Jain Journal 1974 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 37

JANUARY, 19 7 4 .
121
the previous means of procuring food now became obsolete. The new wealth in the form of private property consisted of herds, artistic products, metal utensils, articles of luxury, etc., and finally human cattlethe Sudras.
Slavery was invented by creating a class of people calling them Sūdras who were actually the prisoners of tribal war in the beginning at the mercy of the victorious tribal king. There was no slavery in the Age of Kulakarism, as it was useless in this stage.
F. Engels says, “The slave was useless to the barbarism of the lower stage. It was for this reason that the American Indians treated their vanquished foes quite differently from the way they were treated in the upper stage”.
At the stage of Kulakarism human labour did not yet yield any noticeable surplus over the cost of its maintenance, but this changed with the introduction of cattle breeding, of the working up of metals, of weaving and finally of field cultivation. A similar picture of economic conditions is found at the stage of barbarism.
After the conversion of the herds finally into family possessions the - exchange value changed with the labour power. More people were required to tend the cattle as they rapidly increased. The Südras might have been useful for this job and further they could be treated like the cattle itself. At the stage of civilization the social custom allowed the man to be the owner of the new sources of food-stuffs—the cattle and later of the new instrument of labour---the Sudras.
In the period of civilization the society became dynamic and the social conditions were changing fast with a sufficient motive for a direct interest, as innate human casuistry sought to change things by finding loopholes for breaking through tradition within tradition. The man seized the power in the house and the woman was degraded and enslaved as the object of his lust-a mere instrument for breeding children, for this lowered position of woman is especially found among the Kșatriyasrājanyas of the stage of civilization in their luxurious polygamy. The first effect of the sole rule of the men is found in the emergence of the patriarchal family. Polygamy became historical luxury product of civilization-a product of slavery and limited to a few exceptional cases. It was a privilege of the rich. Monogamy appears to have arisen out
• The Origin of the Family, etc., p. 55.