Political union originally based, not on territorial contiguity, but on blood-relationship.

The earliest form of political union in the world is one which rests, not upon territorial contiguity, but upon I blood-relationship, either real or assumed through the legal fiction of adoption.

In the lowest savagery blood-relationship is the only admissible or conceivable ground for sustained common action among groups of men.

Among peoples which wander about, supporting themselves either by hunting, or at a somewhat more advanced stage of development by the rearing of flocks and herds, a group of men, thus permanently associated through ties of blood-relationship, is what we call a clan.

In the primitive mark, as we have seen, the bond which kept the community together and constituted it a political unit was the bond of blood-relationship, real or assumed; but this was not the case with the city or borough.

Polygamy and intercourse of master and female slave were restricted; the obligations arising from blood-relationship or ownership were regulated.

We sent out parties to make discoveries with Vasquez de Gama, Dampier, Anson, and Cook, and although we English gentlemen (who have no blood-relationship with the Norwegians) are known to have such a natural abhorrence at cold, the love of science prevailed, and a strong party were sent to the frozen seas with Ross, Lyon, and Parry.

Dangerously ill, and yet here had been his uncle able to go through withnot entirely calmly, to be sure; Adrian remembered the lack of attention, the broken eye-glasses; and yet, still able to go through with, not obviously shaken, this monthly farce; this dinner that in reality mocked all the real meaning of blood-relationship.

What other man has had the courage or elevation of mind to say, "I will build up a state by the mere force of my will, without help from the kings of the world, without taking advantage of any of the secondary causes which unite men togetherunity of interest or speech, or blood-relationship.

Blood-relationship, including fosterage, was the only real and binding union; that larger connection known as the clan or sept, having the smaller one of the family for its basis, as was the case also amongst the clans of the Scotch highlands.

A son and son-in-law of the brother in America were in the Federal army, and here was a sea-divided family filled with all the sad, silent solicitude of affection for beloved ones exposed to the fearful hazards of a war sundering more ties of blood-relationship than any other ever waged on earth.

It had depended upon an imagined blood-relationship; fellow-citizens could now no longer feel themselves to be united by the tie of blood.