) 73 %^z L \
Central Bureau Publications

Timely Topics No. XXV.

THE FAMILY

A SOCIAL AND ETHNOLOGIC STUDY

BY

ALBERT MUNTSCH, S. X

CENTRAL BUREAU OF THE CENTRAL VEREIN

3835 Westminster Place

ST. LOUIS, MO.

19 2 7



IMPRIMI POTEST

die 27a. Junii, 1927.

M. Germing, S. J.,

Praepositus Provincialis,

Provinciae Missourianae.

NIHIL OBSTAT

Joannes Rothensteiner,

Censor Librorum.

Sti. Ludovici, die 28. Junii, 1927.

IMPRIMATUR

f Joannes J. Giennon,

Archieppus Sti. Ludovici.

Sti. Ludovici, die 30, Junii, 1927.

1,500—7-6-27



FOREWORD

Much has been said and written of late about the im-

portance of the family as the fundamental social unit and

of the disruptive forces that are threatening its integrity.

All social thinkers who have at heart the welfare of society

deplore the disintegrating factors of an institution that has

contributed so largely to social progress. It; is not the

object of the following pages to repeat the many arguments

from history and ethics for maintaining the ideal of the true

Christian family. Their purpose is rather to do away with

the mischievous notion that the monogamous family ideal,

ever maintained by the Church, is a product of slow evolu-

tion. The three chapters will also help to show that the

Church in guarding the home and the family is safeguard-

ing the foundation of social progress.

The questions and bibliography are primarily intended

for teachers and will make the chapters suitable for classes

in sociology.



THE FAMILY
«

A Social and Ethnologic Study

CHAPTER I.

SOCIAL ORIGINS IN THE LIGHT OF
RECENT ETHNOLOGY

Like other sciences sociology has been enriched by the

extensive explorations among uncivilized and primitive tribes

during the last half century. The title of this paper indi-

cates that we are to consider the beginnings of important

social institutions and the spread of culture on the basis of

data supplied by students of primitive society.

Text books on sociology are often full of errors be-

cause statements are based on preconceived opinions and

not on the facts of ethnology and archaeology. But it is

now recognized by scholars that the days of theorizing

about primitive culture are passed and that we must seek

light on social origins by a patient examination of the cul-

ture, language and religion of still surviving primitive

tribes. “Sociology”, says a writer in the ‘Dial’ (July 18,

1918) “needs imperatively the discipline of anthropological

fact.” It will be the aim of this paper to inquire into the

social institutions of primitive life in the light of modern

ethnology, and not of a-priori speculation. 1 )

1) To what extent a-priori speculation may vitiate both
sociologic and anthropologic study has been abundantly shown
in a recent report of research by B. Malinowski, published in
“Supplement to Nature”, No. 2936 (February 6, 1926). Malin-
owski’s paper is entitled “Primitive Law and Order” and con-
tains the following warning which ought to be heeded by stu-
dents of social origins. “Since the facts of primitive law de-
scribed in this article have been recorded in Melanesia, the
classical area of ‘communism’ and ‘promiscuity’, of ‘group-
sentiment’ and ‘clan-solidarity,’ of ‘spontaneous obedience’ and
what not, the conclusions which we shall be able to draw>

—

which will dispose of these catch-words and all they stand
for—may be of special interest.”

— 4—



Ethnology is the science that treats of the manners,

customs, culture and institutions of races, especially the so-

called lower races. Its findings are of the utmost import-

ance in a discussion of the structure and development cf

social institutions. Professor Lowie

2

)
has shown that recent

investigations among primitive people have done away with

mere speculations and have substituted facts for theories.

The most important result of the new methods of ethnologic

research is the rejection of the theory of cultural evolution.

This theory took over from biology the idea of the gradual

growth and perfection of organisms and tried to establish

a series of links, a unilinear chain of progress from the

lowest type of social culture to its full fruitage in modern

“civilization.” The theory, to use a phrase of Lowie, be-

longs to the refuse-heap of anthropology.

Opponents of “Evolutionary Culture”

In fact, the new school of American anthropology, rep-

resented by Boas, Lowie, Kroeber, Wissler, Sapir, Swanton,

Laufer and Goldenweiser rejects evolutionary schemes or

patterns of culture and turns to an historic interpretation

of early social institutions. Andrew Lang was one of the

first scholars to break away from evolutionary shackles 2 )

in the interpretations of culture. Referring to the Aus-

tralian aborigines, he says that “their speculative philoso-

phy is, in one instance, ingenious, elaborate, and highly

peculiar”. Yet “evolutionists” often speak of the brute-

like behavior of these primitives. Other English scholars

who combat the evolutionary theory are W. J. Perry and

W. H. R. Rivers.

The attack of this school upon evolutionary hypotheses

of the spread of culture forms an interesting and curious

chapter in the history of scientific thought. For time was

—

in the sixties and seventies of the last century—when it was
triumphantly asserted that the evolutionary hypothesis, as

announced by Darwin and applied by Herbert Spencer, was

the only legitimate method for the study of alL human

2) Primitive Society, N. Y., 1920.
3) Social Origins, 1903.

— 5—



phenomena, and that it would prove the master key to

solve all problems and questions of art, literature, politics,

social life, and religion. But now this opinion, so stoutly

maintained a little more than a half a century ago, is grad-

ually being abandoned.

The Rev. Wm. Schmidt, one of the leaders of the

new historical school of ethnology, speaks of “the turning

away from evolutionism to the historical method in Amer-

ican ethnology.” Dr. Berthold Laufer, Curator in the Asi-

atic Division of the Field Columbian Museum of Chicago,

expresses his strong condemnation of “cultural evolution’"

in the following words: “The theory of cultural evolution,

to my mind the most inane, sterile, and pernicious theory

ever conceived in the history of science (a cheap toy for

the amusement of big children).” (American Anthropol-

ogist, New Series, Vol. XX, 1918, p. 90).

The new historical school of ethnology has made most

headway in Germany and Austria as is apparent from the

following names—most of them of international note. Be-
sides the editors of ‘Anthropos’, Rev. Wilhelm Schmidt, S.

V. D., and Rev. Wilhelm Koppers, S. V. D., we find Fr. Graeb-

ner, professor of ethnology at Bonn University, B. An-

kermann, director of the Museum of Ethnology at Berlin,

W. Foy, director of the Museum of Ethnology at Co-

logne, O. Menghin, professor of prehistoric archaeology

at the University of Vienna, Dr. Krickeberg (Berlin), Dr.

Krause (Leipzig), Dr. Lebzelter (Vienna), and many others.

In England, the evolutionary theory of culture is now re-

jected by W. H. R. Rivers, the great authority on the

Todas of India and on the tribes of Melanesia, by Eliot

Smith, by Professor W. J. Perry, author of “The Chil-

dren of the Sun: A Study in the Early History of Civili-
zation,” while the late Andrew Lang leant strongly in the

same direction. The well-known Swedish explorer and

scholar, E. Nordenskiold, belongs to the same school. In

America the anti-evolutionary school is gaining ground,

some of its chief supporters being Dr. Lowie and Dr. Kroe-

ber of the University of California, Dr. Cooper of the Cath-

olic University of America, John R. Swanton of the Bu-

reau of American Ethnology, Clark Wissler of the Ameri-

— 6 —



can Museum of Natural History, and Franz Boas of Colum-

bia University.

Sociology Needs Anthropology

It is only when sociology breaks away from the “high-

piling hypotheses” and the elaborate “stages of culture” of

Spencer and L. H. Morgan that a scientific study of primitive

society is possible. This has been well maintained by the

writer of the article in the ‘Dial*, (July 18, 1918) who said:

“Today it is clear that sociological thinking would be

made even more fruitful by employing the illuminations

which anthropology provides in ever increasing abundance.

Some scholar with the adequate background and training,

together with the necessary literary skill, needs to do for

anthropology precisely what Graham Wallas did for psy-

chology—bring it into the open and put it to work. Socio-
logy needs imperatively the discipline of anthropological

fact. For with the war there has come recrudescence of the

vicious kind of sociological speculation which the new train-

ing of sociologists in the psychology of behavior had to a

certain extent destroyed. Most of this popular and flabby

generalizing about “races” and “bloods” and “hostile groups”

—such as we have par excellence in a writer like Houston
Ghamberlain—springs from down-right ignorance of the
simplest validated truths of anthropology. For example, it

is considered the shrewd and scholarly thing to say of Russia

that her attempts at a sociological experiment of a totally

new kind in the history of the world are “abortive.” It is

considered the correct reading of the theory of evolution, so

respectable a theory that no one dare dispute it. It is

assumed that nations must pass through successive stages

from the simple to the complex. “How can Russia,” these

writers ask, “expect to jump from the eighteenth century to

the twenty-second? Must she not pass through the mer-

cantile, the industrial, the economic development which the

more highly organized and more experienced democracies of

the West have had to undergo? Must not the new

grow out of the old? Would not any other develop-

ment be mere caprice in what we know, scientifically, to

be an orderly world?” The answer is that anthropology is

7



largely the history of just this type of caprice. There is

nothing in the facts which it discloses to justify any of

these questions. Given a fortunate start, the lucky instru-

ment of a popular will which is determined that it shall be

so, and there is nothing in the history of mankind to show

that the Russian experiment is foredoomed to failure. On

the contrary, anthropology would tend to make one opti-

mistic about its chance for success. Examples of this kind

might be multiplied. Especially needed is the corrective of

scientific anthropological knowledge to those speculating

about the natural differences between the various races at

war—for here ignorance and unreason is the general rule.
The ‘Dial’ hopes that such a type of book may speedily be

written. The opportunity is great, the need imperative.”

Too Much Unscientific Procedure

In no domain of sociology has there been such an

amount of gratuitous assertion as in that which treats of

the earlier forms of social institutions like the family, gov-

ernment, private property, language
;
that is, those institu-

tions that are generally regarded as forms of cultural en-

richment. Mr. Henry W. Henshaw, writing of the American

Indians, says that “popular fallacies respecting them have

been numerous and widespread.”4 ) The same statement

may be made about other primitive nations. For hasty

travelers, sojourning a few days among a strange tribe, have

heaped upon it all kinds of animal and “sub-human” traits.

The latter carefully compiled and labeled, are then used to

“prove” an “evolution of culture”.

There are abundant examples of this unscientific pro-

cedure. The tale has often been repeated of the utter bar-

renness and paucity of resources of primitive speech. But

Dr. Edward Sapir, in one of the latest contributions to the

science of language, says: “Popular statements as to the

extreme poverty of expression to which primitive languages

are doomed are simply myths”. 5
)

Dr. Malinowski in his afore-mentioned paper on “Prim-

4) Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Ar-
ticle "Popular Fallacies."

5) Language, N. Y., 1921.

— 8—



itive Law and Order” has a section on “Melanesian econ-

omics and the theory of primitive communism,” which con-

cludes as follows: “Thus, in connection with the first ob-

ject that attracted our attention—the native canoe—we are
met by law, order, definite privileges, and a well-developed

system of obligations.” In a comment to Malinowski's ar-

ticle in the same journal (1. c. p. 204), we read: “. .

.

. An ob-

server, not necessarily superficial, may have found by un-

conscious selection among the multifarious activities of the

daily life of a primitive people, very much what he set out

to find. An apparently hasty conclusion has inevitably fol-

lowed. Dr. Malinowski has attacked the problem by a new

method and from a new point of view. He has taken cer-

tain concrete casesJ in primitive economics and social or-

ganizations and, by a searching analysis of the facts, shows

fhat the conditions are such that no terms such as ‘com-

munism’ or ‘individualism' can be considered.” If even men

with the scientific acumen of the late W. H. R. Rivers were

not altogether free from the tendency of finding things

which they expected to “find” what can we expect from the

hasty, unscientific, and prejudiced observer or traveler?

To the extent that the study of social origins freed it-

self from the theory of unilinear evolution, to that degree

there was possible a better understanding of primitive so-

cial institutions. It is easy enough to construe elaborate

series or stages of progress for any cultural acquisition, but

quite a different thing to verify such series and stages by

historic facts and data. Hence it was only when primitive

culture was investigated by sound historic methods that rigid

inference was substituted for mere speculation.

Dr. Graebner has shown^) how the historic method, ap-

plied to the study of primitive life and civilization, can throw

light upon the origin of social phenomena. He follows the

path marked out by Dr. Bernheim in his famous “Lehrbuch

der historischen Methode”. 7
) In a remarkably suggestive

and well-documented investigation of the culture of Mela-

nesia, the collection of island groups in the Pacific, whose

inhabitants are related, he shows how a patient and syste-

6) Methode der Ethnologie. Heidelberg', 1911.

7) Leipzig, 1914.

9 —



matic study of the social organization and material and

spiritual culture of different tribes, gives insight into their

degree of relationship and the paths of their migration from

a common center. He calls the type of culture he found

among the people of Melanesia, and also to a large extent

among the Polynesian group of islands, the “Bogenkultur”

or “bow culture”, from the practically universal use of a

typical form of bow and arrow as weapons of war.

Arguments Refuting the Theory of ‘Cultural Evolution”

As this paper on social origins is based on the fact

that the scientific and unprejudiced study of the history of

culture cannot accept the theory of “cultural evolution” our

duty will be to give the arguments refuting that theory.

One of the brilliant results of wide ethnologic research

during the last half century was the supplying of a basis

for the study of cultural relations between nations, and of

the diffusion of culture. The trend of anthropology to-day

is distinctly opposed to evolutionary schemes, and scholars

are now seeking the rationale of human conduct by an in-

tensive study of the history and culture of the various

groups of mankind. “For the gathering of such data makes

possible comparison, analysis, and interpretation useful in

the study of fundamental social problems.”8 )

Now one of the new theories that has satisfied many of

the keenest inquirers into the origin of social institutions

is the so-called “Kulturkreistheorie” (Culture-Cycle Theory),

according to which human culture radiated in successive

waves from definite centers which probably all lie in Asia.

These sequences of culture are called culture-cycles or cul-

ture-complexes which here and there still remain intact, but

more often have been overlaid by subsequent waves and be-

come confused with them. The elements of each stream of

culture must be determined and traced back to their point

of departure. Each one of these streams of culture once

formed a complete whole, each had its own forms of religion,

mythology, social organization, primitve art, economic life,

tools and weapons. The agreement in the possession of

8) Prof. Fay-Cooper Cole in Journal of Applied Sociology,
IX (May—June, 1925).

— 10—



many, unrelated items of material culture is regarded as a

fact of special significance for their common origin.

This theory of the diffusion of culture has already been

worked out for all parts of the globe. It is obvious that

such an establishment of culture cycles is of immense value

in a study of the history of cultural development. The in-

clusion of various cultural elements in compact groups or

cycles is not based upon a priori “evolutionary” schemes, but

upon careful examination of the data of culture. The only

valid objection that may be brought at present against the

theory of culture cycles is that an intensive study o'f all cul-

tural data and contributions has not yet been made. But

even though this be true, we have no good reason to reject

the theory. As a working hypothesis it has already proved

to be a splendid tool for students of social origins, while a

number of facts have been fully established. One of these

is that certain features of material culture invariably ac-

company definite acquisitions of a spiritual and social order.

But if the coexistence of so many definite cultural acqui-

sitions of both the material and the spiritual kind is only

an external fact, and if their coexistence is to be seen in

widely separate regions of the globe, it is impossible that

such a large number of heterogeneous and unrelated cultural

traits should be found together, in the same way, merely by

chance. This constant association can only be accounted for

by historic contact between the tribes of the respective lo-

calities, even though now they be widely separated one from

the other. The various cultural traits must once have been

organically united for the formation of the cultural life of

a people residing in a definite locality, that is, they must

have formed a definite and well marked culture cycle. The

coalescence of these elements into a compact and organic

whole became permanent because no item could be lost or

neglected without interfering with an essential need;, the

coherence was maintained at different points to which the

cycle was transferred by the migration of tribes.

Two Practical Rules

At least two practical rules, highly useful in a study

of social origins, have been established by the historical

— 11—



school of culture. First, a culture cycle, which in whatever

part of the world it be found, seems to be the oldest, must

actually be regarded as such. Second, a culture complex

which breaks into or overlays another, did not arise at this

place of division and contact.

But after these culture centres, and their limits, traits

and types, together with an approximate time period to ac-

count for diffusion over a large area have been ascertained,

the question of the development of the various elements of

culture may be answered. Questions as to the primitive fam-

ily, the development of the State, of religion, of economic

and industrial life, are ready for solution. To answer these

important problems of social origin we apply neither the

ascending evolutionary theory nor that of deterioration. We
have recourse only to facts which are ascertained by purely

objective study.

But though this theory of cultural diffusion is accepted

by many leading ethnologists it does not answer all the

objections of defenders of cultural evolution. Let us, there-

fore, turn to a critical examination of the latter theory.

Many discussions of the origin of social institutions are

vitiated and rendered scientifically worthless by the tendency

to find ready explanations for similar customs among widely

separated races by a principle that has been extensively

used in biology, that is, by evolution.

Dr. Lowie accounts for this tendency. He says:

“When evolutionary principles, having gained general

acceptance in biology, had begun to affect all philosophical

thinking, it was natural to extend them to the sphere of

social phenomena. Among the first to embark on this ven-

ture was Lewis H. Morgan, whose ethnographical treatise

on the Iroquois had established his repuation as an accurate

and sympathetic observer of primitive custom. Under the

influence of evolutionary doctrines Morgan ontlined a com-

plete scheme for the development of human marriage. It

was eminently characteristic of the intellectual atmosphere

of the period that Morgan's first stage should be a condition

of perfect promiscuity Morgan made no pretense at pro-

ducing empirical proof of pristine promiscuity He ad-

vanced promiscuity as a logical postulate precisely as some

— 12 —



evolutionary philosophers advance the axiom of spontaneous

generation; and thereby placed it beyond the range of scien-

tific discussion.”0 )

Again, in his book “Culture and Ethnology,” 10 ) Dr,

Lowie, discussing “The Determinants of Culture” (Chapter

IV) says: “What are the determinants of culture? We have

found that cultural traits may be transmitted from without

and in so far are determined by the culture of an alien

people. The extraordinary extent to which such diffusion

has taken place proves that the actual development of a

gjiven culture does not conform to innate laws necessarily

leading to definite results, such hypothetical laws being over-

ridden by contact with foreign peoples. But even where a’

culture is of a relatively indigenous growth, comparison

with other cultures suggests that one step does not necessar-

ily lead to another, that an invention like the wheel or the

domestication of an animal occurs in one place and does not

occur
,

in another. To the extent of such diversity we must

abandon the quest for general formulae of cultural evolution

and recognize as the determinant of a phenomenon the

unique course of its past history. . . . And as the engineer

calls on the physicist for a knowledge of mechanical laws,

so the social builder of the future who would seek to re-

fashion the culture of his time and add to its cultural values

will seek guidance from ethnology, the science of culture.”

(Pages 95-97.)

Dr. Clark Wissler, of the American Museum of Natural

History, defends “the historical conception of culture” as

opposed to the evolutionary scheme. 11 ) The “historical

school” in ethnology and the science of man is gradually

gaining wider recognition among students of primitive so-

ciety. Under the caption “The* Historical Conception of

Culture” (page 352, 1. c.) Dr. Wissler writes: “Sociology

and Anthropology have sought to interpret culture as the

mere expression of organic evolution, but such interpreta-

tions could not be made consistent with the data. Heredity

did not appear to perpetuate the different forms of culture

9) “Primitive Society/*
10) New York, Douglas C. McMurtrie, 1917.
11) “The American Indian: An Introduction to the Anthro-

pology of the New World,” N. Y., Douglas C. McMurtrie, 1917.

— 13—



found in the world, nor could it in any way account for che

cultural associations formed by the historical nations. A

good illustration of this difficulty is found in language;

everyone knows that a language is not inherited, for if

such were the case, a person would speak French, Algonquin

or Chinese according to his parentage, and not according to

his first associates. Neither are shooting with bows or

kindling fire with fire drills inherited. Yet such are the

elements that constitute culture complexes. It appears,

then, that the form and direction the development of cul-

ture takes is something of another sort from that followed

hy organic evolution, because the perpetuating mechanism

is not the same. Further, the knowledge we now possess

of culture prohibits any fundamental distinctions m mis
respect between, say, the Eskimo and the English, for in

neither case is the particular form of culture perpetuated

by direct inheritance. The phenomenon of English culture

is made the subject matter of English history, but it is a

fair assumption that the causes that operate in it are of

the same general type as those that operate in Eskimoan

culture. Hence, in dealing with problems of culture, we

must take our points of regard from the historian because

he deals with the phenomena where the approaches are

most complete and direct. We assume, therefore, that tb.6
culture complex of the Eskimo grew up in the same man-

ner as that of England and is, in other words, a historical

fact. Both are conceived of as perpetuated and evolved by

social mechanisms. On the other hand, the straight black

hair of the New World native and the more specific cephalic

character of the Eskimo are not facts of the same series

and are perpetuated by a mechanism we call inheritance.

“It seems strange that these two series of facts should

be continually confused to the extent of reading the inter-

pretations arising from one directly into the structure of

the other. In so far, then, as anthropology deals with cul-

ture, which is, after all, the only distinctly human phenom-

enon in the objective sense, it conceives of it as historical

phenomena and this conception is in so far the soul of its

method.”

In fact, modern ethnologic science, as represented by

— 14—



Lowie, Wissler, Kroeber, and Laufer in America, and

Schmidt, Koppers and Graebner in Europe, has done away

with the antiquated notions and “high-piling” evolutionary

hypotheses of L. H. Morgan and Herbert Spencer. Ethnol-

ogy is now recognized as the only science that can furnish

the data absolutely necessary for the earlier story of human

progress. This fact seems to be ignored by many of. the text-

book makers. They are apparently unaware of the rapid pro-

gress, that ethnologic research has made during the last forty

years. There are ambitious chapters on “Social Evolution”

in some of the text-books on sociology, in which the old

theories of Spencer and Lubbock are handed down as if

they still held good today. Some of these pedagogs seem

not to know that the elaborate classifications of forms of

human association in Morgan’s “Ancient Society” are no

longer held by anthropologists, that Spencer’s “Principles of

Sociology” is a “compilation,- based on materials collected

by assistants,” and propounds views which now “are ig-

nored by ethnologists,”12
)
and that the multitudinous data

of Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” may prove anything, and,

as a matter of fact, have received most diverse interpreta-

tions at the hands of students of primitive culture and folk-

lore.

Frazer’s Fallacies

But the writer who has been chiefly responsible in rec-

ent years for the application of “evolutionary principles”

to the study of social institutions like the family, the

state, private property, etc., is Sir J. G. Frazer. The thir-

teen volumes of “The Golden Bough” and the three tomes of

“Folklore in the Old Testament” have furnished material to

those who are anxious for data in “proof” of cultural evo-

lution. But though his data are interesting and have been

collected from an immense field they will not serve the

purpose of establishing cultural evolution.

For the fallacies of Frazer’s methods in reaching his

“conclusions” have often been pointed out by critics. By.

means of his methods almost any “conclusion” can be

maintained. Frazer himself admits the weakness of his

12) “Source Book for Social Origins,” by W. I. Thomas,
Chicago, 1919.

— 15—



position by the introduction of numerous qualifying phrases:

“perhaps,” “it may be the case,” “it seems possible,” etc.

In this way, of course, many a hypothesis “may” be proved,

but the question is, does the citation of multitudinous “ex-

amples” from the folk-lore of nations prove Frazer's con-

tention that all law, all religion, all morality spring from

primitive tribal customs and superstitious practices? Many

first-rate authorities answer with a decided negative.

On the contrary, in spite of the apparently overwhelm-

ing testimony for the support of his thesis, Frazer bases

far-reaching inferences upon an extremely weak scaffold-

ing. For when his instances and “analogies” are critically

examined, it will be seen that they are far from being

proofs for his theories.

In spite of his reckless procedure in compiling his data

to support a preconceived opinion, some writers of sociologic

texts are well content to copy Frazer. They seem never to

have learnt that the far-fetched analogies, the customs and

tribal practices and primitive superstitions cited by the

author with such remarkable facility to strengthen his case,

are now admitted to bear more than one interpretation, and

so turn out to be useless to bolster up a preconceived

opinion like that of Frazer.

But Frazer had held the field so long that he has simply

run wild in his mania for constructing theories on huge

heaps of unrelated data, gathered from the vast literature of

travel and exploration of the last two centuries. Andrew

Lang succeeded in laying wide breaches in the system so

elaborately constructed, and now, the two scholarly editors

of ‘Anthropos,’ Fr. William Schmidt, S. V. D., and Fr.

William Koppers, S. V. D., are gradually dismantling a

building reared high, but lacking solid basis. Frazer is one

of those anthropologists whom Professor G. W. Mitchell

takes to task (‘The Dial', Feb. 22, 1919, page 206) and who

delight in “finding evolutions and ready explanations at

.will, and piling hypothesis on hypothesis, as if building high

enough on a theory would convert it into fact.”

Frazer himself admits that his findings are question-

able. He says: ’‘Hypotheses are necessarily but often temp-

orary bridges built to connect isolated facts. If my light

— 16—



bridges should sooner or later break down, I hope that my

book may still have its utility and its interest as a reper-

tory of facts.”

Dr. Wilhelm Schmidt comments as follows on this

admission: “It is, perhaps, this readiness of Mr. Frazer

to give up his own theories, to swallow, like Kronos, his

own children, that has contributed to the fact that if his

works are universally appreciated as most valuable collec-

tions of facts, his theories have found relatively few adher-

ents.

“As I have said, I wonder, and it is a psychological

enigma to me, why Mr. Frazer, ready to give up so many

theories, that he might be styled an absolute skeptic, is so

enthusiastic in defending absolute truth in one determined

direction? If Mr. Frazer himself has already so many

times changed the direction of his guns, why should it not

be possible to turn them also in a direction quite opposed

to that in which he intended to direct them formerly?”

E*at the theory that cultural progress necessarily fol-

lows rigid lines and that one stage of social advance imper-

atively demands a definite antecedent, in other words, that

there is a process of unilinear evolution, is now abandoned

by all the larger ethnologists.

— 17—



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

CHAPTER I.

1. How has sociology been enriched during the last half

century ?

2. Of what does ethnology treat?

3* What is one of the important results of the study of
primitive people ?

4. Define culture from the viewpoint of anthropology.

5. What is the main idea of the historical school of the
study of culture?

6. What accounts for the reckless application of evolution-
ary principles to the study of culture?

7. What is a serious objection to Frazer's use of data
collected from many nations?

8. Have missionaries made any contributions to the sci-
ence of ethnology?

9. What is the value of missions from the social and the
scientific point of view?

10. Would you call the American Indians “primitive” in
the same sense as races like the Pygmies of Africa or

the Andaman Islanders?

11. Who has a better chance of coming to a closer under-
standing of the life of primitve people—the trader and
explorer or the missionary? Why?

12. Read the articles on Fr. De Smedt, S. J., on Jesuit Re-
lations, California Missions in the Catholic Encyclo-

pedia, and tell what the missionaries have done to
spread .knowledge of Indian life.

13. Read some of the late numbers of a Catholic mission-

ary journal and tell what missionaries in foreign lands
are doing to record the remains of primitive culture and

religion.

14. Collect facts from the books of Charles F. Lummis on
the civilizing work of the Franciscan missionaries in
Southwestern United States.

15. Give the story of the foundation and destruction of the

Reductions of Paraguay.

— 18—



SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS

CHAPTER I.

Lowie, Robert. Primitive Society. New York, 1920. (One
of the best books to help become acquainted with xhe

attitude of the new school of American Anthro-

pology. It offers the decisive refutation of the

theory of cultural evolution.)

Culture and Ethnology. New York, 1917.
(Contains good explanations of the development

and spread of culture.)

Msgr. Le Roy. La Religion des Primitifs, translated by Rev.

Newton Thompson. New York, 1920. (A scholarly
work by a veteran missionary in the African held.

It rejects many of the false impressions on African
tribes spread abroad by hasty travelers. The book

contains a brief introduction to the study of Com-
parative Religion.)

Muntsch, S. J., Albert. Evolution and Culture. St. Louis,

1923. (Contains a summary of arguments against
evolutionary theories on the development of culture.)

Sapir, Edward. Language. An Introduction to the Study cf
Speech. New York, 1921. (Offers proof of the
high development of “primitve” languages.)

Wissler, Clark. The American Indian. New York, 1917.
(Very valuable for a picture of the life and culture

of the American Indian tribes. Incidentally the
book offers arguments for the historical concept of

culture growth as opposed to the evolutionary

schemes.)

Man and Culture. New York, 1923. (One
of the best modern treatises on the anthropologic
concept of culture, the form and content of culture
and the relation of culture to man.)

19 —



CHAPTER II.

THE PRIMITIVE FAMILY, THE UNIT OF SOCIAL

ORGANIZATION

Sociologists speak of the family as the fundamental

social unit, that is, as the fundamental group without which

there could be no orderly and desirable social progress. It

is also the typical primary group in which there is face-to-

face communication and the closest cooperation in all mat-

ters making for the welfare of the individuals of the group.

These primary groups, i. e. a number of families banded

together, constitute the earliest form of social organization,

a community united to secure the welfare of all its compo-

nents. This is the primitive State. The family precedes

the State, it is prior to any definite type of tribal organiza-

tion or government controlling the behavior of individuals

of different families.

The importance of the family in social life is also ap-

parent from the fact that children receive their first train-

ing in this fundamental social institution. In the family

circle the child first learns its social duties. It is taught to

respect the rights of others and is shown the need of yield-

ing at times to the wishes and desires of others. From the

parents the child generally receives its first notions of re-

ligion, of God and of the worship man owes to a Supreme

Being. Finally, the family even precedes the school as an

educational agency, at least in the order of time. For the

child mind is first developed by contact with the other mem-

bers of the family. Communication with the members of

this primary group develops the faculty of speech and so

implants the rudiments of knowledge.

This high rating of the family as “the social world in

miniature,” in which practically all the relationships that

characterize social life in general are found, is accepted by

all sociologists. But there is by no means a similar una-

nimity concerning the status of the primitive family. In

fact, the easy theory of “innate and uniform laws of social

evolution,” which exist only in the minds of some writers.

— 20 —



is here applied much to the detriment of the scientific study

of early family life. One of the much quoted writers of this

school is L. H. Morgan, author of a work on “Ancient So-

ciety.” He has developed what one sociologist calls “an ex-

tremely interesting and ingenious theory of the evolution

of the family.” But it is at the same time thoroughly false.

Morgan assumes a previous condition of primitive promis-

cuity upon which he establishes the five stages of develop-

ment of the family. These are:

1. Consanguine Family, or the intermarriage of broth-

ers and sisters belonging to a single group.

2. Punaluan, or the marriage of each of several sisters

in a group with the others’ husbands, or of each

of several brothers in a group with the others’ wives.

3. Syndiasmian, or the marriage (often temporary and

unexclusive as to cohabitation) of a single pair.

4. Patriarchal, a mode allowing to one man several

wives.

5. Monogamy, the marriage of single pairs with ex-

clusive cohabitation.

Dow, who calls this classification “suggestive” as well

as “interesting and ingenious,” admits that it “has not gen-

erally been accepted among sociologists.” Unfortunately,

however, such unfounded terms as “evolution of family life”

are so current in works of sociology treating on the family,

that it is time to do away effectively with the mischievous

theory.

Morgan’s Erroneous Preconceptions

Dr. Lowie has given us the soundest criticism of Mor-

gan’s scheme and asserts that he (Morgan) “made no pre-

tense at producing empirical proof of pristine promiscuity.”

But he was so carried away by his preconceptions that not

having found just what he wanted among the American ab-

origines to fit in his classificatory scheme, he went to the

tribes of Polynesia. But, says Lowie, 1
) “had Morgan not

been smitten with purblindness by his theoretical pre-

possessions, he might well have paused before ascribing to

the Polynesians the part they play in his scheme. For the

1) Primitive Society, p. 57.

— 21 —



aboriginal civilization of Polynesia, instead of suggesting*

by its crudeness an extreme antiquity for any and all of

its constituents, must rank among the very noblest of cult-

ures devoid of the metallurgical art. When Morgan assigned

to this settled, politically organized and marvelously aesthetic

race the lowest status among surviving divisions of man-

kind he attained the high-water level of absurdity, which

accounts of Oceanian exploration, accessible even in his day,

would have sufficed to expose.”

Anthropologists agree in saying that some of the most

primitive of extant tribes are the Andaman Islanders. Yet

these primitives are remarkable for the purity of their

family life. Mr. E. H. Man, one of the best authorities on

these people, says: “We have been told that the system of

communal marriage prevails among them, and that marriage

is nothing more than providing oneself with a slave. But the

marriage contract is so far from being a temporary make-

shift, which can be disregarded at the will of either one of

the two parties, that not even difference of temperament or

any other cause can sunder the union. While polygamy,

polyandry and divorce are unknown, marital fidelity unto

death is not the exception, but the rule. Domestic quarrels,

which are of rather rare occurrence, are easily settled with

or without intervention of friends.” 2
)

The Negritos of the Malay Peninsula are equally prim-

itive; yet authentic reports prove their high morality. W.

W. Skeat writes with authority of these tribes which he

studied so closely. In his “Pagan Races of the Malay Pe-

ninsula” he says: “All indications point to the fact that once

married, the parties remain true to one another, and cases

of infidelity are extremely rare.”

Errors Concerning Primitive Family Still Wide-Spread

It was necessary to give these details because even to-

day erroneous teachings concerning the primitive family are

found in sociologic writings. In a chapter on “The Social

Composition,” Professor Giddings 3
)

writes:

2) On the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands,
London, 1883.

3) The Principles of Sociology, New York, 1904.

— 22—



“Among savages generally, desertion, divorce and re-

marriage are extremely frequent.”

This is a specimen of the unsound generalization that

characterizes a good deal of writing in our sociologic texts.

Wild statements of this kind have become traditional in cer-

tain schools, while contrary facts are carefully left unnoticed

or unexplained. As regards the three social plagues re-

ferred to by Professor Giddings we should remember that

there is only one nation in the world today which holds a

higher (or lower) record than the United States. This is

Japan. So we may wonder whether the Professor con-

siders them as evils or as desirable manifestations of social

life.

It is Mr. Giddings’ opinion on “the family life of the

primitive man” that we wish to examine. He gives it (1. c.,

page 264) in the following words: “There is at least a reas-

onable presumption that the family of the primitive man was

an intermediate development between the family of the high-

est animals and that of the lowest living man. If so, it was

a simple pairing family, easily dissolved, and perhaps rarely

lasting for life” (page 264). Again we have “perhaps” and

“a reasonable presumption.” The reader will have noticed

that “reasonable presumption,” “we may readily imagine.”

etc., are favorite phrases of Giddings whenever he gets into

the field of ethnology.

In support of his “reasonable presumption,” Giddings

refers in a footnote to Westermarck, “History of Human

Marriage,” pages 14, 15 and 50.

But that was unfortunate for Giddings. A careful
reading of the pages referred to, shows that not only is

there no “reasonable presumption” for Giddings’ opinion,

but that Westermarck has given no stronger proofs any-

where in his book for the relatively high moral state of the

primitive family.

The sentence in Giddings leading up to the “reasonable

presumption” reads as follows:

“Living in environments more favorable than those of

the lowest hordes of today, primitive men were probably

often massed in relatively large bands, and their sexual re-

lations may therefore have been even more irregular than

— 23—



those of any existing horde” (page 264). (Please notice

the “probably” and the “may have been.”)

Now compare this statement with Westermarck (1. c.,

pages 14 and 15): “With the exception of a few cases in

which tribes are asserted to live together promiscuously,

—

almost all of which assertions I shall prove further on to be

groundless,—travelers unanimously agree that in the human
race the relations of the sexes are, as a rule, of more or less

durable character. The family, consisting of father, mother

and offspring, is a universal institution, whether founded on

a monogamous, polygamous, or polyandrous marriage.”

We “presume” the students in many courses of sociol-
ogy piously accept such “reasonable presumptions” as above,

on the word of the professor, and never think of verifying

the “authorities” in the footnotes. We would suggest that

they do so hereafter.

All that the Professor can say in answer to the charge

of misinterpreting his “sources” is that he refers to the

edition of 1891 (in his Bibliography, page 432), whereas

the present writer quotes from the third edition (1901);

but W. I. Thomas informs us that there are “no im-

portant changes from the first edition.” In fact, in the la-

test (fifth) edition of his work (1922), 4 ) Westermarck re-

iterates his earlier opinion more emphatically, and in the

light of recent research in the following heading of Chapter

III, Vol. I: “No known savage people living in promiscuity;

the hypothesis of a general stage of promiscuity entirely

groundless; sexual relations most nearly relating to pro-

miscuity not found among the very lowest races, but among

more advanced people.”

In conclusion, we quote Westermarck’s final sentence

from this “Criticism of the Hypothesis of Promiscuity”

(Edition of 1901, page 133):

“There is not a shred of genuine evidence for the notion

that promiscuity ever formed a general stage in the social

history of mankind. The hypothesis of promiscuity, instead

of belonging, as Professor Giraud-Teulon thinks, to the class

of hypotheses which are scientifically permissible, has no

real foundation, and is essentially unscientific.”

4) New York, 1922.

— 24 —



Promiscuity Unknown Among Truly Primitve People

If we examine family life among the primitive tribes

of South Africa—that is, among tribes untouched by civili-
zation—we again find a picture totally different from that
painted by the adherents of the evolutionary school of cul-

ture. And in the case of the African Pygmies we have a

witness of unimpeachable authority. It is Bishop Le Roy

who wrote a book on “The Religion of the Primitives,” but

did not write it until he had spent thirty-two years with his

black flock. He went to Africa in 1877, beginning work

there on the East coast, and published his book in 1909.

He possesses a thorough knowledge of the language of the

Bantu, and was enrolled as a member of one of their totem-

istic societies.

Bishop Le Roy 5 ) says at the beginning of his first

chapter on “The Primitive and the Family,” that “among

primitive tribes of Africa, as well as those of other coun-

tries, the family is the central pillar with which religion

and the whole social life is linked; if the family is solidly

established, the tribe is prosperous. But if it breaks up,

the tribe becomes weakened; and if, as happens on the Coast

and in European districts, it is dissolved entirely, the tribe

disappears.”

Taking up the wild statement of a French sociologist,

Gustave Le Bon, who says that at the beginning of human

society we find everywhere “la promiscuity generale” Bishop

Le Roy says: “It is possible that this herd-like condition

may have existed among some human groups (quelques

groupements humains) especially wretched. But before

changing such an hypothesis into an incontestable truth, it

would be wise to establish it by definite facts. The one cei-

tain fact is this, that nowhere in Africa today can we find

traces of this promiscuity except in the vast steppes

of the eastern and southern zones—among herds of

5) “La Religion des Primitifs” par Mgr. Le Roy, Paris,
1900. An English translation of this scholarly work has been
prepared by Rev. Newton Thompson, under the title “The
Religion of the Primitives.” The publishers' notice correctly
says of it that it is a “missionary work that reads like a
fascinating adventure story. A new and attractive exploration
into the depths of the human soul. One long proof that men
are incurably re'ligious.”

25—



antelopes. As to man, the closer we come towards the peo-

ple of a general primitive nature (d’aspect general primitif),

as are the Negritos and the San, the more evidence we find

of family life, of the family precisely as the fundamental,

necessary and unshaken basis of society.”

It is gratifying to place this clear testimony, so directly

opposed to the “stage of sexual communism as it is pictured

by Morgan's school,” beside the equally vigorous conclusion

of Dr. Lowie: “Sexual communism as a condition taking

the place of the individual family exists nowhere at the

present time; and the arguments for its former existence

must be rejected as unsatisfactory. This conclusion will

find confirmation in the phenomena of primitive family life”

<1. c. page 62).

Treatment of Women in Primitive Society

We may conclude this chapter with some statements on

the treatment of woman in primitive society. The position

of woman in any tribe is a fair index of its cultural status.

Evolutionists seem to take pride in pointing to the “de-

graded condition” of woman in all primitive societies. They

depict her as an abject slave of her physically stronger con-

sort, loaded down with intolerable burdens, driven and mal-

treated like an animal. The man is alleged to have taken

things easy, to have had “a good time” in sport and revelry.

Hence there can be no question of the equal position of man

and woman in the primitive family (Urfamilie). So say

Lubbock, and some socialist writeis like Bebel.

But scholarly research gives us just the reverse of this

imaginative picture. What we have already said about prev-

alence of monogamy shows that the picture drawn by the

evolutionary delirium is false. Those students who had op-

portunity to study particular tribes more intimately admit

this charge against the evolutionists.

Seligmann writes in his book on the Veddahs that “in

every respect women seem to be treated equally with

men; they eat the same food, and when we gave the

men presents of eatables, they apparently offered the women

and children their share.” Hewitt knew of several cases

— 26—



among the Kulin and Chepara, tribes of Southeast Austra-

lia, of men carrying their wives, who were too old or in-

firm, over long distances. Man says of the Andaman Island-

ers that they treat their wives in such a considerate manner,

as to be models for certain classes among European nations.

Seldom has popular fallacy run riot so wildly as in

this point—the condition of woman in primitive society.
Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt says that this is the case concerning

woman among the American Indians. He writes:

“One of the most erroneous beliefs relating to the sta-

tus and condition of the American Indian woman is that

she was, both before and after marriage, the abject slave

and drudge of the men of her tribe in general. This view,

due largely to inaccurate observation and misconception, was

correct, perhaps, at times, as to a small percentage of the

tribes and peoples whose social organization was of the most

elementary kind, politically and ceremonially, and especially

of such tribes as were non-agricultural.”

Mr. Hewitt then quotes several authorities on the treat-

ment of Indian women by the stronger sex, and continues:

“From what has been said it is evident that the author-

ity possessed by the Indian husband over his wife or wives

was far from being as absolute as represented by careless

observers, and there is certainly no ground for saying that

the Indians generally kept their women in a condition of

absolute subjection. The available data show that while

the married woman, because of her status as such, became

a member of her husband’s household and owed him cer-

tain important duties and obligations, she enjoyed a large

measure of independence and was treated with great con-

sideration and deference, and had a marked influence over

her husband. Of course, various tribes had different con-

ditions to face, and possessed different institutions, and so

it happens that in some tribes the wife was the equal of

her husband, and in others she was his superior in many

things, as among the Iroquois and tribes similarly organ-

ized.’^)

6) Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. Bureau
of American Ethnolog-y, Bulletin 30, Part 2, Art. Woman.

27 —



A Difference Between Primitives and More

Advanced Tribes

On the basis of these facts we see that it is unscientific

to speak of the evolution of the family from a brute con-

dition in which lust ruled supreme. If the picture here

presented has also its darker features we are not surprised.

The utopia, where perfect peace and harmony prevail and

where the strong never oppresses the weak, is found only

in the regions of romance. It is at least definitely estab-

lished that the lurid protrayal of “primitive savage live”

as a stage abounding in every abomination is false. In fact,

later periods show the dominance of ugly excesses like can-

nibalism and human sacrifice, whereas during the childhood

of the race man worshipped the deity by offering the fruits

of the earth, by prayer and by rites which were free from

the grossness of later periods. As regards human sacrifice

among highly cultured races it is only necessary to recall

the highly developed civilization of the Aztecs of Ancient

Mexico and their inhuman practices at the shrine of the god

of war. Such abominations did not vitiate the culture of

the real primitives like the Pygmies of Africa and of the

Andaman Islands, the Veddahs of Ceylon and the Australian

aborigines.

Again, the Bassonge of the interior of Africa occasion-

ally practiced ferocious cannibalism. Yet, according to the

testimony of a close observer, “these cannibal Bassonge

were, according to the types we met with, one of those rare

nations of the African interior which can be classed with

the most aesthetic and skilled, most discreet and intelligent

of all those generally known to us as the so-called natural

races Before the Arabic and European invasion they did

not dwell in ‘hamlets’, but in towns with twenty or thirty

thousand inhabitants, in towns whose highways were shaded

by avenues of splendid palms planted at regular intervals

and laid out with the symmetry of colonnades.” 7 )

7) “The Voice of Africa”, by L-eo Frobenius, 1913, p. 14.

— 28—



QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

CHAPTER II.

1. What is the importance of the family in social organ-

ization ?

2. Why is it a “Primary Group”?

3. What is the relation of the family to the State?

4. What is the verdict of modern research on L. H. Mor-
gan’s theory of the “evolution of the family”?

5. What do we know of family life among some very
primitive people?

6. What is the verdict of Bishop Le Roy on family life
among the African Pygmies?

7. What was the position of woman in primitive society?
Is it true that she was everywhere considered a “slave” ?

8. Did abominations like human sacrifice exist among
really primitive people?

9. Is the monogamous family the best type of this funda-
mental social institution? Why?

10.

What has Christianity done for woman and for the
preservation of the monogamous family?

— 29—



CHAPTER III.

FORCES DISRUPTIVE OF THE MODERN FAMILY

In his interesting book “Social Origins,” Andrew Lang

says: “The family is the most ancient and the most sacred

of human institutions, the least likely to be overthrown by

revolutionary attacks.” Much water has flowed under the

bridge since the above statement was written in 1893. For

almost every book of sociology refers to “the disruptive

factors of the modern family,” to its changing status or to

its actual disintegration. Hence some of the “revolutionary

attacks” directed against it have become effective. These

disruptive factors affecting home and family are many and

have been variously classified under the doctrine of neo-Mal-

thusianism, lax marriage and divorce laws, woman’s grow-

ing economic freedom, the break-up of home-life, the rise

of individualism, the upward extension of education, the

seeking of amusement outside the home, etc.

Besides these disintegrating factors influencing the

modern family, others may be mentioned. For the present

we may accept those cited as accounting for a large number

of shattered families and broken homes.

Conditions in Europe, as regards disintegration of home

and family life, are about the same as those in our country.

Long before the great War, French writers spoke of “les

maux dont meurt la Famille, ”—“evjls bringing on the death
of the family.” M. Etienne Lamy, of the French Academy,

has written a Preface to a book entitled “The Plot Against

The Family,” 1 ) in which he says: “In our time, rich in

imaginary plots, you denounce as the most threatening the

plot against the family, the source on which depends the

continuity of the species, the first school of the living being,

the group with which society begins. The family is the

most essential of human institutions. Nothing is in jeop-

ardy as long as it remains intact; everything is in danger

as soon as it decays As the same race, which no longer

1) Le Complot contre la famille per Georges Noblemaire,
Paris 1908.

-30—



renews itself in France, is multiplying in Canada, its ster-

ility is not organic but voluntary. This race has been fruit-

ful in France as long as morals and laws united to fortify

those social groups which protected the individual.”

Neo-Malthusianism

The learned academician refers to that plague which

has caused all Frenchmen who truly love their country to

be fearful of its future. If there be no increase in popula-

tion, who will in future years keep alive the culture and

traditions of the nation? A race that does not obey the
moral law as regards its duty to provide future citizens, is

a race that will be swept away by a stronger people.

French sociologists have tried to combat what they

aptly call the “mal des foyers”, the evil attacking homes.

For to oppose or restrict the coming of children into the

world by unlawful means is a blow both at the sanctity

and the stability of the. home. The doctrines of neo-Mal-

thusianism which advocate the policy of voluntary birth

restriction by means which Christian morality declares un-

lawful, are not a factor for strengthening and uplifting, but

for weakening and debasing the family. Nor is it true that

neo-Malthusianism (birth control) will help to save families

from falling into poverty. Indeed some of our closest stu-

dents of social conditions agree that the Malthusian doctrine

ought to be rejected from both the moral and the economic

standpoint. For the use of the vicious and immoral means

taught by the Malthusians cannot be condoned. While from

the latter point of view, it must be borne in mind that the

statement of Malthus: “Population tends to increase in a

geometric progression whilst the means of subsistence can

only increase in an arithmetic progression” is not true. It

is false to say that production has not kept pace with popu-

lation; what was true in the days of Malthus, does not

necessarily hold for the economic life of today. We have
developed intensive farming, we have new and improved

machinery; what were formerly waste-products, have now

an economic utility; new countries and new sources of food

supply have been acquired and a more rapid distribu-

tion of commodities has been effected.

— 31 —



Moreover, if we compare the abstract tendency of the

human race to increase beyond the means of subsistence

with the increase of the means of subsistence, the greater

increase will be found on the side of the means of subsist-

ence. For it is impossible to show that natural productive

farces have already reached their maximum. While the in-

crease of population is checked by accidents, death, disease

and natural calamities, there has been a steady development

of means of food supply.

At most the “law of diminishing returns” may be called

in proof of gradually decreasing means of subsistence. But

experts tell us that new inventions in machinery will help

meet the problem while its full solution may be left to the

wisdom of far distant generations.

We have ample means to combat the evils of the pres-
ent economic and industrial order. The causes of these evils

are not overpopulation and inadequate production. But there

is too great a difference in the distribution of wealth, while

faulty methods regulate that distribution. There is also too

much sordid greed and selfishness in all classes of society.

Hence, there must be a spiritual awakening. The realization

that man has other and higher interests than those of an

economic nature, and that Christian charity and justice

must become two corner stones of the new social order, will

pave the way to the spiritual awakening that can lead to

social peace.

Instead of fierce competition in the production and

sale of commodities let there be economic cooperation.

Economic or democratic cooperation, which has been suc-

cessfully tested in various industries, means sharing of

control and management and the distribution of rewards in

accordance with the value of the several contributions of

the cooperators. “This can be done,” says Mr. Glenn

Plumb, “in producers’ or consumers’ cooperatives, as effec-

tively as in any basic or other industry organized and con-

ducted in the corporate form.”

An industry, based upon economic cooperation, will

fully satisfy its sole function of supplying economic wants.

For, says Mr. Plumb: “It has truly been said that a single

fact that cannot be reconciled with a particular theory is

— 32—



sufficient to overthrow that theory. A single fact, the

fact of ‘overproduction’, defeats and disproves all the theo-

ries of economic pessimists from Malthus to our own time.”

We have already referred to imperfect methods of the distri-

bution of wealth. This causes the “over-production” to

which Mr. Plumb refers as an economic evil, in as much as

“the recent period of industrial depression was due to the

inability of the people to buy all that by their labor they

could produce.”

Moreover, if wise measures be passed, for instance, laws

in favor of applying labor and capital to agricultural rather

than to manufacturing interests, if monopolies in raw ma-

terials and in the necessaries of life be restrained, if the

making of commodities that minister rather to luxury than

to wants be curtailed, if large landed estates now kept only

for private pleasure be abolished, there will be little need

of Malthusian doctrine, preaching and practice.

An Eminent English Medical Authority

Finally, it will be in place to cite the words of an emi-

nent English medical authority on the evils of a doctrine

which is being strenuously propagated. “Both the support-

ers and the opponents of Malthus are often mistaken in

considering his greatest achievements to be a policy of birth

control. Malthus did a greater and a more evil thing. He

forged a law of nature, namely, that there is always a lim-

ited and insufficient supply of the necessities of life in the

world. From this false law he argued that, as population

increases too rapidly, the newcomers cannot hope to find

a sufficiency of good things; that the poverty of the masses

is not due to conditions created * by man, but to a natural

law; and that consequently this law cannot be altered by

any change in political institutions. This new doctrine was

eagerly adopted by the rich, who were thus enabled to argue

that Nature intended that the masses should find no room

at her feast; and that therefore our system of industrial

capitalism was in harmony with the Will of God. Most

comforting dogma! Most excellent anodyne for conscience

against acceptance of those rights of man that, being

ignored, found terrible expression in the French Revolution!

— 33 —



Without discussion, without investigation, and without proof,

our professors, politicians, leader-writers, and even our

well-meaning socialists, have accepted as true the bare

falsehood that there is always an insufficient supply of the

necessities of life; and to-day this heresy permeates all our

practical politics. In giving this forged law of nature to the

rich, Malthus robbed the poor of hope. Such was his crime

against humanity.”2
)

Dr. Sutherland quotes in turn the opinion of a noted

English woman physician, the late Sr. Elizabeth Blackwell.

She says: “A doctrine more diabolical in its theory and more

destructive in its practical consequences has never been in-

vented. This is the doctrine of neo-Malthusianism.”

Divorce.

The evil influence of voluntary family restriction can-

not be measured by statistics as can that of another factor

destructive of family life—divorce.
“There are more divorces granted in this country than

in all the rest of the world put together.” The writer who

makes this statement makes another in the same paragraph

to the effect that “the conditions are not all bad, for often

a divorce is a good thing in that it may be a relief of a

worse condition.” And anon we read: “The fact that we

have such a thing as divorce is not the alarming feature; it

is rather in the great increase of divorce in the United

States.”

This attitude towards the divorce problem is charac-

teristic of many sociologists. They realize that it is unwise

to plead for greater facility in sundering the marriage bond

and yet they look upon divorce as an agency of greater

social peace and progress. That in instances there result

increased peace and happiness for the individual or indi-

viduals concerned, no one will deny. But we are considering

the wider and more far-reaching effects of increasing insta-

bility of marriage; we are looking upon divorce as a vital

social problem.

One reason of the lax attitude of sociologists towards

2) Birth Control. H. G. Sutherland, M. D., London.

— 34 —



divorce and of the many attempts to encourage it still more

is found in their abhorrence of “theologic argument/
7

They

think that in the present question this argument is out of

date. A writer frankly admits: “We are quite aware of the

consistent opposition of certain religious groups and many

sincere individuals to the granting of divorce under any

circumstances. But we are not talking in terms of abstract

right and wrong or of theology. We are concerned with

objectively observable changes in human personality as the

result of changes in social arrangements such as divorce.
773

)

In other words, ethical principles of right and wrong

are to be set aside for the more urgent claim of changes in

human personality.

To this lax and unsound attitude towards divorce we

oppose the only true and consistent ethical doctrine, accord-

ing to which unity and indissolubility are the two chief

properties of marriage. By virtue of the latter character-

istic the marriage contract is of such a nature, that, once

entered upon, it continues in force until the death of one

of the contracting parties. The Pastoral Letter of the Arch-

bishops and Bishops of the country states an opinion on the

divorce evil which is shared by thousands of thinking men

in every community:

“We consider the growth of the divorce evil an evidence

of moral decay and a present danger to the best elements

in our American life. In its causes and their revelation by

process of law, in its results for those who are immediately

concerned and its suggestion to the minds of the entire com-

munity, divorce is our national scandal. It not only dis-

rupts the home of the separated parties, but it also leads

others who are not yet married, to look upon the bond as a

trivial circumstance. Thus, through the ease and frequency

with which it is granted, divorce increases with an evil

momentum until it passes the limits of decency and reduces

the sexual relation to the level of animal instinct.

“This degradation of marriage, once considered the holi-

est of human relations, naturally tends to the injury of other

things whose efficacy ought to be secured, not by coercion,

but by the freely given respect of a free people. Public

3 Queen and Mann, “Social Patholog-y,” p. 67.

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authority, individual rights and even the institutions on

which liberty depends, must inevitably weaken. Hence the

importance of measures and movements which aim at check-

ing the spread of divorce. It is to be hoped that they will

succeed; but an effectual remedy cannot be found or applied,

unless we aim at purity in all matters of sex, restore the

dignity of marriage and emphasize its obligations.”4
)

A Catholic sociologist has given the following as one
of the best arguments against divorce from the standpoint of

pure reason: Allow divorce (with the privilege of re-

marriage) in one case and the flood-gates are opened.

There is no way for unaided human reason to distinguish

between the enormity of one crime and that of another as

grounds for legal declaration of nullity. It may be argued

in reply that all human laws draw such distinctions; that

there are sentences of capital punishment and sentences of

a nominal fine. But in the matter of divorce all these van-

ish. The motives on the part of those seeking relief from

matrimonial ties are too subjective to allow of such dis-

tinctions, obvious enough in other matters.

The State and Divorce

It is rather inconsistent to say, as some sociologists do,

that the State has full rights over the standards of family

welfare and yet maintain that the State should tolerate di-

vorce as a means conducive to family welfare. For divorce

too often lowers and strikes a serious blow at “those edu-

cational and moral standards” of the home, which the State

should maintain. For in thousands of divorce cases chil-

dren are involved, and who will deny that the separation of

parents is injurious to the rearing and education' of the off-

spring ?

Neither science nor reason can remedy the evils born of

the ceaseless grinding of the divorce mills; the former

speaks with the faltering accent of human authority; the

latter does not provide the severe sanctions sometimes

needed to beat down the lure of sense. An appeal to the

shifting standards of social convention to combat the worst

4) Pastoral Letter of the Archbishops and Bishops of the
U. S., 1920.

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effects of increasing divorce is doomed to failure. Only a

loyal acceptance of the true Christian doctrine concerning

marriage, as both a contract and a sacrament, will save so-

ciety from the woful social effects of disregarding the sanc-

tity of the marriage bond and of marriage vows.

Reason and experience teach us that the only salvation

lies in the acceptance of the sound ethical doctrine defended

by the Church. Many Christian denominations are recog-

nizing the need of more stringent legislation to stem the

divorce evil. Again, thinking men are challenging the rea-

sons generally given for legitimizing divorce and are point-

ing out the risk society runs by failing to check the disorder.

M. Fonsegrive, a French sociologist, says: “To reduce mar-

riage to a matter of sense attraction and to assert the right

of free union (union libre) is to destroy the family, to auth-

orize the worst moral disorders As in our researches

we have not been guided by any dogma nor preconceived

opinion, but have followed only the facts of experience and

of reason, it seems to us very proper to conclude that the

doctrines of the Church at which we have arrived, are based

upon a solid and rational foundation.”

Nor is it right to speak harshly of “ecclesiastical con-

trol” of marriage, or of “new ethical standards” which are

developing. For the Church merely holds that civil society

cannot legitimately usurp control over matrimony, which is

a sacrament instituted by Christ. Nor can any “new

ethical code” justify an act which is wrong.

Professor Lichtenberger rightly says that “the forces

tending to counteract divorce are among the most efficient

elements of social control” In opposing the “divorce evil”

the Church is therefore exercising a most beneficent form

of social endeavor for the nation, and is not trying to hold

individuals to an “outworn code of ethics.”

We realize, of course, that there are certain social
forces working themselves out in the development of so-

ciety, and that these were bound to have a disintegrating

effect upon the family. Such causes are changing stand-

ards of living, pressure of new economic forces upon the

home, the lessened economic functions of the latter, new

avenues of self-support opened to women, the entrance of

— 37—



women into the professions and their consequent economic

emancipation, the growth of industrialism, the populariza-

tion of law, the spread of social discontent and the general

restlessness so characteristic of our age, and finally, the

inconsistency, as Professor Fairchild says, “between the

economic and marriage family mores.” While the former

have been forced to adjust themselves to the rapid changes

in industry, family conventions have remained more or less

intact.

These changes were inevitable and there is no need to

deplore them. But unfortunately they were accompanied

by a “spirit of independence,” and the consequent decay of

respect for authority. Here we touch upon one of the

“radical causes” why the rate of divorce is more rapid in

the United States than in any other country except Japan.

Professor Peters 5 ) thinks that the pronounced tenden-

cies toward the disruption of the family “began with the

individualism and freedom of thought of the Protestant

Reformation.” Perhaps so. But the fact is that ever since

that momentous crisis in history there has been a drifting

away of family life from its former moorings and from

those high ideals that once clung about the Christian hearth

and home.

“Let Us Unite to Abolish Divorce”

The divorce question gives concern to students of so-

ciety in other countries. Concluding an earnest appeal of

his countrymen to hold fast to the ancient Christian law re-

garding divorce, Rev. John J. O'Gorman, D. C. L., of Can-

ada, says: “The law against divorce was repromulgated by

Christ, not as a new law, but as a primeval law given in the

infancy of the race. The command ‘What therefore God

hath joined together let not man put asunder,' is at once

a law given by the Divine Founder of Christianity, and a

law given by the Divine Creator of nature. It is a law which

applies to Christians, Jews, and pagans, to lawyers and

newspaper editors, to voters and legislators. It is a natural

law observed by some of the most barbarous tribes in the

5) Foundation of Educational Sociology, p. 169.

38 —



history of mankind. Are we Canadians to have our moral

sense So blunted, our moral vision so blurred, our moral de-

cision so weakened, that we must have divorce, when the

savages of the Andaman Islands, the aborigines of Ceylon,

the Papuans of New Guinea, and other races just as bar-

barbarous, never tolerated it? In the name of God, let us

unite to abolish divorce.”

And these are timely reflections for our own people.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

CHAPTER III.

1. What is meant by “disintegrating forces” affecting the

the family?

2. Is France today suffering fom the evil of Neo-Malthu-

sian principles concerning the
/
family?

3. What is the theory of T. R. Malthus, and what is Neo-
Malthusianism ?

4. State your objections against this doctrine (See Birth

Control by H. G. Sutherland, M. D.)

5. What measures may be adopted to safeguard the wel-
fare of an increasing population?

6. What are some of the main causes of frequency of di-
vorce in the United States?

7. State the Catholic attitude towards marriage and di-

vorce.

8. To what extent is decayf of religious faith and dis-

respect for law and legitimate authority a cause of di-

vorce ?

9. Write a paper on the ideal Christian family.

10. What are some of the remedies to bring back the Chris-
tian family to the high ideals that once governed it?

11. What is meant by the decay of home life?
12. What changes in the family have followed changes in

economic conditions ?

13. In what respect was family life changed when industry
came to be carried on outside the home?

14. What is meant by the “Industrial Revolution”?
15. Has the employment of women had a marked influence

on home life? on the rate of divorce?
16. Does the monogamous family exist among so-called

“primitive races”?

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SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS

CHAPTERS II AND III.

Burke, S. J., Rev. E. J. Political Economy. New York, 1923.
(A brief explanation of all important economic

questions, which has found favor with many Cath-
olic teachers).

Coppens, S. J., Rev. Charles. A Brief Text-Book of Moral
Philosophy. Revised and enlarged by Rev. Henry

S. Spalding, S. J., New York, 1924. (Contains the
ethical basis of social questions which have been

much discussed during the last three decades).

Crawford, Virginia M. Ideals of Charity. London, 1908.

(A well-written treatise by an experienced English

social worker and student of social questions).

Dardano, L. Elements of Social Science and Political Econ-

omy. Dublin, 1909. (Contains good chapters on

the Family and on the State).

Devas, C. S. The Key to the World’s Progress. New York,
1919. (Gives an historical account of the contribu-

tions of the Catholic Church to civilization).

Political Economy. New York, 1918. (One
of the well-known Stonyhurst Series).

Fletcher, Margaret. The Christian Family. Oxford: Cath-

olic Social Guild. (Will be useful in the class-room

on account of its “Essay and Discussion Points”).

Gerrard, Rev. Thomas J. Marriage and Parenthood: The
Catholic Ideal. New York, 1911. (Contains chap-
ters on “Sanctity of Marriage” and the “Cathooc

Family”).

The Church and Eugenics, B. Herder, 1921. (Dis-

cusses the rise and spread of the eugenic move-

ment).

Koch-Preuss. A Handbook of Moral Theology. Vol. V.
Man’s Duties to His Fellowmen. (St. Louis, 1914).

Parkinson, Msgr. Henry. A Primer of Social Science. Third
Edition, London, 1920.

Ross, C. S. P., Rev. J. E. Christian Ethics. New York, 1919.

Spalding, S. J., Rev. Henry. Introduction to Social Service.

New York, 1923.

Sutherland, M. D., H. G. Birth Control. London, 1622.

Towne, Ezra Thayer. Social Problems. New York, 1919.

Vaughan, Sj J., Rev. Bernard. The Menace of the Empty
Cradle, London, 1917.

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