The patriarchal family as thus constituted is the "type of an archaic society in all the modifications which it was capable of assuming." From it as in concentric circles have been successively evolved all the higher forms of political organization. Everywhere, as at Rome, "the aggregation of families forms the gens or house. The aggregation of houses makes the tribe. The aggregation of tribes constitutes the commonwealth."[21] The state is therefore the result of the expansion of its primordial cell;[22] and the genealogical organization of society precedes and overlaps the territorial. All these groups, lower and higher, regard themselves as united by the bond of kinship. But, as a matter of fact, the kinship is often assumed; and the heterogeneity of blood is explained as the result of the fiction of adoption by which relationship is artificially extended and strangers are admitted to the _sacra_. Without this fiction, says Maine, "I do not see how any one of the primitive groups, whatever were their nature, could have absorbed another, or on what terms any two of them could have combined, except those of absolute superiority on one side and absolute subjection on the other." Society could hardly have escaped from its "swaddling clothes."[23] Furthermore, a strong motive for the artificial extension of the family is derived from the worship of ancestors. The earnest desire of the ancients for male issue to perpetuate the family rites has tended to foster adoption, and it probably accounts for the levirate and other similar expedients to provide an heir.[24] [21] _Ibid._, 123, 124, 128. See the table of comparative groups in SCHRADER, _Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte_, 394. For the Ionic groups _cf._ SCHÖMANN, _Antiquities_, 317, 364; _Athenian Constitution_, 3-10; WACHSMUTH, _Hist. Ant._, I, 342 f.; MÜLLER, _Handbuch_, IV, 17-22; GROTE, _Hist. of Greece_, III, 52, 53. In general, _cf._ FUSTEL DE COULANGES, _Ancient City_, 141 ff.; HEARN, _Aryan Household_, 63 ff., 112 ff., _passim_; LEIST, _Graeco-italische Rechtsgeschichte_ and _Alt-arisches Jus Gentium_. [22] For FREEMAN'S well-known theory of political expansion see _Comparative Politics_, chap. iii. [23] MAINE, _Ancient Law_, 125 ff., 26. On the new mode of adoption in India see MAYNE, _Hindu Law and Usage_, 88 ff.; LYALL, _Asiatic Studies_, chap. vii; _Fortnightly Review_, Jan., 1877; JOLLY, _Hindu Law of Partition_, 144-66. On the formation of non-genealogical clans see HEARN, _Aryan Household_, 296 ff. _Cf._ POST'S discussion of "Künstliche Verwandtschaft" in _Studien zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Familienrechts_, 25-42: KOHLER, _ZVR._, V, 415-40.