All existing things have a past. Nothing which happens escapes completely from the grip of the past; some events scarcely escape at all from its grip. Much of what exists is a persistence or reproduction of what existed earlier. Entities, events or systems, physiological, psychological, social and cultural, have careers in which at each point the state of the system stands in some determinate relationship to the state of the system at earlier points.

This paper considers one aspect of the relationship between social organization and certain sorts of economic activity, using a particular setting, the internal market system in peasant societies (Mintz, 1959), as a frame of reference. The argument proceeds from the well-known fact that, in many of these market systems, much or even most of the distributive activity is carried on by women, and these women often engage in commerce more or less independently of the economic undertakings of their husbands. In such cases, husband and wife participate in distinguishably different risk structures, an arrangement having particular relevance to the nature of family life and culturally determined sex-role differentiation. Furthermore, since husbands and wives in such cases may carry on not only independent but also different economic pursuits, it would not be surprising if some of the attitudes related to the kind of economic activity also differed along sexual lines. Productive and distributive undertakings require different skills; probably they evoke different temperamental responses as well. One might claim that the tests of success for the middleman are different in character from the tests of success for the agricultural producer; those successful in one pursuit are not necessarily those most likely to succeed in the other. Of course this contention does not preclude some optimum combination of skills; many producers alsoengage successfully in intermediary and distributive activities, and some of the so-called underdeveloped world's most skilled traders began as agricultural producers (Bauer, 1957: 71; Bauer and Yamey, 1957: 104–5).

The history of the pictorial cartoon is a very recent one in Egypt, dating from the late nineteenth century when the popular press was established. Like many newspapers founded at the time, the 1870s, the cartoon began as an expression of growing feelings of antagonism towards the ruler, in the hands of a few men who formed the intelligentsia of the day. They set about to create and direct a public opinion which was then nonexistent, but which they hoped to mould into an instrument to use against a corrupt and autocratic administration. Very little work, if any at all, has been done on the sociology of the Egyptian cartoon, and I will not here undertake such a monumental task for which I am ill qualified; but within the limits of this article I can give the reader an historical background of the cartoon in Egypt.

Students of drama, magazine fiction and novels know that virtually every nationality and minority group has been represented by a stereotype in print and on the stage. Social scientists generally discuss stereotypes as components of prejudiced beliefs accompanied by strong, unexamined reactions of dislike or approval. Historians and specialists in literature do not equate stereotyping with prejudice. Instead, they emphasize the origin of stereotypes as routinized, crude or at least oversimplified classifications of multifaceted characters and situations.

The study of the modernization of non-Western cultures has been dominated by the metaphor of the ‘take-off’ introduced by the economists and by the assumption of incompatibility between ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ cultures. These interpretations of modernization are shared by both those who view it as a process of diffusing Western culture and by those who view it as an internal process of development which may require an external stimulus to ‘trigger’ the ‘take-off’. On either view, modernization becomes a problem of suddenly transforming a ‘traditional’ type of culture, society, and personality into a ‘modern’ type. This view of modernization is supported, and perhaps suggested, by the classical nineteenth-and early twentieth-century social science theory of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ societies as opposed types, a theory associated with the names of Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Maine, and Tönnies, among others.

Our repertoire of concepts and theories concerning peasantries has been built up through contributions from scholars working in many parts of the world. Latin Americanists and India-wallahs, in particular, have played a major role in the development of models, but we have also heard from specialists in Indonesia, Japan, Europe, the Mediterranean world, and even Africa. But where is China in all this ? Why are students of the world's largest peasantry silent? In part, it is because we are so few and too preoccupied with our own peasants to have time for anybody else's. More to the point, however, the whole body of inherited anthropological wisdom concerning peasantries seems somehow alien and irrelevant to students of Chinese society.

I take it that this title, which was not of my devising, is intended to cover the contribution that the series of partial or comparatively comprehensive codifications of the law of personal status, which have appeared in recent years in one Muslim country after another, has played or might play in the development of social conditions in general, and of family relations in particular, in the area concerned. But I shall confine my remarks in this paper to those legislative enactments which codify or restate principles of family law which are, or profess to be, specifically Islamic, whether they are applicable to Muslims alone or to those of more than one religion, rather than make any attempt to deal with the family law peculiar to one or another of the non-Muslim communities–partly because any comprehensive consideration of the latter would be too wide and detailed a task for such a paper as this, partly because each of these other systems of law is of comparatively restricted application, and partly because it is the Islamic law which has been the subject of my own specialist study.

On various occasions civilized man has found himself marching side by side with men at lower (or different) levels of social and cultural development. The great civilizations were accustomed to compare themselves quite favorably with these barbarian neighbors, whom they viewed with varying degrees of condescension, suspicion, scorn, and dread. Civilized man, with his urban institutions, his agrarian way of life, his technological and economic sophistication, and his conspicuous literary and plastic artistry, conceived of himself as superior to these other folk with whom he sometimes competed for domination of the richer parts of the world. Long before the ancient Greeks invented the word ‘barbarian’ to describe the Scythians and other peoples who differed from them in not subscribing to the ideals of Greek culture, other civilized men had expressed similar sentiments toward alien peoples with whom they came into contact. This was the point that the old Akkadian author was trying to make when he spoke of neighboring tribes as people ‘who knew not grain’ and who ‘had never known a city’.* Subsequently, both in Asia and Europe the spokesmen of a civilized style of life expressed their dislike or distrust of the barbarian by means of a stereotyped image of him which was couched in terms favorable to civilization. A Chinese chronicler, for example, remarked of the fierce Hsiung-Nu, who troubled the peace of the Middle Kingdom, that ‘their only concern is self-advantage, and they know nothing of propriety and righteousness’.

Recently Singer (1966: 497–505), while reviewing a book on economic development and Hinduism, underlined the necessity of recognizing the ‘deficiencies’ of the hypothetico-deductive method in studying social change in India. He alluded to Weber's thesis (ideal-typical relations of the Hindu ‘ethic’ to economic development) and its possible ‘distortions’ under this approach, especially if applied ‘as a basis for quick diagnoses of the ideological and structural factors impeding or facilitating economic development…’ (p. 498), or when applied to a general analysis of the social and cultural ‘transformations’ involved in modernization. He noted two major limitations: first, that under hypothetico-deductive use of ideal types one tries to deduce ‘realistic consequences from basic beliefs, values, motives postulated in isolation from concrete social and cultural contexts’ (p. 501), and second (which is perhaps a related consequence), that when deducing general tendencies, one fails ‘to specify conditions and magnitudes under which the conclusions are valid’ (p. 502). While Singer recognizes that this approach ‘will eventually complement’anthropologists’ narrative, descriptive, and inductive approaches, he stresses that the present need is to accumulate relevant empirical studies of the latter kind, against which we can check the conclusions of hypothetico-deductive theory.

In its broadest sense, the theory of segmentation provides an analytic approach to the study of the interaction of political units under conditions of minimal or no regulation by a central authority. Under such circumstances, the groups that inhabit a given territory must devise alternative means of managing conflict within and among themselves, for allocating resources, selecting leaders, and for meeting outside threats. They can neither expect nor rely upon a state apparatus endowed with sufficient coercive means to enforce its decisions and to undertake the functions of regulation, allocation, and protection. Consequently, these functions must be performed through autonomous, internally generated mechanisms arising from the structures and interplay of the groups themselves. There is no need here to explore in detail the theory of segmentation as it has been presented by numerous anthropologists. Suffice it to say that we view segmentary tribal organization as a means of conflict and resource management in the absence of a strong central authority.1 The principles guiding its operation can be extended to analogous, albeit non-tribal, situations of political competition, and it is precisely this extension that we propose to make.

The concept of the barbarian in early India arises out of the curious situation of the arrival of Indo-Aryan-speaking nomadic pastoralists in northern India who came into contact with the indigenous population (possibly the remnants of the urban civilization of the Indus) and regarded them as barbarians. The earliest distinction made by the Aryan speakers was a linguistic distinction and, to a smaller extent, a physical distinction. The Indo-Aryan speakers spoke Sanskrit whereas the indigenous peoples probably spoke Dravidian and Munda. However the distinction was not one of binary opposition—in fact it admitted to many nuances and degrees of variation, hence the complication of trying to trace the history of the concept. The distinction was rarely clearly manifest and based either on language, ethnic origins or culture. Political status, ritual status and economic power, all tended to blur the contours of the distinction. Added to this has been the confusion introduced by those who tend to identify language with race and who thereby see all speakers of Sanskrit as members of that nineteenth-century myth, the Aryan race.

The rate of modernization in Venezuela over the past forty years has been rapid, even startling, if attention is focussed on the more conspicuous institutions and processes. During this period an agrarian, patrimonially ruled, backward society has been transformed into a highly commercialized urban society governed by a political party system based on widespread popular participation in the electoral process. However—and this is a phenomenon of which social scientists in the United States have become increasingly aware—modernization does not affect people in an evenhanded, uniform manner. While the great transformation in economy and society which we call modernization improves the quality of life for many people, some groups or individuals are bypassed in the process, and some even come to suffer as a consequence of it. Therefore, the level of modernity and personal well-being achieved in the most advanced sectors of a society will often be irrelevant as an indicator of welfare in those pockets of deprivation left behind or created in the general march of progress.

Strikes became legal in France more than a century ago. Since their first partial legalization in 1864, the right to strike has waxed and waned, the great federations of labor have sprung from conflicts within France's modern industries and bureaucracies, and the proportion of strikes leading to shootings, beatings, sabotage or imprisonment has diminished. The strike has appeared to modernize, to take on new sophistication as a means of regulating conflict, to go from savage to civilized.

The history, philosophy, sociology and even the science of science are by now thriving activities. This is in no way surprising; indeed if one examines the development of each of these approaches to the study of sciences, the surprising thing is that it emerged so comparatively recently. The history of science as an academic discipline tends to begin with a reference to Comte's grand scheme of the mid-nineteenth century, passing through Sarton's great pioneering work of the first half of the present century, largely embodied in the volumes of Isis (1913- ), founded, edited and in no small part written by Sarton himself. At present, so far as one can see, many historians of science are rethinking the great and fairly continuously progressive features of Sarton's account, and the emphasis is turning more and more to the discontinuities.

Considerable attention has recently been given to depicting the present-day conditions of rural life in developing and industrializing states. Anthropologists have begun to doubt whether the familiar term ‘peasant society’ adequately represents those rural groups that are increasingly linked with an urban-based industrial economy and society. A number of alternate terms and constructs have lately been suggested. For example, in a recent article Erasmus (1967) explores what he calls the ‘upper limits of peasantry’ in portions of Bolivia, Venezuela and Mexico. By ‘upper limits of peasantry’ Erasmus refers to those segments of the rural population that are within a market economy and national polity and yet are only partially integrated within an emergent industrial society. To cite another recent example, Lopreato's study of a Calabrian village (1967) details how emigration and the subsequent remittances altered the social and economic structure of a long-impoverished South Italian community. Interestingly, Lopreato entitles his study Peasants No More; like Erasmus he too wishes to indicate the changed character of rural life in industrializing states.