of power in Rome through the patria

potestas exercised by the paterfamilias. Character-

istic of the paternal family were the rights of the

child, of the wife, and especially the rights of

relatives on the maternal side. 2 Collective responsibility, etc.

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530 THEAMERICANJOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY

tered. Up to this time,3indeed, communismremainedthe basis of all familialgroupingswith the possible exception of the patri-

archal family. In this latter type, in effect,

the position of ascendancy acquiredby thefather4 had cut into the communistic

character of the family association. But

this character was far from disappearing

completely. Paternal power in this case

ultimately emanates from a transformation

of the old communism; it is communismno longerbased on the family itself [living]

conjointly but on the person of the father

alone. Accordingly, the family group there

forms a whole whose units no longer have

distinct individuality.5 But with the con-

jugal family things are no longer the same.

Each of the members of the conjugal

family is an individual with his own sphere

of action. However, because of his imma-

turity, the minor sphere of action is sub-

ordinated to that of the father. The child

may have his own material wealth, al-

though it is controlled by the father until

the child is eighteen years of age. Yet this

control does not relieve the father of cer-

tain obligations toward the child (seearticle 385, Civil Code). The minor mayeven possess certain goods that are free

of such control-goods that he has acquiredthrough his own labor or that he has re-

ceived with the proviso that his parentsmay not make use of them (article 387,

Civil Code). Finally, as regards personal

relationships, the father's disciplinary

rights over the minor are severely limited.

All that remainsof traditionalcommunism,

along with the parents' right of usufruct

over the property of the child under six-

teen years of age, is the rigidly circum-

scribed right of the descendant" to an-

cestral property as a consequence of therestrictions on the willing of property.

But what is even newer and more dis-

tinctive in this type of family is the ever

growing intervention of the state in theinternal life of the family. The state hasindeed become a factor in family life. The

state can intervene and punish the fatherif he oversteps certain limits. Through its

magistrates, the state presides over boards

of guardians; it takes the orphan minor

under its wing where there is no appointedguardian; it declares and sometimes peti-tions for injunctions against the adult. Arecent law even authorizes the court to

abrogate paternal power in certain cases.But one fact, more than any other, showshow great is the transformationthe family

has undergone in these circumstances. The

conjugal family could not have sprungfromthe patriarchal family [or even from the

paternal family or from a mixture of thetwo types without the intervention of thisnew factor, the state.]7 Up to now familyties could always be broken, either by the

relative. . . . who wished to quit his

family or by the father on whom he de-pended. The first case could occur in the

agnate family [and also] in the paternal

family.9 The second [case] could occur

only in the patriarchal family. With the

conjugal family the ties of kinship havebecome completely indissoluble. The state

in taking them under its protection has

3Until this type of family appeared.

' Durkheim alludes here to the right of bequeath-

ing property and to the right of sale.

5Durkheim had abundantly shown that the pa-

triarchal family, particularly the Roman, involved

the concentration in the person of the paterfamilias

of the rights of the old group of joint agnates.

8 In French law. But it should not be forgottenthat in the first paragraph of this lecture Durk-

heim set himself the task of explaining particularlythe family as seen in the Civil Code of 1892.

' I have added these two phrases from old notestaken during this course and in accordance withthe context. In the manuscript the sentence appears

only in the margin.

8 Himself (?) Word illegible but of no signifi-

cance.

9Durkheim here alludes to one of his earlierlectures where he contrasted looseness in barbarian

laws with expulsion from the patriarchal familythat in Greece and Rome broke asunder agnaticties.

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A DURKHEIMFRAGMENT 531

deprived individuals of the right to breakthem.

Such is the central zone of the modern

family.'0 But this central zone is sur-

rounded by secondary zones which com-plement it. These latter zones are-here

as elsewhere"-nothing else but earlierfamily types which have, so to speak,

moved down a step. There is first thegroup formedby ancestorsand descendants:

grandfather, grandmother, father, mother,

brothers and sisters, and the other an-

cestors from the earlier paternal family

now relegated from the first rank to the

second. In French law the group thus con-

stituted has preserved a fairly distinctcharacter. Thus where a man dies without

descendants,his property is divided among

his parents and his brothers and sisters or

their descendants. Second, beyond the

paternal family one finds the cognate

family,12 that is, the totality of all the

collaterals other than those we have just

mentioned but even more diminished and

weaker than in the paternal family. In

the paternal family, collaterals unto the

sixth and seventh degree and sometimeseven beyond still had very important

familial duties and rights. We noted ex-

amples of this fact last time.13 But theirrole in the family henceforth is practically

nil. Scarcely anything remains but a con-

tingent right to inherit, which itself can

be nullified through the exercise of testa-

mentary power where there are no de-

scendants or ancestors. For the first time

there remains no trace of the clan. (The

specificity of the two secondary zones no

longer seems to be as distinct as in earlier

types.)'4

* ** * ** *

Now that we are acquainted with the

latest family type that has been estab-

lished, we can take a look at the ground

traversed and take stock of the results

emerging from this long evolution.

The law of contraction or progressive

emergence has been thoroughly verified.

Invariably, we have seen emerging from

primitive groups increasingly restricted

groups which tend to absorb family lifecompletely.'5 Not only is the uniformity

0The word "zone" is used by Durkheim to des-ignate fairly close circles of kinship; it forms

part of his general nomenclature, made sufficiently

clear elsewhere."

just as the phratry exists alongside the clan,the clan alongside the uterine or masculine or

agnatic family, the agnatic family alongside the

patriarchal family, etc.

In a preceding lecture, Durkheim, in analyz-

ing the paternal Germanic family, had shown that,

for the first time in the history of family insti-

tutions, both maternal and paternal descent had

been placed on the same footing. The paternal

uncle and the maternal uncle, the uterine nephewand the masculine nephew, have the same rights.

He said: "That is why I propose to call the col-

lateral family thus constituted the cognate family";

and he quoted: "'The Sippe,' says Heusler, 'is ab-

solutely cognate. Thus kinfolk [translation of the

word Sippe]. [The French as printed here reads

"Ainsi la parentele (traduction Latine du mot

Sippe)," but the Latin really is "parentela" and

"parentele"is the French translation.-G. S.] in the

Salic law refers to relatives descended from one

or the other of the two sides, parentes tam de patre

quam de matre (chapter 42) . . ., etc'" (Institu-

tionen des DeutschenPrivatrechts,II, 172). Cf.

Ann6esociologique,VIII, 429.

I Durkheim here refers to what he had said

to demonstrate the extension of kinship in the

uterine line: the facts of penal responsibility in

the case of Wergeld (Salic Law, chap. lxxxviii) the

facts of the repurchase of the widow's right to

remarry, by the new husband, from her uterine

nephew and, in the absence of any other degrees

of relationship, even from the son of the maternal

cousin (Salic Law, chap. xliv); and other traces

of the maternal family properly so-called.

14

This sentence is in parentheses in the text andmay be skipped by those not familiar with Durk-

heim's nomenclature and with the importance he

attached to the study of what he called the sec-

ondary zones. In brief, Durkheim means that

whereas up to this point there are still, alongside

the restricted family, distinct traces of the con-

sanguine family and of the clan. In the modern

conjugal family, on the contrary, there are no dis-

tinct traces even of the cognate family, which is

now thought to be derived from the conjugal re-

lationship, that is, from a single basic couple.

15Durkheim's whole theory, and particularly the

proofs, cannot be summarized in a note: the steady

contraction of the politico-domestic group, the

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532 THEAMERICANJOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY

of this evolution a resultant of what has

preceded it but it can be readily seen that

it is tied in with the most fundamentalcon-

ditions of historical development. A study

of the patriarchalfamily has clearly shown

us that the family must of necessity con-

tract in proportion to the expansion of

the social environment in which each in-

dividual is directly immersed.'6The more

limited the social environment, the better

it is situated to oppose individual diver-

gences. It follows that the only divergences

that can make their appearance are those

common to a sufficiently large number of

individuals to produce a mass effect and

triumph over collective resistance. Under

such circumstances only large family

groups can disengage themselves from po-

litical society. On the other hand, as the

social environment expands it makes pos-

sible greater play for private differences,

and those which are common to a very

small number of people accordingly cease

to be restrainedand can develop and per-

sist. At the same time, moreover, in ac-

cordancewith a general law already ob-

served operating in biology, differences

among individuals increase with the ex-

pansion of the environment.Now, if there

is one fact that dominates history, it is

that of the continuous expansion of the

social environmentwithin which each one

of us is bound up. The city succeeds the

village; to the urban environmentwith its

dependent hinterland of villages succeed

nations comprisingdifferentcities; to small

nations such as the Germanicprincipalities

succeed the huge societies of the presentday. Contacts between the different parts

of these societies are at the same time

getting closer because of the growth and

increasing rapidity of communications,

etc.'7

The constitution of the family is modi-

fied as its volume contracts. From this

point of view, the great change produced

is the progressive destruction of familial

communism. Communism originally en-

compassesall kinship relationships; all the

relatives live together and own property

in common. But as soon as a first dissocia-

tion appears in the original amorphous

mass, as soon as the secondary zones ap-

pear, communism retracts exclusively into

the primary or central zone. When theagnate family'8 emerges from the clan,communism ceases to be the basis of the

clan; when the patriarchal family detaches

itself from the agnate family, communism

ceases to be the basis of the agnate family.

Communism is finally, though gradually,

cut down to the core of the primary circle

of kinship. The father in the patriarchal

family is liberated from communism be-

cause he can dispose of domestic property

freely and on his own. Communism is

more marked in the paternal family be-

cause it is an earlier family type'9; yet

members of the paternal family may

possess personalproperty though they can-not use it or administer it by themselves.

transformation of the amorphous exogamous clan,

a vast consanguineous group, to the differentiated

clan, to families properly so-called, whether uterine

or masculine; then to the joint family of agnates;next to the patriarchal family, paternal and ma-

ternal; and next to the conjugal family. The domi-

nant theme of the history of family institutions

is, according to Durkheim, the reduction in the

number of family members and the concentration

of family ties. We may refer to his summary

of Grosse, Formen der Familie (Annee sociologique,

I, 326 ff.).

6Durkheim here alludes to his deduction of the

patriarchal family, Roman and Chinese, which

he interpreted as a feudal concentration of agnatic

grouping under one family head. M. Granet in

Polygynie sororale (1920), using excellent Chinesetexts, has admirably thrown light on this fact.

I A conclusion is missing here (and also in my

course notes) but evidently it is "the family group

may thus grow smaller, to an extreme limit."

' Durkheim here means the joint agnatic family

(the joint family of Sumner Maine, slavic Zadruga,

etc.).

1 In a preceding lecture Durkheim had demon-

strated that the paternal Germanic family does not

necessarily presuppose the joint agnatic family but

issued directly from the family characterized byuterine descent and has kept many traces of it.

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A DURKHEIMFRAGMENT 533

Finally, in the conjugal family there re-main only vestiges of communism; thisdevelopment is linked with the very same

causes as the precedingone. The same im-

pulses that led to the contraction of thefamily circle are responsible for the pro-gressive individuation of family members.

The more extensive the social environment,the less restrictive, we repeat, the develop-ment of private differences.Some of these

differences are unique to each individual,

to each memberof the family, and they too

become continually more numerous and

more significant as the field of social rela-

tions widens. Where these individual dif-

ferences meet feeble resistance, they in-evitably develop broadly outside and are

sharpened and systematized. Since they

belong to the individual personality, that

personality necessarily develops as a con-

sequence. Each person takes on more of

an individual physiognomy, a personalmanner of feeling and thinking. Now, un-

der these conditions communism becomesmore and more impossible since it presup-

poses, on the contrary, identity-fusion of

all consciences into a single common, all-embracing conscience. We can thereforebe certain that this displacement of com-munism that characterizes our family lawnot only is not a passing accident but will,

on the contrary, be increasingly accen-

tuated unless, through some unforeseeableand practically inconceivable miracle, the

fundamental conditions that have domi-

nated social evolution from the beginning

should change.

Does family solidarity emerge weakenedor strengthened as a result of these

changes? It is very difficult to answer this

question. On the one hand, it is stronger,

since kinship ties are now indissoluble.Yet, on the other hand, the obligations to

which kinship gives rise are less numerousand far-reaching. What is certain is that

family solidarity has been transformed.Family solidarity depends on two factors:

persons and things. We are attached to our

family because we are attached to the

people who compose it. But we are at-tached to it also because we cannot dowithout material things, and under theregime of familial communism it is the

family that possesses these things. Withthe destruction of communism, thingseventually cease to cement family life.Family solidarity becomes completely per-

sonal. We are attached to our family onlybecause we are attached to the persons of

our father, our mother, our wife, our

children. Formerlyit was entirely different-the ties that rested on things were more

important than those resting on people,the whole organization of the family was

intended primarily to keep domestic goodswithin the family, and all personal con-

siderations were, by comparison,secondary.That is what tends to become of the

family. But if this is so, if things held

in common cease to be a factor in domestic

life, then the right of succession no longerhas any basis. The right of succession has,

in fact, become nothing more than family

communism persisting under the regimeof private property. If communism is re-

treating, then, disappearing from all thezones of the family, how can this rightbe maintained? As a matter of fact ithas been regressing in a most consistent

fashion. Originally it appertains inde-feasibly to all relatives, even the most dis-tant collaterals.But soon there appears theright to bequeath property, which cripplesthe right of succession as far as the secon-

dary zones are concerned. The right of

collaterals to the property of the deceased

takes effect only if the deceased has putno obstacles in the way, and the power

which the individual possesses to set upsuch obstacles increases continually. Fi-nally, the right to bequeath property pene-trates even into the primary zone, into thegroup formed by parents and their chil-dren-the father can totally20 or partiallydisinherit his children. There can be no

'Here, according to my old course notes, Durk-

heim indicated that Anglo-Saxon laws alreadyrecognized this absolute right to bequeath property.

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534 THEAMERICANJOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY

doubt that this trend is destined to con-

tinue. By that I mean not only that the

right to bequeathpropertywill become ab-

solute but that the day will come when the

individual will no more be permitted to

bequeath his property to his descendants,

even by means of a will, than he has been

permitted [since the French Revolution]

to bequeath them his officesand his status.

For the transmission of property by will

is but the last, and the most tenuous,

form of hereditary transmission. Today

there are already assets of the highest

worth that can no longer be transmitted

in any hereditaryway. [These are pre-

cisely] offices and status.2' A whole cate-

gory of workerscan no longer today trans-

mit the fruits of their labor to their chil-

dren; that is, those workers who earn

honor and fame but not wealth. It is cer-

tain that this rule will be generalized

further and that hereditary transmissionwill become increasingly delimited.

From yet another point of view, this

change is becoming more and more essen-

tial. So long as wealthis transmitted by

heredity, there are rich and poor by birth.

The moral conditions of our social life are

such that societies cannot be maintained

unless extrinsic inequalities among indi-

viduals are evened out. This statement

must not be taken to mean that all men

ought to become equal. On the contrary,

intrinsic inequality will become more and

more pronounced. But social inequalities

must come to reflect only differences in

personal worth without that worth's be-ing exaggerated or debased by some ex-

ternal factor. Now, hereditary wealth is

one of these extraneous factors. It renders

to some advantages not derivative from

personal worth that nevertheless bestow

upon them superiority over others. Thisinjustice, which strikes us as increasingly

intolerable, is becoming increasingly ir-reconcilable with the conditions for ex-istence of our present-day societies. Every-

thing thus serves to demonstrate that the

right of succession, even through the ve-hicle of a will, is destined to disappear step

by step.Yet, however necessary this transforma-

tion, it will be far from easy. The rule ofhereditary transmission of goods un-

doubtedly has its roots in the old familial

communism which is disappearing. Butin living practice we have become so ac-

customedto this rule, it is so tightly bound

up with all of our organizedactivities, thatif it were abolished without replacement

social life would itself dry up at its livingsource. In fact we are so geared and ac-customed to it as to make the prospect oftransmitting the products of our laborsthrough heredity the mainspring of our

activities. If we pursued only personal

ends, we would be much less stronglymotivated to work, since our work has

meaning only insofar as it serves some-

thing beyond ourselves. The individual is

not an adequate end for himself. When he

takes himself as his end he falls into a

state of moral misery which leads him to

suicide.22Our attachment to work lies in

its capacity to enrich the domestic patri-

mony, to add to the well-being of our

children. If this prospect were taken from

us, a powerful moral stimulant would beremovedin one fell swoop. Hence the prob-

lem is not as simple as it might, at first

glance, seem. In order to realize the ideal

we have just sketched, we must gradually

substitute something else for the main-

spring that threatens to fail us. Something

other than personal and domestic interest

I According to my notes, Durkheim at this point

in this lecture added important considerations

on the outmoded character of literary, industrial,

and commercial property (copyrights and patents)

which fall in the public domain and which the pro-

prietor cannot transmit after a certain lapse of

time. He returns to this subject at another point

in this lecture.

22 By this time Durkheim had already given

his first course on suicide. Here can be recognized

ideas he published in 1896 in his book on the

subject.

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A DURKHEIMFRAGMENT 535

must stimulate us to work. But general

social interest is too far removed from us,too vaguely perceived, and too impersonal

to become this effective motive. We must,

then, be tied to some other group outside

the family, more circumscribed than po-

litical society, nearer to us, and touchingus more closely. Those very rights that the

family is itself no longer capable of exer-

cising must accordingly be transferred to

this other group.

What group can this be? Could it bematrimonial society? We have observed

the continuous, steady growth of this

society, its consolidation and its ever

greater coherence. The importance it as-

sumes in the conjugal family marks the

apogee of this development. Indeed, not

only does marriage become well-nigh in-

dissoluble in this family type, not only

does monogamy there become nearly

perfect, but marriage itself now presents

two new characteristics which evince the

strength it has amassed.First, it has completely left off being a

personal contract and has become a publicrecord. Marriage is contracted under the

auspices of a [magistrate] of the state;not only does the ceremonyhave this pub-

lic characterbut indeed the marriageitself

is not valid unless the public formalities

demanded are precisely fulfilled. Now, as

we know, no judicial act assumes such

solemn forms unless it is laden with vast

significance.Second, in addition to these external

conditions for marriage, the organizationof matrimonial relationships presents a

special characteristic without parallel in

the history of the family up to now. This

characteristic is the presence of the rule

of common property between spouses, a

community of property which may refer

to all goods or be restricted to acquisi-

tions. Commonproperty is the general rule

in matrimonialsociety. Though it can be

evaded, it exists in full right if there are

no contravening conventions. Thus, while

communism was departing from domesticsociety, it was making its appearance inmatrimonial society.23 Could not matri-

monial society be destined to replace do-

mestic society in the function spoken of

above, and could not conjugal love be themainspringcapable of producing the same

results as love of family?

Not at all. Conjugal society by itself is

too ephemeral,its vistas are too restricted

for such results. To become attached to

our work we must be cognizant that it will

survive us, that something from it will re-

main after us, that it will be of service to

those whom we love even after we have de-

parted. We possess this feeling as a mat-

ter of course when we work for our family,

since it continues to exist after us. But

conjugal society, quite to the contrary, is

dissolved by death in each generation.

Spouses do not long survive each other.

Consequently, one of them cannot be a

strong enough reason to make the other

sacrifice momentary pleasures. That is

why marriage does not have the same

counteractive influence against suicide asthe family has.24Only one group is, accordingly, to be

found that is close enough to the indi-vidual to hold him tightly and lasting

enough to allow him a vast perspective.

This group is the occupational or profes-

sional group. Only this group, in my view,is able to perform the economicand moral

functions which the family has become

increasingly incapable of performing. In

order to work out of our present state ofcrisis, the termination of the rule of he-

reditary transmission is not enough. Men

must gradually become attached to their

occupational or professional life. Strong

groups relative thereto must be developed.

In the hearts of men, professional duty

' Durkheim here mentioned to us some rights

of the surviving partner: the reservation of usu-

fruct in French law and the right of succession

ab intestat in Anglo-Saxon law.

2 See Durkheim's Suicide.

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536 THEAMERICANJOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY

must take over the place formerlyoccupied

by domestic duty. This moral level has

already been attained by that elite we

have mentioned, which demonstrates thatthis transformationis not impracticable.25

(This change, moreover, will not take

place in one fell swoop); [for a long time]

a great many traces of traditional usage

will remain. Parents will always be im-

pelled to work in order to feed and rear

their families. But this motive will not

alone suffice)26 [to make the family dis-

perse and disappear. The professional

group, on the contrary, is by its very

nature perpetual].A few words on the secondary effect

upon marriage.Under the paternal family,

free, unregulated union coexisted along-

side of marriage,but in the conjugal family

such unregulated union is almost totally

repressed. [It no longer gives rise to any

rule of law.] The more tightly the familyis organized the more does marriage tendto be the exclusive basis of kinship.

[The] causes [for this fact are as fol-

lows:] Marriage establishes the family

[and at the same time] springs from it.

Any sexual union not contracted undermatrimonialregulation is accordingly sub-

versive of duty and of domestic bonds.

Where, moreover, the state itself is a

party to family life, free union undermines

public order. From another point of view,

this result is inevitable. The members of

every moral society have obligationstoward

one another; and, when they attain a cer-

tain importance, these obligations assume

a juridical aspect. Free, unregulatedunion

is a conjugal society without such obliga-tions. Hence it is an immoralsociety. And

that is why children reared in such en-

vironmentsshow so many moral defects-

they have not been exposed to a moral

environment.A child cannot have a moral

upbringing unless he lives in a society

whose every member feels his obligationstoward every other member. For outsidesuch a society there is no morality. Hence

[to the extent that the legislator and

ethics concern themselves with this prob-lem] the tendency is not to make a free

union of every marriage but to transform

every union, even a free union, into a

marriage however imperfect.

Such are the general conclusions to be

drawn from this course of lectures. The

family has progressed through concentra-

tion and personalization. The family un-

dergoes steady contraction; at the sametime, relations in it assume an exclusively

personal character in consequence of the

progressive obliteration of family commu-

nism. Whereas the family loses ground,

marriage contrariwisebecomes stronger.

EMILE DURKHEIM

25The manuscriptcontainsno traceof the devel-opment given by Durkheimto this idea. Thanksto my notes, I can reconstructit approximatelyas follows: ["Civilservants,soldiers,scholarswhorenderto the state a lifetime of poorly compen-satedlabor-can they look forwardto transmittingproperty? Those authors, those artists, those

scholars, those engineers,those inventors whosework so soon falls into the publicdomain,whoseliterary, artistic, and industrialownershipis sohighlyephemeral-can they transmitto theirchil-dren the material fruits of their work? Whydo they work? Is not theirwork just as effectiveand even more effectivethan that of others?Thus

one may workwithout the sole objeetiveof accu-mulatingan inheritancefor one'schildren"].

' Durkheimhimselfaddedthe parenthesesin themanuscript.In any eventhe hadutteredtheseideasto us and I was ableto completethe last of them.He undoubtedlyintended to insert them in alater version. [This footnote as printed in thearticlein French endswith a commaand withoutMauss'sinitials.G. S.]


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