BROTHERS, SISTERS, AND NEXT OF KIN "The members of the ancient family were united by something more powerful than birth, affection, or physical strength; this was the religion of the sacred fire and of dead ancestors.

This caused the ancient family to form a single body, both in this life and in the next,"-- DE COULANGES, in _The Ancient City_.
"Land belonged to the clan and the clan was settled upon the land.
A man was thus not a member of the clan because he lived upon or even owned the land, but he lived upon the land and had interest in it because he was a member of the clan."-- HEARN, in _The Aryan Household_.
"Three things if possessed by a man make him fit to be a chief of kindred: that he should speak in behalf of his kin and be listened to; that he should fight in behalf of his kin and be feared; that he should be security on behalf of his kin and be accepted."-- WELSH TRIADS (cited by Seebohm).
"I cannot choose but think upon the time When our two loves grew like two buds; School parted us; we never found again That childish world where our two spirits mingled Like scents from varying roses that remain one sweetness.
Yet the twin habit of that earlier time Lingered for long about the heart and tongue.
We had been natives of one happy clime And its dear accent to our utterance clung.
And were another childhood world my share, I would be born a little sister there." -- GEORGE ELIOT, in _Brother and Sister_.
"When love is strong it never tarries to take heed Or know if its return exceed Its gift; in its sweet haste no greed, No strife belong.
It hardly asks if it be loved at all, to take So barren seems, when it can make Such bliss, for the beloved's sake, Of bitter tasks."-- H.H.
=Ancient Kinship Bond.=--The relation of brothers and sisters in the family group has passed through many changes and must at times have caused much confusion and difficulty in the home.

For example, in that state of familial association in which all the brothers of a certain relationship were considered as husbands of all sisters within a certain bond there must have been some heart-burnings and several kinds of family unpleasantness.

We have some hints of these from many historical sources.

In the era of complete subjection of the individual to the community such unpleasantness may have counted only for negligible unhappiness on the part of a few social rebels, but the custom alluded to did not prove to work well enough to become permanent.
Again, the form of family bond which demanded that a man take to wife the widow of his dead brother and "raise up children to the name" of the deceased had a long but not a permanent life.