"Gerontocracy" was coined in 19th century France as a political critique of an aging parliament. Such popular usage — alleging age-related political behavior — continues today; but a scientific usage came later to refer to a historically primitive, yet still-surviving form of political organization. While the term's origins tell us something about the evolution of age-prejudice, its subsequent development broadens our understanding of aging historically and cross-culturally.
Origins of "Gerontocracy" Frederick R. Eisele, PhD1
'Assl. Prof, of Social Policy, College of Human Development, Pennsylvania Slate Univ., University Park, PA 16802.
Vol. 19, No. 4, 1979
403
students of aging (gerontologists). The origins of the term tell us something about the development of age prejudice, and its subsequent applications are serious efforts to account for a historically primitive, still-surviving form of political organization. The purpose of this article is to clarify these origins and ambiguities of usage, and thereby to help diversify an understanding of aging in a broader cross-cultural and historical context. The procedure is to distinguish the relatively recent term gerontocracy from the historically ancient phenomenon to which it refers, and to briefly document what is known of the origins and development of each. The Term "Gerontocracy, or the government of old men, is, according to me, the cause of all the difficulties that we see in the soul of the country." In this political critique of a somewhat aging legislative body, a 19th century French pamphleteer created a new term. The author was one Jean-Jacques Fazy, who, "because Aristotle could not talk with us about it.. ."claims to have found it necessary "to make the word and explicate the thing." Little is known about Fazy himself, but he first used his new word in a short political tract in Paris in 1828 with the title De la gerontocratie, ou abus de la sagesse des vieillards dans le gouvernement de France. (On Gerontocracy, or the abuse of the wisdom of old men in the French Government.) Historical dictionaries lend support to Fazy's claim. There are no entries for "gerontocracy" or any of its derivatives in Dictionnaire de I'Ancien langue Francaise . . . (IX-XVth centuries) (Godefroy, 1938), nor in Dictionnaire de la langue Francaise du seizieme siecle (Huguet,
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Weizmann Institute of Science on June 5, 2016
Notice of things not before seen or known generates new words. To cope with the historically unprecedented growth of aging populations in this century, professional practitioners and scientists have found it helpful to recombine current terms and even invent new ones. Sociologists, for example, applied the theoretical notions of status, role, norm and stratification to age, and gave special meanings to existing words such as "disengagement." In other instances, more or less new terms were constructed from roots with different meanings, such as "cohort." "Gerontology" — the study of aging — came into wider use during the 1940s, and the term "ageism" emerged in the 1960s. Yet, there has been a certain ambivalence about accepting some terms, particularly if scientists and practitioners see them differently. "Ageism" has not become widespread, and — interesting in itself — even "gerontology" is not to be found in the extensive index to the recent Handbook of aging and the social sciences (Binstock & Shanas, 1976). This ambivalence is shared about another agerelated term which professionals and laymen see differently: "gerontocracy." Its ambiguous usages — by journalists and others to explain certain forms of political behavior as age related, and by early social theorists and contemporary anthropologists to describe certain forms of political organization — have probably helped to dissuade serious inquiry. It has never been a common term, and probably never will become one. The Encyclopaedia Brittanica included an entry in its 14th edition (Kuhlen, 1971), but dropped the term in its 15th edition. I argue that gerontocracy is of more than passing interest to
DE
ou
ABCS DE LA SAGESSE
DANS LE GOUVERNEMENT DE LA FRANCE;
PAR M. J.-J. FAZY.
, rue ties Filles-Saint-Thomas, N° 7. PONTHIEU et C'1, galerie du Palais-Royal; DELIUNAY, galerie du Palais-Royal; DELAPOREST
1828.
Fig. 1. Title page of early 19th century French political pamphlet (31 pp.) originating the term "gerontocracy."
404
The Gerontologist
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Weizmann Institute of Science on June 5, 2016
DES VIEILLARDS
Vol. 19, No. 4, 1979
elites. In a technical sense, Fazy further weakened his age-based critique by noting generational characteristics of older deputies who, he correctly observed, represented political orientations of the earlier Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. In a final inconsistancy as a critic of old age, he went out of his way to make clear that he valued the counsel and experience of age. His pamphlets' subtitle claimed that it was the wisdom of the elderly which was being abused. He continued: Let me explain my thinking; the social.order must not be deprived of the counsel of old age; but it must be admitted in just proportion to the part that it has in civil life, and the type of usefulness for which it is best suited: the councils of experience. [Thus], the Senate (upper chamber) is the appropriate place [for older representatives] which [position] is not inconsequential, for no law can pass without its consent (Fazy, 1828). So, this first attack on rule-by-elderly turns out to be more important as an act of semantic innovation than as a reasoned critique. While his case against old age was not a strong one, Fazy did provide the world with a word for an unnamed phenomenon. This is not insignificant. Once named, a vaguely understood possibility takes on a specificity and concreteness — a reality of its own. Later in the 19th century, the term acquired currency in a more formal, descriptive sense than it had in its earlier, political beginnings. As Europeans came to know more of of pre-industrial, "primitive" societies, they discovered that agehadparticularsignificanceforsomecultures. Sir James Frazer's monumental 14-volume survey of what was then known about magic and religion among such societies throughout the world singled out the Aborigines of Australia: So far as their tribes can be said to have a political constitution, it is a democracy, or rather an oligarchy, of old and influential men who meet in council and decide on all measures of importance to the practical exclusion of the younger men. Their deliberative assembly answers to the senate of later times: if we had to coin a word for such a government of elders we might call it a gerontocracy (Frazer, 1913). But it was Max Weber who, a few years later, perceived the general importance of political dominance by elders: The most primitive types of traditional authority are the cases where a personal administrative staff of the
405
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Weizmann Institute of Science on June 5, 2016
1925). However, Larousse's recent Lexis (1975) does list the term, dating it to about 1825, without specific reference. It may have been in use before Fazy, but without another reference, he retains his claim. Some corroboration of.this comes from evidence of migration of the term to England just a few years later. The Philological Society's A new English dictionary on historical principles (1901) dates the term to a reference published in the English Examiner of 1830, as does the later Oxford English dictionary (1933). What is of course more important than the exact date of origin is the fact that the term first emerged in France during this period. Understanding Fazy's Gerontocratie requires knowing something about the context of the Bourbon restoration (1815-1830) in France. The first quarter of 19th century France was devoted to recover ing from the Revolution of 1789 — first under the Napoleonic Empire, and then under the Bourbon monarchy. The Corps legislatif, a "monarchic parliament," functioned during this time, but the conditions and eligibility for office were carefully designed to preclude turbulence. Age was apparently seen as relevant to this goal, for the age eligibility for deputies was raised from 30 to 40 years, while eligibility to vote was as high as 30 years of age. Moreover, for a period in the 1820s, an electoral law of the "double vote" assured safe, conservative electors' votes to be counted twice. There was also a sizeable income requirement for candidates, thereby excluding perhaps 90% of the population. Fazy attacked these electoral practices assuring control by the privileged. For him, the outcome was a legislative body whose most salient characteristic was advanced age. By association, he found he could summarize with his new word all criticisms of the ineffective political role of the legislature. This kind of short-circuiting leap in logic — "Gerontocracy . . . i s . . . the cause of all the difficulties we see in the soul of the country" — is the essence of prejudicial thinking. Ironically, Fazy's claim to have originated the term was stronger than his attack against the phenomenon of aged legislators. He did characterize older deputies as "asthmatic, gouty, paralytic and weak in faculties, hoping only for retirement...." And, while he did point out the deputies' "taste for conservation," it is not clear whether the French conservation referred to old age or to wealth. He did not mention conservatism or senility, which were to become in the 20th century commonly alleged traits of aging
chief is absent. These are "gerontocracy" and "patriarchalism." The term "gerontocracy" is applied to a situation where so far as imperative control is exercised in the group at all it is in the hands of "elders" — which originally was understood literally as the eldest in actual years, who are the most familiar with sacred traditions of a group (Weber, 1947).
than by moral feeling; for calculation is of expediency, but moral feeling is of virtue (Aristotle, 1883).
decisively .. . moreover they are apt to be suspicious from distrust, and they are distrustful from their experience. And on this account they neither love nor hate with great earnestness . . . they both love as though about to hate, and hate as though about to love ... men of this age appear to be naturally temperate, for both their desires have relaxed, and they are enslaved to gain. And they live more by calculation
Conclusion
Gerontocracy as a term for older rulinggroups to this day retains the dual — political and scientific — usages noted at the outset. Laymen continue to use gerontocracy to explain political
406
The Gerontologist
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Weizmann Institute of Science on June 5, 2016
Later, he details the implications of these opinions for office holders, especially judges, opining "that judges of important causes should hold office for life is a disputable thing, for the mind grows old as well as the body" (Aristotle, 1883). These somewhat negative views were not the While Weber was not explicit in reference to only perspectives on old age — as Cicero's existing or historic groups, he was clear that this (106-43 BC) and others' praise of late life illuswas a type of authority which was among the trates. In fact, observers throughout history have earliest to emerge in human societies, and per- been ambivalent about old age. Thus, while haps because of such distant origins, was among Bacon and also Shakespeare followed Aristotle the least known. in disparaging old age (Bacon, 1883; Hendricks & Hendricks, 1974; Shakespeare, 1968), their near-contemporaries in 17th century America The Phenomenon followed Cicero in their veneration of old age Weber was undoubtedly aware — as Fazy had (Fischer, 1978). been — of Creek and Roman political structures Undoubtedly, thecouncil of elders recurred in which fit general descriptions of rule by elders (i.e., of the phenomenon), despite the absence numerous times and places throughout history of the term. It was wel I known, for example, that without having been labeled as such, much less Sparta was ruled by a counci I, thegerusia, whose called "gerontocracy." However, two contemmembers had to be 60 years of age, but who porary manifestations attest to the survival of the thereafter served for life. It could well have been phenomenon. On the one hand, there has been the potential abuses of the gerusia which brought a slow but steady trickle of ethnographic descripPlato (427-347 BC) to argue in The Laws for a re- tions of age-related social and political organizastriction of tenure in rulinggroups by both chron- tions in the disappearing "primitive" societies ological age and length of service. of the less developed countries (Simmons, 1945). From an anthropological perspective, A Law-warden shall hold office for no more than gerontocracy fits into more general families 20 years, and he shall be voted into office when he of social phenomena referred to as age-grades is not under 50 years of age The more he exceeds and age-sets (Eisenstadt, 1956; Gulliver, 1968). the minimum age, the shorter shall be his term of These diverse and complex phenomena and office; so that if he lives beyond the age of 70, he their literature have recently been comprehenmust no longer fancy that he can remain among those officials holding an office of such high importance sively reviewed (Stewart, 1977). On the other hand, modern political institu(Plato, 1926). tions have also been viewed as age-related. LegPlato's student, Aristotle, (384-322 BC) was islatures can undergo a form of collective aging, also concerned about the potential disadvan- as has been noticed for some time (Macrae, tages of old age, but was more explicit, pointing 1967; Schlesinger, 1966; Witmer, 1964). And, the seniority custom in the U. S. Congress preout that the elderly go astray cipitated a rise in older-than-average representatives during the 1960s and early 1970s (Polsby . . . in everything more on the side of defect than they ought. And they always 'suppose' but never 'know' et al., 1969). However, whether this apparent certainly; and questioning everything, they always age-dominance made any decisive political subjoin a 'perhaps,' or a 'possibly.' And they talk of difference has never been conclusively shown everything in this undecisive tone, asserting nothing (Hudson & Binstock, 1976; Lehman, 1953).
Vol. 19, No. 4, 1979
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Fazy, J. J. De la gerontocratie ou abus de la sagesse des vieillards dans le gouvernement de la France. Delaforest, Paris, 1828. Fischer, D. H. Crowing old in America. Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 1978. Frazer, J. G. The golden bough; A study in magic and religion. Macmillan, London, 1913, 3rd Ed. Fries, V., & Butler, R. N. The congressional seniority system: The myth of gerontocracy in Congress. Aging and Human Development, 1971,2, 341-347. Godefroy, F. Dictionnaire de I'ancienne langue Francaise du IXeauXVesiecle. Librairie des Sciences et des Arts, Paris, 1938. Gulliver, P. H. Age differentiation. International Encyclopaedia of Social Science. MacMillan, NY, 1968. Hendricks, J., Hendricks, C. D. The age old question of old age: Was it really so much better back when. Paper presented to the Annual Meetings of the Gerontological Society, NY, Oct., 1974. Huguet, E. Dictionnaire de la langue Francaise du seizieme siecle. E. Champion, Paris, 1925. Hudson, R. B., & Binstock, R. H. Political systems and aging. Ch. 15. In Binstock and Shanas, (Eds.), Handbook of aging and the social sciences. Van Nostrand Reinhold, NY, 1976. Kuhlen, R. G. Gerontocracy. Encyclopaedia Brittanica. 14th Ed., Chicago, 1971, 10, 362-363. Lehman, H. C. Age and achievement. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 1953. Lexis; dictionnaire de la langue Francaise. Librairie Larousse, Paris, 1975. Macrae, D. The sociology of parliaments. // Politico, 1967, 3, 578-589. Philological Society, A new English dictionary on historical principles. Vol. IV. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1901. Plato, The laws, translated by R. G. Bury. Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, MA, 1926. Polsby, N. W., Gallaher, M., & Rundquist, B. The growth of the seniority system in the U. S. House of Representatives, American Political Science Review,, 1969, 63, 787-807. Schlesinger, J. A. Ambition and politics; Political careers in References the United States. Rand McNally, Chicago, 1966. Aristotle, Treatise on rhetoric, translated by T. Buckley, Shakespeare, W. As You Like It. Cambridge Univ. Press, George Bell & Sons, London, 1883. Cambridge, MA, 1968. Bacon, F. Of Youth and Age. In The Essays, Or Counsels, Si mmons, L. W. The role of the aged in primitive society. Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, CT, 1945. Civil and Moral. The Chesterfield Society, London, 1883. Binstock, R. H., & Shanas, E. (Eds.), Handbook of aging and Stewart, F. H. Fundamentals of age-group systems. Academic Press, NY, 1977. the social sciences. Van Nostrand Reinhold, NY, 1976. Weber, M. The theory of economic and social organization. Eisele, F. R. Political elite systems: Aging and succession. T. Parsons (Ed.), T. Parsons & A. M. Henderson, trans. Paper presented at 10th Congress of the Int. Gerontology Oxford Univ. Press, NY, 1947. Assoc, Jerusalem, Israel, June, 1975. Eisenstadt, S. N. From generation to generation; Age groups Witmer, T. R. The aging of the house. Political Science Quarterly, 1964,79, 526-541. and social structure. Free Press, NY, 1956.
behavior they believe is somehow age-related, and specialists continue to find the term useful to describe certain political organizations, however infrequently they recur. While the agegroup systems of Africa and elsewhere will probably be swallowed up by modernization, there is at least the possibility that aspects of contemporary politics could evolve into gerontocracylike forms in the future, however briefly. Thus, newspaper editorials occasionally refer to the "gerontocratic" Communist Party leadership in the Soviet Union and China, and Congressional seniority was attacked on this basis some years ago (Fries & Butler, 1971). My intention has been to identify the heretofore unknown origins of the term and place its dual usages in historical context. A number of important research questions about both the term and the phenomenon remain: How should gerontocracy be defined for scientific purposes? How widely distributed is the phenomenon, either in historically "primitive" or in modern settings? Finally, does advanced age in such groups make any difference politically or otherwise, and how can this be shown? (Eisele, 1975) In any case, contemporary critics of old age.in legislatures as well as ethnographers describing surviving forms of primitive political organization, can now acknowledge their semantic debt to Jean-Jacques Fazy and his pamphlet of 150 years ago on Gerontocratie.
Origins of "Gerontocracy" Frederick R. Eisele, PhD1
'Assl. Prof, of Social Policy, College of Human Development, Pennsylvania Slate Univ., University Park, PA 16802.
Vol. 19, No. 4, 1979
403
students of aging (gerontologists). The origins of the term tell us something about the development of age prejudice, and its subsequent applications are serious efforts to account for a historically primitive, still-surviving form of political organization. The purpose of this article is to clarify these origins and ambiguities of usage, and thereby to help diversify an understanding of aging in a broader cross-cultural and historical context. The procedure is to distinguish the relatively recent term gerontocracy from the historically ancient phenomenon to which it refers, and to briefly document what is known of the origins and development of each. The Term "Gerontocracy, or the government of old men, is, according to me, the cause of all the difficulties that we see in the soul of the country." In this political critique of a somewhat aging legislative body, a 19th century French pamphleteer created a new term. The author was one Jean-Jacques Fazy, who, "because Aristotle could not talk with us about it.. ."claims to have found it necessary "to make the word and explicate the thing." Little is known about Fazy himself, but he first used his new word in a short political tract in Paris in 1828 with the title De la gerontocratie, ou abus de la sagesse des vieillards dans le gouvernement de France. (On Gerontocracy, or the abuse of the wisdom of old men in the French Government.) Historical dictionaries lend support to Fazy's claim. There are no entries for "gerontocracy" or any of its derivatives in Dictionnaire de I'Ancien langue Francaise . . . (IX-XVth centuries) (Godefroy, 1938), nor in Dictionnaire de la langue Francaise du seizieme siecle (Huguet,
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Weizmann Institute of Science on June 5, 2016
Notice of things not before seen or known generates new words. To cope with the historically unprecedented growth of aging populations in this century, professional practitioners and scientists have found it helpful to recombine current terms and even invent new ones. Sociologists, for example, applied the theoretical notions of status, role, norm and stratification to age, and gave special meanings to existing words such as "disengagement." In other instances, more or less new terms were constructed from roots with different meanings, such as "cohort." "Gerontology" — the study of aging — came into wider use during the 1940s, and the term "ageism" emerged in the 1960s. Yet, there has been a certain ambivalence about accepting some terms, particularly if scientists and practitioners see them differently. "Ageism" has not become widespread, and — interesting in itself — even "gerontology" is not to be found in the extensive index to the recent Handbook of aging and the social sciences (Binstock & Shanas, 1976). This ambivalence is shared about another agerelated term which professionals and laymen see differently: "gerontocracy." Its ambiguous usages — by journalists and others to explain certain forms of political behavior as age related, and by early social theorists and contemporary anthropologists to describe certain forms of political organization — have probably helped to dissuade serious inquiry. It has never been a common term, and probably never will become one. The Encyclopaedia Brittanica included an entry in its 14th edition (Kuhlen, 1971), but dropped the term in its 15th edition. I argue that gerontocracy is of more than passing interest to
DE
ou
ABCS DE LA SAGESSE
DANS LE GOUVERNEMENT DE LA FRANCE;
PAR M. J.-J. FAZY.
, rue ties Filles-Saint-Thomas, N° 7. PONTHIEU et C'1, galerie du Palais-Royal; DELIUNAY, galerie du Palais-Royal; DELAPOREST
1828.
Fig. 1. Title page of early 19th century French political pamphlet (31 pp.) originating the term "gerontocracy."
404
The Gerontologist
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Weizmann Institute of Science on June 5, 2016
DES VIEILLARDS
Vol. 19, No. 4, 1979
elites. In a technical sense, Fazy further weakened his age-based critique by noting generational characteristics of older deputies who, he correctly observed, represented political orientations of the earlier Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. In a final inconsistancy as a critic of old age, he went out of his way to make clear that he valued the counsel and experience of age. His pamphlets' subtitle claimed that it was the wisdom of the elderly which was being abused. He continued: Let me explain my thinking; the social.order must not be deprived of the counsel of old age; but it must be admitted in just proportion to the part that it has in civil life, and the type of usefulness for which it is best suited: the councils of experience. [Thus], the Senate (upper chamber) is the appropriate place [for older representatives] which [position] is not inconsequential, for no law can pass without its consent (Fazy, 1828). So, this first attack on rule-by-elderly turns out to be more important as an act of semantic innovation than as a reasoned critique. While his case against old age was not a strong one, Fazy did provide the world with a word for an unnamed phenomenon. This is not insignificant. Once named, a vaguely understood possibility takes on a specificity and concreteness — a reality of its own. Later in the 19th century, the term acquired currency in a more formal, descriptive sense than it had in its earlier, political beginnings. As Europeans came to know more of of pre-industrial, "primitive" societies, they discovered that agehadparticularsignificanceforsomecultures. Sir James Frazer's monumental 14-volume survey of what was then known about magic and religion among such societies throughout the world singled out the Aborigines of Australia: So far as their tribes can be said to have a political constitution, it is a democracy, or rather an oligarchy, of old and influential men who meet in council and decide on all measures of importance to the practical exclusion of the younger men. Their deliberative assembly answers to the senate of later times: if we had to coin a word for such a government of elders we might call it a gerontocracy (Frazer, 1913). But it was Max Weber who, a few years later, perceived the general importance of political dominance by elders: The most primitive types of traditional authority are the cases where a personal administrative staff of the
405
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Weizmann Institute of Science on June 5, 2016
1925). However, Larousse's recent Lexis (1975) does list the term, dating it to about 1825, without specific reference. It may have been in use before Fazy, but without another reference, he retains his claim. Some corroboration of.this comes from evidence of migration of the term to England just a few years later. The Philological Society's A new English dictionary on historical principles (1901) dates the term to a reference published in the English Examiner of 1830, as does the later Oxford English dictionary (1933). What is of course more important than the exact date of origin is the fact that the term first emerged in France during this period. Understanding Fazy's Gerontocratie requires knowing something about the context of the Bourbon restoration (1815-1830) in France. The first quarter of 19th century France was devoted to recover ing from the Revolution of 1789 — first under the Napoleonic Empire, and then under the Bourbon monarchy. The Corps legislatif, a "monarchic parliament," functioned during this time, but the conditions and eligibility for office were carefully designed to preclude turbulence. Age was apparently seen as relevant to this goal, for the age eligibility for deputies was raised from 30 to 40 years, while eligibility to vote was as high as 30 years of age. Moreover, for a period in the 1820s, an electoral law of the "double vote" assured safe, conservative electors' votes to be counted twice. There was also a sizeable income requirement for candidates, thereby excluding perhaps 90% of the population. Fazy attacked these electoral practices assuring control by the privileged. For him, the outcome was a legislative body whose most salient characteristic was advanced age. By association, he found he could summarize with his new word all criticisms of the ineffective political role of the legislature. This kind of short-circuiting leap in logic — "Gerontocracy . . . i s . . . the cause of all the difficulties we see in the soul of the country" — is the essence of prejudicial thinking. Ironically, Fazy's claim to have originated the term was stronger than his attack against the phenomenon of aged legislators. He did characterize older deputies as "asthmatic, gouty, paralytic and weak in faculties, hoping only for retirement...." And, while he did point out the deputies' "taste for conservation," it is not clear whether the French conservation referred to old age or to wealth. He did not mention conservatism or senility, which were to become in the 20th century commonly alleged traits of aging
chief is absent. These are "gerontocracy" and "patriarchalism." The term "gerontocracy" is applied to a situation where so far as imperative control is exercised in the group at all it is in the hands of "elders" — which originally was understood literally as the eldest in actual years, who are the most familiar with sacred traditions of a group (Weber, 1947).
than by moral feeling; for calculation is of expediency, but moral feeling is of virtue (Aristotle, 1883).
decisively .. . moreover they are apt to be suspicious from distrust, and they are distrustful from their experience. And on this account they neither love nor hate with great earnestness . . . they both love as though about to hate, and hate as though about to love ... men of this age appear to be naturally temperate, for both their desires have relaxed, and they are enslaved to gain. And they live more by calculation
Conclusion
Gerontocracy as a term for older rulinggroups to this day retains the dual — political and scientific — usages noted at the outset. Laymen continue to use gerontocracy to explain political
406
The Gerontologist
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Weizmann Institute of Science on June 5, 2016
Later, he details the implications of these opinions for office holders, especially judges, opining "that judges of important causes should hold office for life is a disputable thing, for the mind grows old as well as the body" (Aristotle, 1883). These somewhat negative views were not the While Weber was not explicit in reference to only perspectives on old age — as Cicero's existing or historic groups, he was clear that this (106-43 BC) and others' praise of late life illuswas a type of authority which was among the trates. In fact, observers throughout history have earliest to emerge in human societies, and per- been ambivalent about old age. Thus, while haps because of such distant origins, was among Bacon and also Shakespeare followed Aristotle the least known. in disparaging old age (Bacon, 1883; Hendricks & Hendricks, 1974; Shakespeare, 1968), their near-contemporaries in 17th century America The Phenomenon followed Cicero in their veneration of old age Weber was undoubtedly aware — as Fazy had (Fischer, 1978). been — of Creek and Roman political structures Undoubtedly, thecouncil of elders recurred in which fit general descriptions of rule by elders (i.e., of the phenomenon), despite the absence numerous times and places throughout history of the term. It was wel I known, for example, that without having been labeled as such, much less Sparta was ruled by a counci I, thegerusia, whose called "gerontocracy." However, two contemmembers had to be 60 years of age, but who porary manifestations attest to the survival of the thereafter served for life. It could well have been phenomenon. On the one hand, there has been the potential abuses of the gerusia which brought a slow but steady trickle of ethnographic descripPlato (427-347 BC) to argue in The Laws for a re- tions of age-related social and political organizastriction of tenure in rulinggroups by both chron- tions in the disappearing "primitive" societies ological age and length of service. of the less developed countries (Simmons, 1945). From an anthropological perspective, A Law-warden shall hold office for no more than gerontocracy fits into more general families 20 years, and he shall be voted into office when he of social phenomena referred to as age-grades is not under 50 years of age The more he exceeds and age-sets (Eisenstadt, 1956; Gulliver, 1968). the minimum age, the shorter shall be his term of These diverse and complex phenomena and office; so that if he lives beyond the age of 70, he their literature have recently been comprehenmust no longer fancy that he can remain among those officials holding an office of such high importance sively reviewed (Stewart, 1977). On the other hand, modern political institu(Plato, 1926). tions have also been viewed as age-related. LegPlato's student, Aristotle, (384-322 BC) was islatures can undergo a form of collective aging, also concerned about the potential disadvan- as has been noticed for some time (Macrae, tages of old age, but was more explicit, pointing 1967; Schlesinger, 1966; Witmer, 1964). And, the seniority custom in the U. S. Congress preout that the elderly go astray cipitated a rise in older-than-average representatives during the 1960s and early 1970s (Polsby . . . in everything more on the side of defect than they ought. And they always 'suppose' but never 'know' et al., 1969). However, whether this apparent certainly; and questioning everything, they always age-dominance made any decisive political subjoin a 'perhaps,' or a 'possibly.' And they talk of difference has never been conclusively shown everything in this undecisive tone, asserting nothing (Hudson & Binstock, 1976; Lehman, 1953).
Vol. 19, No. 4, 1979
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behavior they believe is somehow age-related, and specialists continue to find the term useful to describe certain political organizations, however infrequently they recur. While the agegroup systems of Africa and elsewhere will probably be swallowed up by modernization, there is at least the possibility that aspects of contemporary politics could evolve into gerontocracylike forms in the future, however briefly. Thus, newspaper editorials occasionally refer to the "gerontocratic" Communist Party leadership in the Soviet Union and China, and Congressional seniority was attacked on this basis some years ago (Fries & Butler, 1971). My intention has been to identify the heretofore unknown origins of the term and place its dual usages in historical context. A number of important research questions about both the term and the phenomenon remain: How should gerontocracy be defined for scientific purposes? How widely distributed is the phenomenon, either in historically "primitive" or in modern settings? Finally, does advanced age in such groups make any difference politically or otherwise, and how can this be shown? (Eisele, 1975) In any case, contemporary critics of old age.in legislatures as well as ethnographers describing surviving forms of primitive political organization, can now acknowledge their semantic debt to Jean-Jacques Fazy and his pamphlet of 150 years ago on Gerontocratie.
