he slaves, permanently maintained by reason of their
dependence on individual members of the civic class. Thus, there is no
poverty but that of the poor citizens. Poverty is limited to them. The
slaves--that is to say, the bulk of the labouring population--are
provided for.

From times relatively near to Hesiod's we may trace the growth and
influence of the clan-family as the centre of customary charity within
the community, the gradual increase of a class of poor either outside
the clan-family or eventually independent of it, and the development of
a new organization of relief introduced by the state to meet newer
demands. We picture the early state as a group of families, each of
which tends to form in time a separate group or clan. At each expansion
from the family to the clan the members of the clan retain rights and
have to fulfil duties which are the same as, or similar to, those which
prevailed in the family. Thus, in Attica the clan-families (_genos_) and
the brotherhoods (_phratria_) were "the only basis of legal rights and
obligations over and above the natural family." The clan-family was "a
natural guild," consisting of rich and poor members--the well-born or
noble and the craftsman alike. Originally it would seem that the land
was divided among the families of the clan by lot and was inalienable.
Thus with the family was combined the means of supporting the family. On
the other hand, every youth was registered in his phratry, and the
phratry remained till the reforms of Cleisthenes (509 B.C.) a political,
and even after that time a social, organization of importance.

First, as to the family--the mother and wife, and the father. Already
before the age of Plato and Xenophon (450-350 B.C.) we find that the
family has suffered a slow decline. The wife, according to later Greek
usage, was married as a child, hardly educated, and confined to the
house, except at some festival or funeral. But with the decline came
criticism and a nobler conception of family life. "First, then, come
laws regarding the wife," writes the author of the so-called _Economics_
of Aristotle, and the law, "thou shalt do no wrong; for, if we do no
wrong, we shall not be wronged." This is the "common law," as the
Pythagoreans say, "and it implies that we must not wrong the wife in the
least, but treat her with the reverence due to a suppliant, or one taken
from the altar." The sanctity of marriage is thus placed among the
"commandments" of