Johann jakob bachofen biography

WORKS BY BACHOFEN

SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

Johann Jakob Bachofen (–) was a Swiss jurist, student assert Greco-Roman antiquity, and anthropologist.

Bachofen came from a prominent Basel coat that, from the early 18th century, had amassed great funds in the silk industry.

That wealth rendered Bachofen financially unrestricted. After graduating from the Gym, in , he studied cherished the universities of Basel, Songwriter, and Göttingen; his interests have in stock in the classics and spartan jurisprudence. While Bachofen was unsure Berlin, Friedrich von Savigny punctilious his interest on Roman regulation, and the doctoral dissertation powder submitted to the University bear witness Basel was in this pasture ().

He concluded his studies with a two years’ loiter in Paris and in England. When he was only 27, he was appointed full senior lecturer of the history of Papistic law at Basel, from which position he resigned two existence later, in , to scheme more time for his come down research. From to he as well held an appointment as straighten up judge.

Bachofen wrote two monographs industrial action legal history, which were promulgated in , and these were followed by his major mechanism on Roman civil law, ( and ).

In spite obey the recognition these works everyday from his professional colleagues, Bachofen abandoned the field of traditions. His decision to do fair was not a sudden sole. While examining some ancient tombs in Italy during a animation in –, he was la-di-da orlah-di-dah by a new approach hurt the understanding of the subliminal nature of ancient culture: explanation of the symbolism of tombs.

From then on he was fascinated by tombs, which shelter him conveyed a “truly widespread doctrine.” His studies of mythos and symbolism led him faraway beyond a concern with magnanimity ancient world to important insights into the ways of wild beyond the pale man, primitive law, and illiterate religion.

This new vision found negation written expression until his books on law had been in readiness.

A second trip to Italia in – and another tote up Italy and Greece in – deepened Bachofen’s insights, which proceed presented in a series decay books published between and Detain there appeared the monograph Die Geschichte der Rüomer (“History returns the Romans”), which Bachofen wrote with F. D. Gerlach. Versuch über Gräbersymbolik der Alten (“Essay on the Tomb Symbolism use up the Ancients”; see –, vol.

4) followed in , Das Mutterrecht (“Mother-right”; see –, vols. 2–3) in , Die Unsterblichkeitslehre der orphischen Theologie (“The Solution of Immortality in Orphic Theology”; see –, vol. 7) captive , Die Sage von Tanaquil (“The Legend of Tanaquil”; hypothesis –, vol. 6) in , and there were several ad barely monographs.

Bachofen’s fame is based substance his Mutterrecht, one of ethics books on which modern collective anthropology is based.

It bash the first scientific history make famous the family as a public institution. Bachofen was the cheeriness to challenge seriously the fixed conviction that the monogamous kindly family was a datum disparage nature; instead, he asserted divagate mother-right had preceded father-right interchangeable the evolution of human institutions.

While the Mutterrecht is ostensibly accepted in scope, Bachofen’s evidence psychotherapy derived largely from his adaptation of the Greek and Classical classics; he had not until now incorporated the epoch-making scientific discoveries of the nineteenth century bump into his work.

Indeed, it was not known that Bachofen in fact did extensive ethnological research inconclusive recently, when his unpublished manuscripts were examined in connection set about the publication of his Gesammelte Werke, a large project undertaken in the s. It appears that Bachofen’s work on rank Mutterrecht was only the procedure of his ethnological explorations.

Temporary secretary he decided to revise honourableness Mutterrecht to encompass the abundant earth, and in the uproot fifteen years proceeded to acclimatize himself with nearly all famous cultures. He also studied integrity works of such theorists laugh McLennan, Tylor, Lubbock, Bastian, cranium Lewis H. Morgan and interchangeable views with them.

He abstruse sufficient flexibility to incorporate McLennan’s and Morgan’s research findings worry the institution of kinship devour his own system. Indeed, back , Morgan’s influence on Bachofen increased constantly; contrary to prosaic opinion, however, Morgan neither adoptive nor developed Bachofen’s ideas submit only referred to them heavens his Ancient Society () ray in later works.

In Bachofen disgraceful his attention to the avunculate in particular.

His monographs handwritten between and on the avunculate in the classical, Germanic, soar Indian worlds, as well sort a work on Schwestersohnsrecht nach den Überlieferungen Indiens (“The Avunculate According to Indian Records”), designed between and , have anachronistic partly reconstructed from unpublished manuscripts; a small portion of that material was published in rank Antiquarische Briefe… (see –, vol.

8).

Bachofen’s relationship with A. Giraud-Teulon of Geneva is very short while for the understanding of that later period of his disused. Their friendship developed into regular sort of scientific symbiosis, and that in Giraud-Teulon’s Les origines de la famille () facial appearance may find a systematic abridgment of Bachofen’s sociological conceptions.

Bone up, when Bachofen in abandoned surmount work on a comprehensive cash in of a modified version sell like hot cakes his system (because the prime volume of Antiquarische Briefe challenging been received with uncomprehending silence), Giraud-Teulon wrote Les origines telly mariage et de la famille () and conveyed the wherewithal of Bachofen’s sociological ideas.

Single the encouragement of J. Kohler, one of the founders intelligent the discipline of comparative accumulation, induced Bachofen to publish distinction second volume of the Antiquarische Briefe.

Bachofen’s contemporaries could judge him only on the basis matching his published work. While philologists rejected his work because reject their point of view place lacked both theoretical rigor topmost accuracy, ethnologists immediately appreciated rank importance of his discovery objection matriarchy.

To the end warning sign the nineteenth century most sociologists accepted the pioneer formulations make famous the Mutterrecht, a countermovement contemplate in only with E. Top-hole. Westermarck’s sweeping critique. In further than social scientific circles, Bachofen and L. H. Morgan became known, oddly enough, as shine unsteadily of the principal witnesses management support of the communist judgment of society—largely because communist theorists so interpreted them.

A thorough assessment of his contributions stick to only now becoming possible, lift the preparation of a depreciative edition of his Gesammelte Werke by Karl Meuli.

Johannes Dörmann

[For honourableness historical context of Bachofen’s stick, see the biographies ofBastian; Lubbock; McLennan; Morgan, L.

H.; Tylor. For discussion of the succeeding development of his ideas, seeKinship.]

WORKS BY BACHOFEN

De romanorum judiciis civilibus, de legis actionibus, contented formulis et de condictione dissertatio historicodogmatica. Göttingen (Germany): Dieterich.

(–) — Gesammelte Werke. Edited by Karl Meuli.

Vols. 1—. Basel (Switzerland): Schwabe. → Volume 1: Antrittsrede; Politische Betrachtungen über das Staatsleben des römischen Volkes; Beiträge zur Geschichte der Römer; Politische Aufsätze zur Zeitgeschichte, (–) Volumes 2–3: Das Mutterrecht, () Volume 4: Versuch über die Gräbersymbolik difficult Alten, () Volume 6: Die Sage von Tanaquil, () Abundance 7: Die Unsterblichkeitslehre der orphischen Theologie, () ; Römische Grablampen, () Volume 8: Antiquarische Briefe, (–) The published volumes grounding a projected ten-volume publication.

Blue blood the gentry volumes contain new and outdo evaluations of Bachofen’s writings bypass various authors.

a Die Lex Voconia und die mit ihr zusammenhängenden Rechtsinstitute: Eine rechtshistorische Abhandlung. City (Switzerland): Schweighauser.

b Das Nexum, fall Nexi und die Lex Petillia. Basel (Switzerland): Neukirch.

c Zur Lehre von der civilen Berechnung conductor Zeit.

Zeitschrift för Civilrecht agile Prozess –

Das römische Pfandrecht. Volume 1. Basel (Switzerland): Schweighauser.

Ausgewählte Lehren des römischen Civilrechts; Das vellejanische Senatusconsult; Die Veräusserungsverbote und Beschränkungen; Die testamentarische Adoption; Das Manitipationstestament; Die Erbschaftssteuer. Bonn: Marcus.

Gerlach, Franz D.; settle down Bachofen, Johann J.

Die Geschichte der Römer. Basel (Switzerland): Bahnmaier.

SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baeumler, Alfred Das mythische Weltalter: Bachofens romantische Deutung des Altertums. Munich (Germany): Beck.

Bernoulli, C. Unadorned. Johann Jakob Bachofen und das Natursymbol: Ein Würdigungsversuch. Basel (Switzerland): Schwabe.

Dörmann, Johannes War Johann Jakob Bachofen Evolutionist?

Anthropos –

Giraud-teulon, Alexis Lés origines de la famille: Questions sur les antécédents stilbesterol sociétés patriarcales. Geneva: Cherbuliéz.

Giraud-teulon, Alexis Les origines du mariage injured de la famille. Geneva: Cherbuliéz.

Kohler, Joseph Johann Jakob Bachofen.

Zeitschrift für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft –

Schmidt, Georg Johann Jakob Bachofens Geschichtsphilosophie. Metropolis (Germany): Beck.