At all times, people tried to unite in certain groups so that it was easier and more convenient to coexist: to get food, to maintain life and to defend themselves from the enemy. In this article I want to talk about such a form of the primary community as the community.
What it is?
First of all, it is worth understanding the very concept of “community”. This is a form of coexistence of people (both blood relatives and those who do not have close ties) that arose even in primitive times. It is worth mentioning that there is a clan community, family, as well as neighboring. Let's start with the most important thing. The tribal community itself is the first step towards organizing people’s daily life, moving from such an disordered form of cohabitation of people as a herd. This became possible during the heyday of matriarchy (a woman was considered the head of the family). This form of cohabitation itself was based on consanguinity. Its essence was in the following points:
- common housing for all members;
- joint life: separation of duties;
- joint work for the benefit of the community.
These are the three main points that united people to achieve one goal - normal existence. Also, this form of cohabitation and everyday life involved not only taking care of oneself, but also of one’s descendants (which was not the case with the herd form of life). An important point was also the primary division of labor: women were mainly engaged in household work, men were getting food. As already mentioned above, the clan community arose during the heyday of matriarchy, so often the father of the child was not known (such was the form of marriage at that time), the line of kinship was drawn from the mother. A little later, the circle of persons who could participate in marriage was narrowed , and sexual relations between single-parent relatives - brothers and sisters - were also banned.
The rulers of the clan community
Who ruled the clan community? For this, there was a certain structure of government bodies:
- general meeting of the clan - here a collective decision was made on a particular issue;
- council of elders - special people who the community trusted decide;
- the leader, the elder - could make a sole decision, because, again, he was unconditionally trusted.
Family community
Having figured out what a clan community is, it’s worth paying a few words to such a form of organization of people as the family community. This is the next stage in the development of collective coexistence of people, based on the development of agriculture and the emergence of special tools and labor technologies (the emergence of a plow for cultivating the land, the spread of animal husbandry). The family community included several generations of blood relatives. Interestingly, their number could reach even 100 people. The essence of the family community: collective ownership of everything in the family. At the very beginning, the management of this form of organization of people was carried out more democratically: the oldest man (or elected) was considered the head, on the female side - his wife. A little later, they began to elect a “senior” who actually owned everything that belonged to the family community.
Neighborhood Community
The next stage in the development of human relations is the tribal neighborhood community. It was also called land, or rural. Its distinctive feature from the above - here people might not be in consanguinity with each other. This form of relationship arose during the collapse of tribal relations. At first, people were united by common ownership of all tools, livestock and land, a little later everything changed: the inhabitants began to divide according to their skills, hard work, and the ability to accumulate wealth. This form of coexistence is more difficult in that it demanded the unity of the neighboring community, which was not so easy to achieve.