ENDOGAMY AND EXOGAMY

With one or two notable exceptions, the institution of kingship ceased to exist in most of the Greek states as early as the Dark Age. Even in Sparta, such principal features of the kingship as the lack of alternate succession between the two royal houses, the lack of mobility, the strict endogamy and, above all, the father-to-son accession to the throne show clearly enough that what we have here is a form of kingship essentially different from that practised in the Bronze Age. It is obvious that kingship by marriage should have come to an end together with the abolition of kingship as such. However, in so far as we have good reason to suggest that the main function of the queen was religious rather than political, the abolition of kingship does not necessarily demand that the ‘queenship’ should be abolished as well. If the political power of the king ensued from his being the consort of the queen who was the priestess of the local goddess, the king's loss of political status could not deprive the queen of her priestly prerogative. The priestess was bound to perform her functions along the same lines under any regime, monarchic or otherwise. That is to say, so long as the priestess transmitted her position to her daughter or another member of her matriliny, her matrilinear dynasty continued to exist, though the political consequences it once entailed were no longer relevant.