ed men to
hold together in the family union? To such a question, Jurisprudence,
unassisted by other sciences, is not competent to give a reply. The
fact can only be noted.

The undivided state of property in ancient societies is consistent
with a peculiar sharpness of division, which shows itself as soon as
any single share is completely separated from the patrimony of the
group. This phenomenon springs, doubtless, from the circumstance that
the property is supposed to become the domain of a new group, so that
any dealing with it, in its divided state, is a transaction between
two highly complex bodies. I have already compared Ancient Law to
Modern International Law, in respect of the size and complexity of the
corporate associations, whose rights and duties it settles. As the
contracts and conveyances known to ancient law are contracts and
conveyances to which not single individuals, but organised companies
of men, are parties, they are in the highest degree ceremonious; they
require a variety of symbolical acts and words intended to impress the
business on the memory of all who take part in it; and they demand the
presence of an inordinate number of witnesses. From these
peculiarities, and others allied to them, springs the universally
unmalleable character of the ancient forms of property. Sometimes the
patrimony of the family is absolutely inalienable, as was the case
with the Sclavonians, and still oftener, though alienations may not be
entirely illegitimate, they are virtually impracticable, as among most
of the Germanic tribes, from the necessity of having the consent of a
large number of persons to the transfer. Where these impediments do
not exist, or can be surmounted, the act of conveyance itself is
generally burdened with a perfect load of ceremony, in which not one
iota can be safely neglected. Ancient law uniformly refuses to
dispense with a single gesture, however grotesque; with a single
syllable, however its meaning may have been forgotten; with a single
witness, however superfluous may be his testimony. The entire
solemnities must be scrupulously completed by persons legally entitled
to take part in them, or else the conveyance is null, and the seller
is re-established in the rights of which he had vainly attempted to
divest himself.

These various obstacles to the free circulation of the objects of use
and enjoyment, begin of course to make themselves felt as soon as
society has acquired even a sli