Editing William Robertson Smith (section)

====''Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia''====
*''Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia'' (Cambridge University 1885); second edition, with additional notes by the Author and by Professor [[Ignaz Goldziher]], Budapest, and edited with an introduction by Stanley A. Cook (London: A. & C. Black 1903); reprint 1963 Beacon Press, Boston, with a new Preface by [[E. L. Peters]]. This book in particular, among many others, drew the broad-brush criticism of Prof. [[Edward W. Said|Said]] as swimming in the narrow blinkered sea of 19th-century European [[Orientalism]].<ref>Edward Said, ''[[Orientalism (book)|Orientalism]]'' (New York: Random House 1978, reprint Vintage Books 1979), pp. 234–237, ''Kinship and Marriage'' quoted at 235 (per 344–345).</ref><ref>Cf., Jonathan Skinner, "Orientalists and Orientalisms: Robertson Smith and Edward W. Said" at pp. 376–382, in Johnstone, editor, ''William Robertson Smith. Essays in reassessment'' (1995).</ref>
**This work traces, from an earlier [[totem]]ist [[matriarchy]] that practiced [[exogamy]], the further development of a "system of male [[kinship]], with corresponding laws of [[marriage]] and [[Tribe|tribal]] organization, which prevailed in [[pre-Islamic Arabia|Arabia]] at the time of Mohammed." (Author's Preface).
**Chapters:
***1. The Theory of the [[genealogy|Genealogists]] as to the Origin of Arabic Tribal Groups. ''E.g., Bakr and Taghlib (proper names of ancestors), fictitious [[ancestor]]s, unity of the tribal blood, female [[eponyms]]'';
***2. The Kindred Group [''hayy''] and its Dependents and Allies. ''E.g., [[adoption]], blood covenant, [[property]], tribe and [[family]]'';
***3. The Homogeneity of the Kindred Group in relation to the Law of Marriage and [[Kinship and descent|Descent]]. ''E.g., [[exogamy]], types of marriage (e.g., capture, [[contract]], purchase), [[inheritance]], [[divorce]], women's property'';
***4. Paternity. ''E.g., original sense of [[fatherhood]], polyandry, [[infanticide]]'';
***5. Paternity, [[Polyandry]] with Male Kinship, and with Kinship through Women. ''E.g., evidence of [[Strabo]], conjugal [[fidelity]], [[chastity]], [[Milk kinship|milk brotherhood]], two (female, and male) systems of kinship, decay of tribal feeling'';
***6. Female Kinship and Marriage Bars. ''E.g. forbidden [[kinship|degrees]], the tent (bed) in marriage, matronymic families, ''beena'' marriages, ''ba'al'' marriage, totemism and [[heterogeneous]] groups'';
***7. [[Totem]]ism. ''E.g., tribes named from animals, [[jinn]], tribal [[tattoo|mark]]s or wasm'';
***8. Conclusion. ''E.g., origin of the tribal system, [[human migration|migration]]s of the Semites''.
*Conceived at the frontier of academic study on early culture, Smith's work relied on a current anthropology proposed by the late [[John Ferguson McLennan]], in his ''Primitive Marriage'' (Edinburgh 1865). (Author's Preface).<ref>McLennan is quoted that six social conditions form a mutually necessary totality: exogamy, totemism, blood feud, religious obligation of vengeance, female infanticide, and female kindship. McLennan, ''Studies in Ancient History'' (second series, 1896) at 28, as quoted by Evans-Pritchard, ''Social Anthropology'' (Oxford Univ. 1948), chap.2, at 34–35, reprint by The Free Press, Glencoe, 1962.</ref> Smith also employed recent material by A. G. Wilken, ''Het Matriarchaat bij de oude Arabieren'' (1884) and by [[Edward Tylor|E. B. Tylor]], ''Arabian Matriarchate'' (1884), and received suggestions from [[Theodor Nöldeke]] and from [[Ignaz Goldziher]]. (Author's Preface).
*Although still admired on several counts, the scholarly consensus now disfavors many of its conclusions. Smith here "forced the facts to fit McLennan's evolutionary schema, which was entirely defective."<ref>Peter Revière, "William Robertson Smith and John Ferguson McLennan: The Aberdeen roots of British social anthropology", 293–302, at 300, in Johnstone, editor, ''William Robertson Smith'' (1995).</ref> Professor [[Edward Evans-Pritchard]], while praising Smith for his discussion of the tribe [''hayy''], finds his theories about an early matriarchy wanting. Smith conceived feminine names for tribes as "survivals" of matriarchy, but they may merely reflect grammar, i.e., "collective terms in Arabic are constantly feminine", or lineage practice, i.e., "in a polygamous society the children of one father may be distinguished into groups by use of their mothers' names". Evans-Pritchard also concludes that "Smith makes out no case for the ancient Bedouin being totemic" but only for their "interest in nature". He faults Smith for his "blind acceptance of McLennan's formulations".<ref>Evans-Pritchard, ''A History of Anthropological Thought'' (1981) at 72 (''hayy''); at 72–74 (matriarchy), 73 (quotes re feminine names as grammar or lineage practice); at 74–76 (totems), 76 (quote "no case"); at 76–77 (quote re McLennan).</ref>
*Smith was part of a general movement by historians, anthropologists, and others, that both theorized a [[matriarchy]] present in early civilizations and discovered traces of it. In the 19th century it included eminent scholars and well-known authors such as [[Johann Jakob Bachofen|J.J. Bachofen]], [[James George Frazer]], [[Frederick Engels]], and in the 20th century [[Robert Graves]], [[Carl Jung]], [[Joseph Campbell]], [[Marija Gimbutas]]. Smith's conclusions were based on the then prevailing notion that [[matrifocal]] and [[matrilineal]] societies were the norm in Europe and western Asia, at least prior to the invasion of the [[Proto-Indo-Europeans|Indo-European]]s from central Asia. Subsequent findings have not been kind to that thread of Smith's work which offers a prehistoric matriarchy to schematize the Semites. It is certainly recognized that a large number of prehistoric hunter-gatherer cultures practiced matrilinear or [[cognatic succession]], as do many hunter-gatherer cultures today. Yet it is no longer widely accepted by scholars that the earliest Semites had a matrilineal system. This is due largely to the unearthing of thousands of [[Safaitic]] inscriptions in [[pre-Islamic Arabia]], which appear to indicate that, on the issues of inheritance, succession, and political power, the Arabs of the pre-Islamic period were little different from the Arabs today.{{citation needed|date=September 2013}} Evidence from both Arab and [[Amorite]] sources discloses the early Semitic family as being mainly patriarchal and patrilineal,{{citation needed|date=September 2013}} as are the [[Bedouin]] today, while the early Indo-European family may have been matrilineal, or at least allotting high social status to women. [[Robert G. Hoyland]] a scholar of the Arabs and Islam writes, "While descent through the male line would seem to have been the norm in pre-Islamic Arabia, we are occasionally given hints of matrilineal arrangements."<ref>Robert G. Hoyland, ''Arabia and the Arabs. From the bronze age to the coming of Islam'' (London: Routledge 2001) at 129. Hoyland (at 64–65) discusses the Safaitic texts (20,000 graffiti) of '330 BC{{snd}}240 AD' but without focusing on male political power.</ref>