今日の男達の希望や野心
キリスト教と未開のゲルマン人(蛮族)の侵入によって、ギリシア・ローマの思想体系は、破壊されてしまった。家父長制度は生き残り、また、少なくとも貴族政治のローマの制度と比べれば,初めのうち,家父長制度は強化されすらしたけれども、それにもかかわらず、新しい要素、すなわち、キリスト教の性観念とキリスト教の霊魂と救済に関する教義から導き出された個人主義に順応しなければならなかった。キリスト教社会はどこも、古代の文明や極東の文明ほど、つつみかくさず生物学的になることができない。さらに、キリスト教社会の個人主義が、徐々に、キリスト教諸国の政治形態に影響を及ぼす一方、個人の霊魂不滅の約束によって、人びとが子孫(progeny)の生き残り -それ以前は、子孫を残すことこそ、不滅にいたる一番の近道であると思われていた- に抱いていた関心は、減少してしまった。 現代社会は、いまだに家父長制社会であり、家族はいまだに存続しているけれども、古代社会よりも、はるかに父性を重視していない。また(しかも)、家族の力も、かつての時代よりも,はるかに弱まっている。 今日の男たちの希望や野心は、(キリスト教の)創世記に見られる族長(大家族の家長)のものとはまったく異なるものになっている。現代の男たちは、多数の子孫を持つことよりも、むしろ、国家に地位を占めることによって、偉大さを達成したいと願っている。この変化が,伝統的な道徳や神学がかつてのような力を失っている理由のひとつである。それにもかかわらず、変化自体は、事実,キリスト教神学の一部である。どうして,こういうことになったのかを知るためには、次には、宗教がどのように人びとの結婚観や家族観に影響したかを究明しなければならない。 |
Chapter III Patriarchal SystemsBut as civilization advanced the economic circumstances changed, so that the religious precepts which had at one time been exhortations to self-interest began to grow irksome. After Rome became prosperous, the rich no longer had large families. Throughout the later centuries of Roman greatness the old patrician stocks were continually dying out in spite of the exhortations of moralists, which were as ineffective then as they are now. Divorce became easy and common; women in the upper classes achieved a position almost equal to that of men, and the patria potestas grew less and less. This development was in many ways very much like that of our own day, but it was confined to the upper classes, and shocked those who were not rich enough to profit by it. The civilization of antiquity, in contrast to our own, suffered through being confined to a very small percentage of the population. It was this that made it precarious while it lasted, and caused it ultimately to succumb to a great uprush of superstition from below. Christianity and the barbarian invasion destroyed the Greco-Roman system of ideas. While the patriarchal system remained, and was even at first strengthened, as compared at any rate to the system of aristocratic Rome, it had nevertheless to accommodate itself to a new element, namely the Christian view of sex and the individualism derived from the Christian doctrine of the soul and salvation. No Christian community can be so frankly biological as the civilizations of antiquity and of the Far East. Moreover, the individualism of Christian communities gradually affected the polity of Christian countries, while the promise of personal immortality diminished the interest which men took in the survival of their progeny, which had formerly seemed to them the nearest approach to immortality that was possible. Modern society, although it is still patrilineal and although the family still survives, attaches infinitely less importance to paternity than ancient societies did. And the strength of the family is enormously less than it used to be. Men's hopes and ambitions nowadays are utterly different from those of the patriarchs in Genesis. They wish to achieve greatness rather through their position in the State than through the possession of a numerous posterity. This change is one of the reasons why traditional morals and theology have less force than they used to have. Nevertheless, the change itself is in fact a part of Christian theology. To see how this has come about, the way in which religion has affected men's views of marriage and the family must next be examined. |