Kinship and Polity in the Poema de Mio Cid

Chapter Five. Conclusion: Deference and Inequality

Chapter Five Conclusion Deference and Inequality Adrian Montoro contends that the PMC expresses the three primordial social functions delineated by Georges Dumezil. These Montoro summarizes as, first, the sacred function, comprising the realms of magic, religion, knowledge, and political authority and administration in their divinely guided aspect; second, the "warrior function," encompassing "la fuerza ffsica, brutal, y ... los usos de la fuerza; and the third function, including fecundity (human, animal, and vegetable), as well as health, peace, sensuality and eroticism, economy, and wealth. Montoro argues that this "trifunctional structure" is manifest throughout the PMC. The first instance, he suggests, occurs in the Corte de Toledo (3145-507), where the hero demands that the Infantes return his swords and his averes, and that King Alfonso preside over a judicial combat. "Salta a la vista," affirms Montoro, "que las reclamaciones corresponden, respectivamente , a la segunda, tercera y primera funciones." That the functions are presented in the order indicated results from the "astutas consideraciones tacticas" of the Cid, who leaves his principal concern, the "rrencura mayor," for last (v. 3254). But the Cid's claims entail the "orden can6nico" of the traditional three functions, with the judicium Dei representing divine justice; the swords, "la fuerza viril y la proeza belica"; and the monetary assets, "la riqueza, la abundancia de bienes." To this functional cluster is opposed a mirror-image set of attributes presented by the Infantes. Their greed (cf. 1371) corresponds to the third function; their cowardice, as in the episodes of the lion and the battle with King Bucar (2278-310, 2315-537), embodies "el vicio opuesto a la virtud guerrera"; and finally, their treacherous behavior toward Abengalb6n and their sadistic treatment of their wives (2647-88, 2689-760) 199 Chapter Five present them as "violadores de las normas que rigen las relaciones entre los hombres bajo la sanci6n de Dios y del rey" (Montoro 554-55, 556, 558, 559). Dumezil records illustrations ofthe tripartiteprogram throughout the Indo-European world, noting that outside that domain the system is limited to regions historically colonized or influenced by Indo-Europeans. Some regional variants present difficulties in the application of the model. India, for example, shows a quadripartite organization, involving a fourth category, the Shudras ("servants," "have-nots"). This is accounted for in Dumezil's analysis by explaining this fourth classification as a socioeconomic appendage to the original three divisions. Because the Shudras, he argues, are essentially "cut off from the other three, and ... by nature irremediably sullied," they are virtually peripheral to the tripartite society that is the traditional core of Indian culture (Dumezil 7).1 Without calling into question the encyclopedic range and rigorous documentation of Dumezil's monumental project, we may note the ever-present danger in applying elegant theory to chaotic social reality. One does not want to fit the evidence to the theory. At the same, the inhabitants of the societies studied by historians and ethnographers theorize about their own social reality; such indigenous autodefinition has no greater claim to accuracy than the conjectures of outsiders. This must be recalled when con'sidering that most conspicuous example of the trifunctional theory, the Indian system of the varnas (literally , "colors"), which arranges society into categories comparable to the medieval European estates. The Brahmins (priests = oratores) are followed by the Kshatriyas (warriors = bellatores), then by the Vaishyas (farmers = laboratores). Each division is contingent upon subclassifications theoretically marked by standards of membership based on heredity, marriage rules, and stern codes of proscription and interdiction. Louis Dumont observes that the system of varnas (a word he translates as "estates "; Fr. etat) has a multifarious correlation with the jati, the castes proper. The latter divisions are distinguished by three primary properties: separation (indicated by interdictions on intercaste marriage or personal contact), division of labor (vocations or trades are assigned to each group, "in theory or by tradition"), and hierarchy (categories are invidiously ordered 200 Conclusion "as relatively superior or inferior to one another"). The varna system, in other words, emphasizes function over both inheritance and stratification. The caste system, by contrast, is predicated on inherited status rather than on function. For Dumont, the Indian concept of society and polity is an attempt to reconcile the incompatible factors of honorific status and sociopolitical power! " for pure hierarchy to develop without hindrance it was necessary that power should be absolutely inferior to status." Hierarchical purity is detelmined by adherence to the perceived moral truth of...