UC-NRLF 
 
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The National Social Science Series 
 
 Edited by Frank L. McVey, Ph.D., LL.D., 
 
 President of the 
 
 University of North Dakota 
 
 Now Ready 
 
 MONEY. William A. Scott, Director of the Course in 
 Commerce, and Professor of Political Economy, Uni- 
 versity of Wisconsin 
 
 TAXATION. C. B. Fillebrown, President Massachu- 
 chusetts Single Tax League, Author oi A B C of 
 Taxation 
 
 THE FAMILY AND SOCIETY. John M. Gillette, 
 Professor of Sociology, University of North Dakota 
 
 To Be Issued in 1914 
 
 THE STATE AND GOVERNMENT. John S. Young 
 
 THE CITY. Henry C Wright 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. Frank L. McVey 
 
 BANKS AND BANKING. William A. Scott 
 
 COMPETITION, FAIR AND UNFAIR. John 
 Franklin Crowell 
 
 Each Fifty Cents Net 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO., PUBLISHERS, CHICAGO 
 
THE 
 
 Family and Society 
 
 BY 
 
 John M. Gillette, Ph.D. 
 
 Professor of Sociology in the University of North 
 
 Dakota; Author of "Vocational Education" 
 
 and "Constructive Rural Socioloey" 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO. 
 
 1914 
 

 Cop5rright 
 
 A. C. McClurg & Co. 
 
 1914 
 
 Published January, 1914 
 
 Copyrighted in Great Britain 
 
 . F. HALL PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE , 
 
 THE original arrangement of Dr. Gillette's 
 book called for the placing of the third 
 chapter as the first and then proceeding from 
 the Biological Phases of Sex and Family to the 
 Origin of Marriage, the Evolution of the Family, 
 the Functions of the Family, and closing with 
 Some Current Conditions Affecting the Family. 
 The present arrangement of the table of con- 
 tents brings first to the reader's attention the 
 function which the family performs in a present 
 day society, while the chapter on the Biological 
 Phases of Sex and the Family is left for the 
 last of the book. This chapter deals rather 
 minutely with the origin of sex and its place in 
 social relations; the justification for the appear- 
 ance of the chapter in a book of this kind is to 
 be found, if for no other reason, in the great 
 interest in eugenics. Dr. Gillette has summa- 
 rized in an interesting way the discussion on 
 sex origin and in doing so has performed a 
 service that will be appreciated by those follow- 
 ing the trend of eugenic discussion. 
 
 F. L. M. 
 
 281466 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 THE large attention given the family in 
 recent years has been deserved because of 
 the antiquity of that institution, its comparatively 
 original and self-sufficing character, and its abil- 
 ity to mirror and prepare for the larger collective 
 life. No doubt the large place the social sciences 
 occupy in today's affairs, the ethnological and 
 sociological treatments of marriage and the fam- 
 ily, and the transformation which changing social 
 conditions have made in this domestic institution 
 largely account for the increased attention. 
 
 The present book does not seek to be original 
 in its treatment of the family. It does seek to 
 be authoritative, in the sense that the author has 
 consistently gone back to best authorities and 
 original documents for his facts. The work, 
 therefore, is not theoretical but factual. To the 
 measure of the writer's ability, it represents a 
 scientific interpretation of a large body of data. 
 It IS hoped that such a compendium and inter- 
 pretation may find a useful place in the lives of 
 busy men and women, and even prove to be an 
 intelligent guide to students of the family in a 
 larger study. 
 
 John M. Gillette. 
 
 University of North Dakota, 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter 1/ Functions of the Family .... i 
 
 I. Physical Reproduction of Society ... 2 
 
 11. Sociological Reproduction 7 
 
 III. Relation of Family to Society . . . . 16 
 
 IV. The Family in Relation to Parents . . 25 
 V. Summary 29 
 
 Chapter II. Origin of Marriage 32 
 
 I. Marriage Among Animals 34 
 
 II. The Earliest Human Sex Relation . . 40 
 
 HI. The Belief in Promiscuity 51 
 
 Chapter III. The Evolution of the Family . . 54 
 
 I. Types of Families 55 
 
 II. Occurrence of the Forms of the Family . 56 
 
 III. Kinship Systems 62 
 
 IV. Reasons for Various Forms of the Family 66 
 V. Development of the Monogamous Family 78 
 
 Chapter IV. Current Conditions Affecting the 
 
 Family 84 
 
 I. Conditions Affecting Marriage .... 85 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 II. Conditions Affecting the Size of Families 89 
 
 III. Divorce 95 
 
 IV. The Social Evil 114 
 
 Chapter V. Biological Phases of Sex and the 
 
 Family 122 
 
 I. The Appearance of Sex 124 
 
 11. The Function of Sex 132 
 
 III. Nature of Sex Differences 136 
 
 IV. Sex Determination 143 
 
 V. Summary 152 
 
 References 15% 
 
The Family and Society 
 
The Family and Society 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Functions of the Family 
 
 EVERY human institution, by reason of the 
 fact that it is a social institution, must be 
 held responsible for the exercise of certain socio- 
 logical functions. It is often supposed that 
 institutions exist for themselves. It is not rec- 
 ognized that every such organization should be 
 regarded as an agency through which men and 
 society work to secure collective results, and that, 
 therefore, its justification and test of efficiency 
 reside in its community usefulness. In meas- 
 uring the functions of the family it must submit 
 to this test. It is consequently necessary to dis- 
 cover the sociological functions of the family in 
 order to estimate its utility and how far it is 
 a necessary institution. What is the family's 
 relation to the larger social world? What serv- 
 ices does it perform for society that society 
 imperatively needs ? "-~_ 
 
 But while institutions exist for serving the 
 larger community needs they also are the means 
 1 
 
', : : T.he: Fnmily and Society 
 
 /of giving satisfaction to individuals considered 
 
 as human beings. Human beings, just because 
 
 they are human beings, have a right to manj 
 
 satisfactions in hfe which conceivably do not 
 
 immediately touch general social interests. In 
 
 so far as those satisfactions do not interfere with 
 
 a collective interests, their attainment is legitimate. 
 
 It may be found possible to regard the family 
 
 as an institution that realizes the maximum of 
 
 personal satisfaction to its members, without at 
 
 the same time injuring the interests of the larger 
 
 \ community. Such a consideration should find 
 
 \ a place in treating the functions of the family. 
 
 1. Physical Reproduction of Society 
 
 The first general function of the family is the 
 physical reproduction of society. First, in order 
 that society should continue it is necessary that: 
 its constituent members should be replaced as 
 they are eliminated. While society is a psychical 
 fact it is nevertheless constituted of the inter- 
 relations of minds which are connected with 
 — ^physical bodies. In a real sense it is true that 
 society exists for the welfare of its constituent 
 members. Viewed biologically the individual mind 
 is a function of the body in the sense that it is 
 an instrument for the better adjustment of the 
 
Functions of the Family 
 
 organism to its more complex environment. Sim- 
 ple organisms have little need of mind because 
 the environment is immediate and simple. But "--^ 
 with growing complexity of surrounding con-^ 
 ditions there is a concomitant demand for an 
 agent that can sense things remote in time and 
 space. While this is not the whole function of 
 mind it is a very necessary duty. In like manner 
 society and the social mind may be viewed as the 
 aecessary means by which the organisms of its 
 constituent members are adjusted to a tremen- 
 dously complicated situation. And while this 
 does not tell the whole story of society it is an 
 important item. In any event the bodies of ') 
 human beings are essential to society, and it is L, 
 necessary to replace them if society is to b^ 
 perpetuated. 
 
 A constant and effective agency is required 
 to perform this imperative function. During 
 the evolution of sentient beings a great many 
 devices have been tried to secure this end ; repro- 
 duction by segmentation, by budding, and other 
 methods among lowest forms of life; promis- 
 cuity among many animals ; and the family in 
 its several forms among human beings. And as 
 we are to see, the monogamic family appears to 
 have been worked out as the most serviceable 
 lethod to secure the various results which the 
 
The Family and Society 
 
 family is required to bring about. Doubtless 
 many individuals are produced by the method 
 of promiscuity, but promiscuity must be viewed 
 as an inadequate and irresponsible agency since 
 it fails to create the type of men and women 
 society demands. The parental factor and the 
 home influences are essential elements even for 
 1^ the production of a physically valid stock. Even 
 could society find a sufficient substitute for the 
 home, promiscuity entails venereal diseases, close 
 in-breeding, and other evils which produce a 
 degenerate physical type of being. 
 f Second, the family touches national life on 
 
 ^' its physical side. For one thing, it serves as a 
 means of holding people in permanent relations 
 with the land. The settled character of life has 
 
 • developed with the increment and definition of 
 family functions. The adoption of a permanent 
 
 \ mode of shelter and defense has tended to bind 
 
 ' populations to a locality. The establishment of 
 property as an institution and its perpetuation 
 through the family have proved to be profound 
 forces for securing the settlement and stability 
 of aggregates of individuals. Were proof de- 
 sired for this statement it would be sufficient to 
 refer to the unsettled state of primitive peoples, 
 and to the migrations of the barbarians of the 
 
 \North which eventuated in the overrunning of 
 
Functions of the Family 
 
 Rome. Since an essential idea in the constitution 
 of the state is a settled people within a defined 
 territory, and since the family is the most uni- 
 versal and conspicuous method of holding a 
 population to given areas and standards of liv- 
 ing, the value of the latter in a national sense 
 is evident. 
 
 For another thing, the family insures, withX 
 hardly any exception, a growing population. An N 
 increasing population has always been regarded 
 as a national asset. Whether this will always be 
 true is rather immaterial, as also would be the 
 abstract discussion over whether or not it should 
 be so. 
 
 Proceeding on the basis of facts, a large popuX 
 lation is and has been a direct benefit to nations ^ 
 possessing it. Under similar conditions the 
 nation that possesses the largest population is 
 the strongest in a physical contest. Although ^ 
 there may be limits beyond which an ihcreased 
 population would render no further advantage 
 in that direction, a large population gives the 
 basis for an extensive division of labor and spe- 
 cialization and therefore makes possible a supe- 
 rior internal organization. While it is probably 
 unfortunate, yet it is an undoubted fact, that 
 population and wealth are signs of national 
 reputability in much the same way that worldly/ 
 
6 The Family and Society 
 
 possessions enhance the importance of the indi- 
 vidual in the community. With a given standard 
 the nation with the largest population is most 
 weighty in international matters, and looking 
 into the future, as the world regards things now, 
 the nation's future is probably the most secure a 
 hundred years hence which promises the most 
 numerous citizenship. Since promiscuity under 
 present conditions would entail a high death rate 
 among children, and debilitate the stock, that 
 form of reproduction would offer little security 
 for a nation's future. And since the monogamic 
 family makes every man and woman available 
 for reproductive purposes, prevents close in- 
 breeding, reduces venereal diseases, both of which 
 latter evils impair the physical type, and is con- 
 ducive to saving infant life, it would appear to 
 be the best means of securing a growing popu- 
 lation. 
 
 Third, the family on its physical side has 
 /eugenic implications. Because it is the medium 
 of replacing decedent members of society it bears 
 \ the responsibility of affecting the inherent physi- 
 I cal character of the stock. Persons who marry, 
 because of their selective power relative to mates, 
 determine whether the race shall become physi- 
 cally strong or weak. And since health and 
 strength, that is, bodily validity, are the f ounda- 
 
Functions of the Family 
 
 tion of individual and social mind, of social en- 
 ergy, and of the general welfare, it is of para- 
 mount importance that this function be well exer- 
 cised. Society's interest in the matter is so 
 fundamental that it should not do less than adopt 
 all effective means for securing sound parents 
 and preventing perilous marriages. 
 
 2, Sociological Reproduction 
 
 There are good reasons to believe that origi- 
 nally society was created by the family. Because 
 the family was the first permanent social group 
 and institution, and because of its reproductive 
 functions, it not only preceded but produced 
 other social institutions. At a later date, as in 
 fact in every age, the form and quality of the 
 family is a product of general conditions, but 
 this does not invalidate the previous statement. \ / 
 While society now creates the family, the latter yy \J 
 was primarily the creator of society. That it / 
 has always been capable of producing society 
 will appear from the following considerations. 
 
 In a real sense the domestic institution is the 
 archetype of society at large. As Leibnitz be- 
 held the reflection of the universe in each of his 
 monads, so likewise the family group is the 
 society microcosm. While it is true that the rela- 
 
8 The Family and Society 
 
 tions of members of this group to each other are 
 pecuHar to this group only in that parenthood, 
 childhood, fraternity, husband and wife bear 
 their own special meanings, nevertheless the rudi- 
 ments of the structures and functions of society 
 at large are to be found in the family. It is not 
 to be supposed that this is true just because the 
 larger society expanded from the family, but 
 rather because in the nature of things all social 
 groups have to be founded on essentially the same 
 principles. This is particularly true relative to 
 division of labor between members. The princi- 
 ple of the division of labor with its consequent 
 interdependence of active members is identical in 
 the family and in all other social institutions. 
 Again, it is significant that all members of the 
 family group issue into the social life at large, 
 carrying with them the impress of the family; 
 and that all persons who establish families come 
 in from the larger world bringing the more 
 generalized impress of society to bear on the 
 developing of offspring. Thus there is a con- 
 stant give and take, a passing back and forth 
 between the general and special group. It is 
 -^ obviously necessary that the groups should be 
 similar, otherwise the inter-migration would 
 prove disastrous. The parents bring in a larger 
 culture from the world outside which the off- 
 
Functions of the Family 
 
 spring imitate and assimilate. Sometimes excep- 
 tionally talented parents create a culture higher 
 than the general standard of the community, 
 which the children of the particular home absorb. 
 In either case children find in the home their 
 initial equipment for contact with the world. 
 Moreover, at all times there is a give and take 
 between the family and the world. Consequently 
 it is inevitable that each shall be influenced by 
 the other and it likewise follows that the less 
 shall be forced to make the larger response. 
 
 That there may be no doubt that the family, 
 is the incubator of social members, it is expe-\ 
 dient to pass in review its early institutional 
 features. First, it possesses a division of labor 
 which is necessary to its existence and which 
 trains the young for that of the larger commu- 
 nity. Between man and wife this obtains prin- 
 cipally. The husband is the bread winner, the 
 wife the home maker. As the offspring develop, 
 they are introduced to certain duties in the 
 household economy. The boys build fires, get 
 fuel, bring water, and care for many small mat- 
 ters that the father formerly looked after. If 
 the home is on the farm, various kinds of light 
 work fall to the boy also. Caring for horses, 
 cattle, hogs, and poultry are essential features. 
 Unfortunately, in cities there is little for the boy 
 
10 The Family and Society 
 
 to do at home and he consequently misses an 
 essential part of his training and development. 
 But in many occupations, the boys gravitate into 
 the occupation of the father and begin to work 
 with him early in life. The girls likewise assist 
 the mother in her household duties as they get 
 old enough, and the technique of housekeeping 
 and care of children is thus obtained by them. 
 /Not only do the children obtain an idea of 
 division of labor in the home but learn to co- 
 operate, to bear and share responsibility; and 
 what is of great importance, they get a discipline, 
 a habit of industry which is necessary for 
 productive citizenship. 
 
 / Second, family life epitomises the great eco- 
 'iiomic activities of society in that it involves 
 1 ■ production, distribution, and consumption of 
 wealth. That it consumes wealth in the articles 
 and foods it uses is obvious. Its productive 
 activity may consist of the produce raised on 
 the farm, the foods and clothes worked up into 
 consumptive form in the home itself, or be rep- 
 resented by the income gained from the occupa- 
 tions of members of the family. The income 
 may be shared on a fair and open basis or very 
 unequally, as in society generally. Unfair fam- 
 ily distribution may be accepted passively or 
 resented and so become a cause of family dis- 
 
Functions of the Family 11 
 
 memberment. Fortunate are the children and 
 wise the parents of the family in which justice 
 and equity in sharing the income obtains. Fur- 
 ther, a large item in preparing children for life 
 is their training in using and caring for some 
 share of the income, though it may be small. 
 
 Third, the governmental institutions of society 
 have their prototype in the family. _/The familyX 
 has its head and executive in father or mother, \ 
 its laws which are laid down by the parents in 
 rules of action, its common law in the family 
 customs and common consent, its court of justice 
 as infractions of law and custom are judged, its 
 penal and reformatory phases in the treatment 
 accorded offenders, its public opinion which 
 affects its legislative, administrative, and judicial 
 activities. Further, it may make budgets so as 
 to keep within its income and have a sinking fund 
 for emergencies. Thus the children in the home 
 are made acquainted with the essentials of gov- 
 ernmental functions and are able to appreciate 
 the simpler aspects of the state when they meet 
 it as citizens. One of the conspicuous truths 
 arising from the study of criminals is that ruth- 
 less, loose, and unfair family governments have 
 far reaching effects towards making anti-social^ 
 individuals. The converse is also true, namely, 
 that a well governed and conducted family pro- 
 
12 The Family and Society 
 
 \ motes the socialization of the offspring in a most 
 
 ' effective manner. 
 ^ Fourth, education is begun in the family. In- 
 
 \ deed, the most important educative period takes 
 place in the home. The perceptive period of 
 childhood covers the first few years of life. In 
 those years the normal child is hungry to know 
 objects and their qualities and the larger part of 
 this kind of knowledge of the world is obtained 
 then. The intelligent parent is of utmost assist- 
 ance to the child in this and in all learning 
 directions. The child's first information comes 
 from its parents and it is dependent on them for 
 years as its chief authoritative informants. Since 
 wide and exact information plays so large a part 
 in the modem world, it is essential that this 
 acquisitive period should be stimulated and devel- 
 oped in every good way. " Dull pupils " are quite 
 largely the product of dull homes. The home 
 that is backward in conversation, books and 
 papers, story telling, and efforts to open up 
 the child's imagination can not give the stimulus 
 that the development of intelligence requires. 
 Where the parents pay no attention to books and 
 papers and carry on no discussions, it is rare 
 that the children establish a reading habit. Large 
 items in the education of individuals are those 
 of sanitation, health, and sex hygiene. The 
 
Functions of the Family 13 
 
 home that carefully attends to these matters 
 exercises a beneficent influence on the future 
 career of its children, and a profound effect on 
 the world. Much of the deficit in the health 
 and strength of mature men and women is due 
 to the neglect of childhood. The parents who 
 maintain healthful conditions in the home and 
 teach the young by example and rational training 
 to care for themselves properly, are indeed social 
 benefactors. As in other matters a good habit 
 established early is better than much teaching 
 and lecturing later. Especially in sex matters 
 the home is the most suitable educator. Intelli- 
 gent and sympathetic parents are better able to 
 explain the mysteries, functions, and responsi- 
 bilities of reproduction to their offspring than 
 any outside parties. Much of the vice of the 
 times is traceable to ignorance, false modesty, 
 and neglect on the part of fathers and mothers. 
 In too many cases the influence and example of 
 the parents is not only negative but conduces to 
 creating vicious careers. I 
 
 Moral training is an essential factor in educa- 
 tion and is a vital affair of the family. Genuine 
 ethical training is best given in the home. 
 Language, mathematics, sciences of all kinds may 
 be taught more efficiently by institutions of learn- 
 ing. But society trains but rudely in morals. It 
 
14 The Family and Society 
 
 recognizes only the gross and outward sins; it 
 punishes harshly and unsympathetically. " The 
 fundamental conception of a true self-assertion 
 and a genuine self-sacrifice" are learned only in 
 the family. In it "the strong learn to respect 
 the weaker, the weak are encouraged to develop 
 their strength by using it, under the influence 
 of family love. The absoluteness of duty, and 
 the true excellence of virtue, can be learned only 
 in the family. Only a parent can say ' thou 
 shalt ;' and compel hearty obedience by the power 
 of an overmastering love." It is a most difficult 
 task to inculcate duty and disciplined obedience 
 in adults who have never learned them in the 
 T" home. Loyal citizens of the state areytnade by 
 sympathetic yet firm parental control. yThe home 
 is the best generator of civic sentiments and 
 virtues. ) It promotes the development of loyalty 
 and patriotism since^the fatherland is the exten- 
 sion of the home, i The self-sacrifice and devo- 
 tion that are dematided in the larger community 
 life are bom and nourished in the family. The 
 qualities of personality which society so highly 
 appreciates, those delicate excellencies of honor, 
 tact, and sympathy, are learned outside the home 
 only by the rarest experience, but seldom at all. 
 The life of the family is highly conducive to 
 the development of the moral life of the parent. 
 
Functions of the Family 15 
 
 The establishment of a home and family creates 
 a new sense of responsibility and develops powers 
 hitherto rudimentary. It brings into play the 
 moral power of self-sacrifice, of living and striv- 
 ing for the group, so little developed in single 
 persons. It enhances and promotes the ideal in 
 life and puts a premium on self -subordination 
 and discipline to realize that ideal. 
 
 Fifth, in matters of religion, the life of the 
 family plays an essential role in one way or an- 
 other. Religion is less an affair of birth than 
 of cultivation. While the child that does not 
 secure its religious ideas in the home may later 
 become religious, its religion is likely to be less 
 deep and more artificial than in the case of the 
 child who develops in the midst of a religious 
 atmosphere. Until civilized times the family was 
 closely bound up with worship, and if the larger 
 society was religious it was because the home 
 life was intensely such. Modem religion has 
 become less superstitious and more ethical. Sci- 
 ence and the sceptical attitude f^more general. 
 The church is generally divorced from the state. 
 While society now is not religious in form it 
 possesses a religious structure, the church, which 
 fosters religion in the home and serves as the 
 religious nexus between the home and society at 
 large. No doubt a truly ethical religious atmos- 
 
16 The Family and Society 
 
 "Sphere in the average home would be influential 
 in making better citizens. 
 
 Sixth, the home touches the larger world by 
 its attitude relative to recreation and beauty. 
 Whether the tastes of the young shall be devel- 
 oped or undeveloped, high or low, depends more 
 on what the home presents and encourages than 
 on any other factor. Cleanliness, order, taste in 
 arrangement, comeliness or"Tiouse and grounds, 
 are conditions that mould the soul of the child 
 in its daily reactions and development. In like 
 manner the attitude and tastes of the parents 
 relative to what sports and forms of recreation 
 are suitable give a direction to the lives of the 
 children. Since games, sports, and recreation 
 constitute such a vital part in the life of the 
 world, are agencies which befoul or purify it, 
 it follows that fathers and mothers have a very 
 large responsibility in moulding the appetites and 
 directing the recreational activities of their 
 offspring. 
 
 3. Relation of Family to Society 
 
 We have seen how profoundly the family con- 
 tributes to the larger social life in exercising its 
 function of socializing the young individuals. 
 What is to be discussed here might have been 
 developed there, since what is to be said still 
 
Functions of the Family 17 
 
 \ 
 concerns the development of the offspring. How\ 
 ever, the point of emphasis in discussing sociolog- 
 ical reproduction was the function of the family 
 in preparing its offspring to lead a social life, 
 in socializing, humanizing, personalizing them. 
 The emphasis now is to be on society itself rather 
 than on the offspring. In what fundamental 
 ways is society affected by the life and work 
 of the domestic institution.'* 
 
 First, how far is the family an independent 
 social group, and in what sense, if at all, is it 
 the social unit.f* In discussions of the family it 
 is frequently asserted that that group is self- 
 sufficing and that it is the only group that is. 
 This was true of the family in patriarchal times 
 because at that time it was society. A family 
 group was a society, and although many such 
 groups may have sustained loose relations to a 
 larger governmental order, the essential functions 
 and activities of a society were carried on in the 
 patriarchal institution. In almost an exclusive 
 sense it was self-sufficing. Had there been no 
 other groups, no larger governmental organiza- 
 tion, which often was the case, it could reproduce 
 its members and prosecute the sustaining and reg- 
 ulating activities necessary to group existence. 
 Even in later times, as seen in the case ofy 
 frontier life in America before the industrial erju 
 
 y 
 
18 The Family and Society 
 
 / the family was self-sustaining, and in connection 
 with other families, self -protecting. However, 
 conditions have changed. Under a highly indus- 
 trialized, specialized, interdependently function- 
 ing complex of social structures, the family is 
 quite dependent on the larger community for its 
 life and prosperity. This is obviously true in 
 urban communities. But it is almost as true for 
 rural regions. In relatively few cases could the 
 farm family support itself apart from society 
 at large. The produce of the farm is not raised 
 for home consumption, but is disposed of in 
 distant markets. The grain must be sent away 
 to be ground into flour and meal so that bread 
 may be made. The clothes, groceries, implements 
 are manufactured in factories and sold to farmers. 
 Education is a community affair. The govern- 
 ment builds roads, bridges, school-houses, and 
 performs other useful and necessary services. 
 Were the farm family reduced to a self-sufficing 
 basis, civilization would move backward a cen- 
 tury and the nation would suffer a large depop- 
 ulation. The urban family is directly and im- 
 mediately dependent on society at large for its 
 sustenance, education, conveniences, and protec- 
 
 \tion in many ways. 
 
 We must conclude that the family is not a 
 self-sufficing, independent institution but that it 
 
Functions of the Family 19 
 
 is grounded on the existence and welfare of the 
 larger social order. 
 
 The uncritical statement is often made that 
 the family is the social unit. Since there are 
 many kinds of social units the family can not 
 be the social unit. The United States census 
 gives statistics of the population of the nation 
 by families, to be sure. But it also does the same 
 by individuals, by races, by nationalities, by sex, 
 age, and so on. For most statistical purposes 
 the individual is the unit of society. The same 
 is true for most economic and sociological con- 
 siderations. The point is made that since society 
 may be resolved into families which alone of the 
 many social factors are capable of self-repro- 
 duction it alone is the true unit. Were society 
 eliminated by a great catastrophe, most of the 
 population destroyed, the ideas of achieve- 
 ment lost so that the race had to begin afresh, 
 the family would doubtless be the starting place 
 in the process of reconstruction. Individuals 
 would not be self -reproducing. But such a sit- 
 uation is unthinkable. As we have seen, taking 
 society as it is today, the family is not self- 
 sufficing and independent, and consequently pos- 
 sesses practically no .claim to being the exclusive 
 social unit. 
 
 Second, the family institution is a part of the 
 
20 The Family and Society 
 
 mechanism of society by which the social order 
 is perpetuated. It is said that the universe is 
 orderly because its various systems of suns, plan- 
 ets, and nebulae preserve relatively the same rela- 
 tions to each other in their movements and rota- 
 tions. Were our solar system to vary incalculably 
 or were a nebula to tear across the universe in 
 an irresponsible manner, were things to act* 
 chaotically and without regular relations to each 
 other, there would be no universe, no order. In 
 like manner there is said to be a social order 
 because the various organizations, institutions, 
 customs, ideas, which constitute society remain 
 comparatively fixed and orderly relative to each 
 other. A relatively stable and fixed social order 
 is not only a great convenience but a prime 
 necessity for purposes of conducting the affairs 
 of life. If we are to carry any plan or pursuit 
 to a successful end it is requisite that the future 
 conditions involved in the enterprise shall be 
 known. That means that they shall be fixed and 
 orderly so that they may be understood. While 
 society does undergo transformations from time 
 to time, while evolution and progress are de- 
 sirable, nevertheless pursuits and happiness in 
 life demand a large amount of social stability. 
 Sociologists have worked out a doctrine of 
 the social order and of progress. Progress comes 
 
Functions of the Family 21 
 
 by reason of gradual changes introduced into 
 society which are chiefly caused by the inventions 
 and achievements, the new ideas, which are con- 
 tributed by men and women of talent ; providing 
 always that these changes advance the common 
 welfare. On the other hand, the social order 
 is maintained by reason of a kind of social 
 inertia. The mass of men are imitative, not 
 creative. New ideas do not reach them in child- 
 hood when the mass of ideas are established. The 
 ideas that have been handed down from time 
 immemorial through successive generations con- 
 stitute the common stock of mental pabulum. 
 Tradition acts as a long leading string that binds 
 the present to the past. Custom constitutes a 
 great mould which, like the basket used by the 
 Chinook Indians to deform the heads of their 
 infants, presses upon the mind of every child. 
 Conventionality weaves its web about the minds 
 of the new generation. Imitation plaj^s like a 
 shuttle through them all. Hence the generation 
 growing up becomes like that which surrounds 
 it. The old order changes slowly, if it changes 
 at all. Those that desire a new order are able 
 to reach the mass of citizens but slightly. Hence 
 progress is not catastrophic. 
 
 This brief exposition enables us to see how 
 the family enters into the situation. It takes 
 
The Family and Society 
 
 ^e young in the great imitative period of life 
 ]fi^hen they are most plastic and impresses upon 
 them the stock of ideas which the parents re- 
 ceived from their parents in turn and which have 
 been but little modified by their larger contact 
 and experience with the world. For the mass of 
 people life consists more of habitual movements 
 organized into activities than it does of ideas. 
 Modes of doing things : keeping house, sweeping, 
 dusting, bread-making, preserving fruits, caring 
 for children, going to church, disposal of leisure 
 time, home manners, attitude towards wife and 
 children, outlook on life and the world, and mul- 
 titudes of other activities and attitudes constitute 
 the larger side of life of the masses. These are 
 learned and perpetuated by home influences. In 
 modem times the press, theater, education, and 
 other agencies have entered into the situation to 
 ^^^,_counteract the conservative influence of the home. 
 Before their time society moved forward but 
 little because of the dominating influence of the 
 two great conservative agencies, the family and 
 the church. In religion, sociability forms, and 
 in the transfer of property in the line of descent, 
 the family is a conspicuous example of con- 
 servation, sometimes of reaction. It is likewise 
 a conservative medium for the transmission of 
 ethical doctrines and of sentiments. 
 
Functions of the Family 
 
 Third, the family as family appears to touch 
 the matter of social progress but little, save on 
 the assimilative side. Yet there are certain 
 aspects of progress in which the domestic institu- 
 tion may have a part. As in biological matters 
 variation is the basis of evolution, new kinds of 
 plants and animals which are better adapted to 
 live being initiators of new varieties or at least 
 making advances in the stock of forms; so in 
 society beneficial changes are instigated by indi- 
 vidual and societal variations. A better physical 
 stock of men is conducive to the improvement 
 of society and serves as the basis of creating a 
 higher order of intellectual activity. Since 
 genius is so closely bound up with body and brain 
 we must expect an improved stock of people to 
 give rise to a larger share of potential talent. 
 It is the business of society to see that this born 
 genius becomes matured and fruitful. But the 
 family by careful selection in mating may act 
 as a promoter of progress relative to securing a 
 better physical stock. 
 
 We have seen that progress is secured by the \ 
 changes which ensue by the adoption on the 
 part of society of the contributions of its men 
 of talent and genius. These inventions are not 
 f>nly material, as the locomotive, harvester, tele- 
 gu^aph, printing press;, but take the form of 
 
 y 
 
\ 
 
 24 The Family and Society 
 
 books, scientific discoveries, legislation, literature, 
 art, plans, and organization for social ameliora 
 tion. Doubtless many men of real genius lit 
 undiscovered in backward communities and dull 
 homes. 'Had the same individuals been bom and 
 reared in the enlightened and stimulating atmos- 
 phere of cultured homes they would have had the 
 opportunities of becoming productive. It is here 
 that the home has a chance to make its con- 
 tribution to social progress by placing intel- 
 lectual opportunities before the child or placing 
 the child in contact with the opportunities of 
 intellectual quickening. It may be in nature 
 study, in mechanics, invention, literature, music ; 
 but the opportunity to self -discovery is what is 
 needed. The development of a public school sys- 
 tem has taken a part of the responsibility off the 
 family. (But alert, resourceful, devoted parents 
 will always have an exceptional work to do in 
 stimulating and awakening the minds of the 
 children in their earlier years. 1 
 
 But since progress is niore-^than mere social 
 change, since it is essentially those changes which 
 advance the welfare of the masses of citizens, the 
 ethical sentiments are involved in it. Society 
 often flounders through a period of profound 
 changes by reason of the introduction of new f ac- 
 tprs when it cannot be said that it is making 
 
Functions of the Family 25 
 
 progress because the fruits of the new creations 
 are being appropriated by a few shrewd and 
 selfish individuals. Moreover, a nation may send 
 out its armies in a ruthless war because of false 
 sentiments. Could the social outlook be given, 
 could individuals be ethically socialized, the pro- 
 moters of great undertakings would share their 
 benefits with the mass of men who contribute to 
 their success and the citizenship of a nation would 
 insist on international justice, rather than on 
 revenge and exploitation. The foundations of 
 the ethics of life are laid in the life of the family. 
 Selfish and militant parents impose their views 
 on the growing children who carry the view into 
 practice. Conversely, altruistic and societary 
 minded parents fortunately have the power of 
 giving a regard for the rights of fellow beings, 
 an interest in social evolution and the future of 
 mankind, a love of justice in its larger sense, 
 that will truly contribute to building a better 
 world. 
 
 4. The Family in Relation to Parents 
 
 So far the family has been viewed as an insti- 
 tution existing for the physical and social repro- 
 duction of human beings, with some attention 
 having been paid to its relation to the larger 
 societary world. When considered relative to the 
 
26 The Family and Society 
 
 working of the larger economy of the biological 
 and sociological fields, the family institution un- 
 doubtedly bears the aspect of being chiefly a 
 reproductive agency. But when the subjective 
 rather than the functional aspect is attended to 
 other factors come to light. For mating and 
 ..■marriage never would have taken place among 
 ^ higher forms of life had not the sex instinct 
 resided in the pairing organisms. The instinct 
 to mate carries with it the pain and pleasure 
 inherent to the most intense form of desire within 
 the bounds of knowledge. The satisfaction of 
 that desire must be regarded as the strongest 
 and most influential of all the social forces. It 
 has produced not only great individual eff^orts 
 but has spurred into the fight masses of men 
 who otherwise would have remained inert. 
 
 Again, there is some justification for saying 
 that the parents have certain rights in the family. 
 Fortunately, among civilized men the time is past 
 when the doctrine that the end of mankind is to 
 multiply and replenish the earth, that child bear- 
 ing is the sole object of woman's existence, is 
 regarded as sacred. When that teaching pre- 
 vailed the wife had little respite during the 
 reproductive period and she was aged and worn 
 out by the time its end was reached. While 
 many parents need to be taught their larger 
 
I Functions of the Fmmly 27 
 
 responsibilities for their children the average 
 parent does not desire to shirk the parental 
 duties and most parents wear themselves out by 
 the use of wrong and backward methods of 
 training and discipline. . The adoption of en- 
 lightened methods wQuld reduce the arduousness 
 of rearing a family. ) The right of parents to 
 some leisure and to some relief from the inces- 
 sant care of children needs to accompany the 
 insistence on the performance of their full re- 
 sponsibilities. Perhaps this right will not be re- 
 alized until the community makes child life safe 
 by means of play associations so that children 
 may be permitted to leave the confines of the 
 home at times. Spencer makes the profound gen- 
 eralization that " in proportion as organisms be- 
 come higher they are individually less sacrificed 
 to the maintenance of the species ; and the impli- 
 cation is that in the highest type of man this 
 sacrifice falls to the minimum." He further 
 points out how this decreasing subordination of 
 parents to the species is brought about. " First, 
 by the elongation of that period which precedes 
 reproduction; second, by decrease in the num- 
 ber of offspring borne, as well as by increase of 
 the pleasures taken in the care of them; and 
 third, by lengthening of the life which follows 
 cessation of reproduction." This has been the 
 
The Family and Society 
 
 tendency during the whole course of animal and 
 human evolution. Doubtless something remains 
 to be accomplished toward increasing the pleas- 
 ures of parents in child rearing. 
 
 The right to be taken care of when they are 
 aged and worn is a right of parents. Society 
 has moved forward tremendously in this since 
 savage times. Old men and women then were 
 cast aside by neglect, or because sustenance was 
 difficult to secure the policy was forced on primi- 
 tive groups of abandoning or putting to death 
 old people. Among certain African people the 
 father would ask the favorite son to end his 
 days, since the miseries incident to old age were 
 too great to bear. That there is need for en- 
 forcing on the minds of the young their duties 
 toward making the last days of their parents 
 comfortable and of administering cheer to them 
 then is observed from the fact that many parents 
 are allowed to become paupers whose children 
 are well able to support them. It is noticed that 
 there is a great difference among immigrant na- 
 tionalities in the United States in this respect, 
 certain nationalities showing little affection for 
 their old people and being quite willing that the 
 state should assume their support. By means of 
 old age pensions the state now promises to 
 
Functions cf the Family 29 
 
 ameliorate the conditions under which the de- 
 clining days of its old workers are spent. 
 
 5. Summary 
 
 Summarizing this chapter we are enabled to 
 recall the following ideas. Since the family is 
 a social institution it should produce those re- 
 sults for which its peculiar nature calls. It is 
 found by experience that the monogamic family 
 is the best agency to renew society by the con- 
 stant creation of new physical members. It con- 
 serves childhood, averts close inbreeding, avoids 
 venereal diseases which promiscuity brings, and 
 thus begets a good physical stock. The family 
 promotes national life by securing a settled life 
 and by yielding a growing population. 
 
 In addition to reproducing society physically, 
 the family reproduces society spiritually by so- 
 cializing the young. Social beings are not bom, 
 they are developed. The old philosophical puz- 
 zle, Why are men's minds alike.'* receives its 
 answer in the simple teaching that from ini- 
 tial society parents have absorbed the ideas 
 of society at large, have conveyed them to 
 the minds, and impressed them on the children. 
 Since the principles at the basis of the family 
 and of society generally are much the same, 
 training in the home lays the foundation for 
 
30 The Family and Society 
 
 participating in and understanding the larger 
 world. Thus, where the family is not abnormal 
 or backward, we find in the home a division of 
 labor, the various economic activities, the begin- 
 nings and rudiments of government, of educa- 
 tion, and the inculcation of morals, and love of 
 order and beauty. 
 
 If the family prepares for society generally, 
 it might be supposed that it profoundly affects 
 society. It does this in making good or bad 
 citizens. In another way it affects social prog- 
 ress, in so far as it produces men and women of 
 achievement. But for the most part the family, 
 like the church, is a conserving, rather than a 
 dynamic, institution. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that the family is 
 an independent, self-sufficing institution, because 
 it is related to society in general in so many 
 obvious ways, and because the progress of a 
 hundred years would be destroyed did one re- 
 vert to the condition of independent families. 
 Neither is the family the social unit in any ex- 
 clusive sense. It is one among a number of 
 social units. For most scientific purposes the 
 individual serves as the social unit. 
 
 The family is an asylum for the man and 
 woman who have married where a division of 
 labor between them obtains, and where ministra- 
 
Functions of the Family 
 
 31 
 
 tions of affection and companionship occur. 
 While they, as parents, have a large measure 
 of responsibility and duties relative to their off- 
 spring, they also have rights as parents and as 
 human beings. They are morally bound to suc- 
 cor and train their children. On the other hand, 
 the offspring are morally bound to succor and 
 care for the parents in their years of decline. 
 
 QA^p jj^ 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Origin of Marriage 
 
 MARRIAGE is commonly regarded as the 
 form or convention by which a man and 
 woman are made husband and wife. Because, 
 however, this ceremony, or some such more or 
 less formal act, initiates a relationship between 
 the two parties which continues for a longer or 
 shorter time, and that most often brings to the 
 pair dependent offspring, the term marriage is 
 frequently used to cover the matrimonial insti- 
 tution. But since the pairing of male and fe- 
 male for purposes of reproduction might not 
 result in what we today think of as the family, 
 and wliich, nevertheless, actually leads up to or 
 initiates the family, it is proper to avoid the use 
 of the latter term and employ that of marriage 
 in discussing the origin of the marital institu- 
 tion. 
 
 It will doubtless prove useful to give the term 
 marriage a somewhat concise meaning, otherwise 
 the impossibility of definitely locating the origin 
 of the institution is obvious. It immediately be- 
 comes evident that we cannot transfer our mod- 
 em meaning back to primitive times. Should 
 32 
 
Origin of Marriage 
 
 wf: do so we would be embarrassed by the dis- 
 covery of many marital forms which could not 
 be embraced in, or would be incongruous with, 
 our conception. Our conception would be too 
 rich and manifold in its elements to fit the nar- 
 row situation. This is generally true in the hunt 
 for origins. In treating the evolution of re- 
 ligion it has been found necessary to define re- 
 ligion in the simplest terms, to strip off the rich 
 efflorescence of later times, so that the definition 
 may serve to describe and designate the highest, 
 most developed form of religion, as well as the 
 lowest and poorest. In that case and in the pres- 
 ent one it is necessary to find the irreducible 
 minimum, to reduce our conception to its lowest 
 terms. 
 
 Westermarck says that most of the definitions 
 which are given of marriage are of a juridical 
 or ethical nature, '^ comprehending either what 
 is required to make the union legal, or what, in 
 the eye of an idealist, the union ought to be." 
 Evidently such definitions are unfit for our pres- 
 ent purpose. The writer mentioned has given 
 what is perhaps the simplest definition, one on 
 which it would be difficult to improve. He says : 
 "From a scientific point of view, I think there 
 
 but one definition which may claim to be gen- 
 rally admitted, that, namely, according to which 
 
The Family and Society 
 
 marriage is nothing else than a more or less dur- 
 able connection between male and female, last- 
 ing beyond the mere act of propagation till 
 after the birth of the offspring." This is wide 
 enough to include all sex relations which may be 
 called marriage, and narrow enough to exclude 
 merely promiscuous relations. Because of its 
 adequacy this meaning will be emploj^ed. 
 
 1. Marriage Among Animals 
 
 The problem of the origin of marriage con- 
 cerns itself not alone with the history of matri- 
 monial institutions among men. At least the 
 treatment accorded it by numerous writers would 
 indicate this. Herbert Spencer, Letoumeau, 
 Westermarck, Howard, and others begin their 
 studies of marriage by a survey of sex relations 
 in the animal series below man. It is conceived 
 that the biological conditions out of which human 
 institutions arose are rooted in the evolving ani- 
 mal world. Further, it is thought that the be- 
 ginnings of the human institution of marriage 
 might be discovered there. The first supposition 
 is doubtless well founded. Man has so many ap- 
 petites, instincts, mental traits, and bodily struc- 
 tures that are also common to animals, and which 
 are explicable only by supposing that the former 
 grew out of the latter, that we should expect 
 
^ Origin of Marriage 36 
 
 to find the biological conditions which regulate 
 sex matters coming down to us from the past. 
 The latter supposition does not rest on the same 
 necessity. For marriage is much more likely to 
 be a social arrangement, an affair into which 
 the element of rational agreement enters to a 
 considerable extent. Consequently, there is far 
 less probability that it occurs among animals 
 than that the biological conditions regulating 
 sex matters among men arose there and have con- 
 tinued to operate with something of their for- 
 mer force. 
 
 Westermarck has amply proved that pairing 
 of a somewhat permanent nature frequently oc- 
 curs among birds and beasts. Among birds 
 especially, the bond between male and female dur- 
 ing the "mating season'* is so strong and un- 
 disturbed by infidelity that a certain writer re- 
 marks that the only genuine marriage is found 
 among them. In the lowest form of life par- 
 entage is unknown, sex not having appeared. 
 When it does arise the early parents are not con- 
 cerned with the offspring. Eventually, however, 
 the mother develops solicitude for the young, 
 and with the extension of the span of life and 
 also of infancy of the young, this maternal at- 
 tention increases. Occasionally the male parent 
 of a species exhibits some consideration for the 
 
36 The Family and Society 
 
 offspring by participating in feeding and caring 
 for it. More frequently the mother fights the 
 family battle alone. 
 
 Did it suffice to consider that one parent in 
 charge of the offspring constituted the family, 
 there could be no question but that that insti- 
 tution begins among animals. But the continu- 
 ance of the male with the female until after the 
 young are bom, except among birds, is rather 
 exceptional. It is notorious that among our 
 domestic animals the mother alone cares for the 
 offspring. The function of the male is com- 
 pleted in the process of fertilization. As we 
 defined marriage, that institution exists only in 
 exceptional cases among animals exclusive of the 
 anthropoidea and birds. 
 
 Relative to birds, while it must be said that 
 they show an almost universal seasonal pairing, 
 a fidelity lasting from nesting, or nest-building, 
 to the flying of the fledglings, the fact is rather 
 inconsequential for the question of human mar- 
 riage. Men did not descend from birds. Conse- 
 quently anything birds practiced could have had 
 but very slight influence on human action. Men 
 may have imitated birds in certain particulars, 
 as ethnology shows, but those imitations ex- 
 hausted themselves on matters of decoration and 
 armor. The matrimonial institution is too fun- 
 
Origin of Marriage 37 
 
 damental a social affair to be much subject to 
 imitation of bird practice. In default of a bio- 
 logical and a sociological continuity between 
 men and birds it is obvious that the pairing of 
 birds is irrelevant to the question of human mar- 
 riage. 
 
 The question of the life and practices of the 
 apes is far more important. Man is not a direct 
 descendant of the apes but rather from a stock 
 of animals which sprung from a stem common 
 to human beings and the apes. The practices of 
 this ancestral stock were doubtless closely akin 
 to those of the apes. Consequently the life of 
 apes reflects that of man's pre-human ancestors. 
 Darwin believed that apes led a social life. Bed- 
 dard states that baboons "live in herds," and 
 recent African hunters describe the human-like 
 antics and collective actions of these creatures. 
 Beddard says of the gorilla that it " goes about 
 in families, with but one adult male, who later 
 has to dispute his position as leader of the band 
 with another male, whom he kills or drives away, 
 or by whom he is killed or driven away. The 
 animal is said to make a nest in a tree like the 
 orang, but this statement has been questioned." 
 (Mammalia, pp. 566 and 576.) Flower and 
 Lydekker also affirm that the gorilla "lives in 
 family parties." It is far more f rugivorous than 
 
88 The Family and Society 
 
 the orang, which shows a strong hking for ani- 
 mal food. It is evident that the gibbon lives in 
 packs, from the fact that in making its double, 
 human-like call, which is one of the most common 
 forest sounds, "several join in the cry, like 
 hounds giving the tongue." This animal is 
 largely vegetarian, though it is fond of spiders, 
 insects, bird's eggs, and even birds themselves. 
 As to the chimpanzees, they " are essentially 
 forest dwellers, and are more arboreal in their 
 habits than the gorilla. They live either in 
 families, or in small parties of several families. 
 Frequently, at least, they construct a kind of 
 nest in the trees as a sleeping place; the male 
 being said to sleep on a forked branch below the 
 level of this nest." (Flower and Lydekker, 
 Mammals, Living and Extinct, pp. 730-736.) 
 
 Westermarck reviews evidence gleaned from 
 the works of several observers relative to the 
 gorilla, orang-outang, and chimpanzee, and con- 
 cludes that for most part they lead a solitary 
 life, existing in small groups with a male at the 
 head, in pairs, or sometimes wandering alone. 
 He further finds that they have a rutting, or 
 pairing, season, at which time the males battle 
 with each other for supremacy. He holds the 
 belief, too confidently I think, in view of the 
 

 Origin of Marriage 39 
 
 slender evidence, that simple pairing, or monog- 
 amy, obtains among them. Letourneau, on the 
 other hand, thinks that apes are often gregari- 
 ous and sometimes monogamous, sometimes po- 
 ly gynous,* more often the latter. The logic of 
 the whole situation recommends his position as 
 the correct one. 
 
 Among the lower forms of life there is one 
 interesting fact for a sociological study of the 
 family. While the family instinct is widespread 
 among animals, among ants, bees, and termites i 
 it has apparently been distributed over the whole I 
 group. There is no family among those groups. 
 The queen is fertilized by one or more of the 
 drones, who then die or are dispatched. The 
 queen is a mere egg producer. The mothering 
 of the young is performed by the workers, who 
 are neither fathers nor mothers, but who yet 
 possess a nursing instinct and a group altruism 
 which are effective. In these cases a complicated 
 social organism exists without a family institu- 
 tion. Hence, here at least, the family is not the 
 social unit. 
 
 *In this volume polygyny and polygynous are used 
 instead of the popular terms polygamy and polygamous. 
 According to the meaning of the original roots from 
 which the words are derived, gama means marriage while 
 gynos means woman. Hence polygamy denotes pluralistic 
 marriage while polygyny signifies plural wives. — Editoe. 
 
40 The Family and Society 
 
 2, The Earliest Human Sex Relation 
 
 When we ascend to the human stage of evolu- 
 tion a most compHcated situation exists relative 
 to marriage. First, it is difficult to ascertain 
 the exact family conditions of primitive men 
 who now exist or have recently existed. Sec- 
 ond, how much force toward settling the ques- 
 tion of earliest human marriage shall be ac- 
 corded to the scant beginnings of marriage 
 among man's animal ancestors .^^ This second 
 question is complicated by the fact that a great 
 gulf exists between present primitive man and 
 the highest existing animal species. Prehistoric 
 man, man from his origin up to the stage of cul- 
 ture represented by present primitive man, fills, 
 by a rough estimate, a period of time amounting 
 to 450,000 years. Beyond the first prehistoric 
 man extends another extensive period until man's 
 animal ancestors, the cousins of the anthropoid 
 apes, are reached. 
 
 Many theories have been developed as to the 
 relation of the sexes among primitive men. First, 
 the theory of promiscuity, the belief that males 
 and females paired temporarily and without re- 
 gard to relations of kinship. Second, the patri- 
 archal theory, the doctrine which holds that the 
 primordial group consisted of the eldest valid 
 male parent, all agnatic descendants and adopted 
 
Origin of Marriage 41 
 
 persons, together with slaves, dients, and other 
 dependents, organized under the despotic au- 
 thority of the eldest male, the patriarch. Third, 
 the theory of original monogamy. Fourth, the 
 theory that various forms of marriage existed 
 from the first, with monogamy the predomina nt 
 form. Fifth, the theory that the various kinds 
 of marriage groups — polyandric, polygynic, 
 and monogamic — appeared from the beginning, 
 according to circumstances, but that monogamy 
 was rather the exception. Bachofen, Morgan, 
 liubbock, Engles, and others have defended the 
 first theory; Maine and his school, the second; 
 probably the majority of civilized people have 
 held the third; Letoumeau, Westermarck, and 
 others, the fourth; Herbert Spencer holds the 
 fifth for present primitive men, with suggestions 
 of prior promiscuity. 
 
 Our concern just now is as to whether any 
 form of marriage existed at first, or whether the 
 condition of sexual promiscuity prevailed among 
 primitive men. In the nature of the case only 
 the larger aspects of the problem can be con- 
 sidered in this small volume. 
 
 To settle the question it has been necessary to 
 compile the facts from the works of first hand ob- 
 servers of practically all existing primitive peo- 
 ples. This has been done by Spencer, Letour- 
 
42 The Family and Society 
 
 neau, and later by Westermarck. Competent stu- 
 dents of the subject generally concede that these 
 and other authorities have demonstrated that 
 there is no such thing as a general stage of pro- 
 miscuity among the primitive groups visited and 
 studied by civilized man. Herbert Spencer, how- 
 ever, intimates that the loose and easy marital 
 and sex relations among those groups indicate 
 a prior stage of promiscuity. In this latter 
 opinion the American Morgan coincides, but for 
 a different reason. Letoumeau, at times, shows 
 symptoms of believing in primordial promis- 
 cuity. 
 
 The situation as far back in social evolution 
 as we have actual evidence concerning sex re- 
 lations appears to be this : Primitive society, as 
 we know it, is characterized by a pluralistic form 
 of marriage, polyandric in some cases, poly- 
 gynic in others, sometimes both polyandric and 
 polygynic, with the frequent occurrence of 
 monogamy. 
 
 What shall be said of the long interim of 
 probably hundreds of thousands of years which 
 stretch beyond our primitive man to the original 
 human beings .^^ Archeology has demonstrated 
 that there were still lower culture stages than 
 that possessed by present primitive men, and 
 it has discovered two or more lower levels of men 
 
Origin of Marriage 
 
 in physical type. It is apparent that Wester- 
 marck's evidence does not touch this period, save 
 in so far as his generaHzations from animal life 
 may obtain. But as we saw, the evidence as to 
 what actually the sex relations among apes are 
 IS too meager to establish anything to a cer- 
 tainty. Further, we cannot know what effect 
 developing reason and the entrance of other 
 factors would have on marital relations in the 
 subsequent beings. 
 
 Let us consider the various possibilities and 
 factors in the situation. First, the bearing of 
 the idea of continuity. We might expect an evo- 
 lution toward some kind of marriage, should we 
 follow the analogy of the development of other 
 social institutions and of mental and bodily 
 structures. We find animal bodily structures far 
 more similar than dis-similar to those of man. 
 Although but few of the "missing links" have 
 been discovered, we hold to continuity of physi- 
 cal forms. Similarly animals possess most of 
 man's instincts, the special sensory apparatus, 
 sensations, perceptions, and a degree of general- 
 izing and reasoning power. We believe in a 
 mental continuity. Animals have a language of 
 signs and sounds. Primitive man possesses these 
 in a higher degree of development. Linguistic 
 continuity is most probable. If we find some 
 
44 The Family and Society 
 
 beginnings of marriage among the animals which 
 most approximate man it would be natural to 
 suppose that further evolution has occurred dur- 
 ing the development of the series. Great marital 
 development during that interim should not be 
 expected, however, because the changes, at that 
 stage of evolution, in relations between individ- 
 uals was necessarily slow, as we know from a 
 study of social phenomena among both animals 
 and men. In fact it is conceivable that condi- 
 tions arose which blocked actual progress and 
 even compelled regression. For example, the 
 rational factor grew stronger. What would be 
 its effect on a marriage that was based on in- 
 stinct exclusively? Would it increase the male's 
 tendency toward maintaining a marital horde.? 
 Or would it lead the male in the direction of a 
 solitary life in which he could exercise his cun- 
 ning and strength in hunting and fighting.'^ 
 
 Second, the question as to whether apes were 
 solitary or gregarious and its bearing on the 
 nature of the sex relations. Our previous treat- 
 ment of this established a strong probability of 
 dominant gregariousness and of polygynous 
 grouping. 
 
 Third, infancy is prolonged among the an- 
 thropoids and doubtless still more prolonged 
 among the first men. This prolongation of in- 
 
Origin of Marriage 45 
 
 fancy imposes a prolongation of parental care. 
 In itself, however, it does not pronounce that 
 this increased attention is paternal in part. 
 Other considerations are required to decide that. 
 A smaller number of offspring and an increase 
 of their dependence accompanies the prolonga- 
 tion of infancy, making it probable that the 
 mother would at times be the center of a group 
 of growing children. The force of this con- 
 dition is in the direction of a family, or horde, 
 life. 
 
 Fourth, evolution from the animal to the hu- 
 man stage brings not only the erect attitude 
 of body but its more important accompaniment, 
 a heightened and enlarged psychical life. It is 
 impossible to say what the exact effects of this 
 enlarged psychical life would be on sex relations, 
 but certain results are probable. The growth 
 of rational power made early man superior to 
 the animals. He could operate against them, 
 lay snares and traps for them, use weapons to 
 overcome them. This undoubtedly had much to 
 do with changing early man or his near ancestors 
 from a frugivorous to a carnivorous diet. In 
 this connection woman would be rendered more 
 dependent. So long as she could forage for 
 food she could support herself and her depend- 
 ent offspring. But where the inhabitants of a 
 
46 The Family and Society 
 
 region became numerous and the larger part of 
 the food had to be obtained by the chase, she 
 was incapacitated for this during the period of 
 rearing and nursing the child. Had not males 
 become capable of developing a somewhat perma- 
 nent attachment for the female and offspring 
 she and her children in many cases would perish. 
 The only alternative to this would be the ex- 
 istence of a relatively large communal group of 
 which the mother constituted a member and re- 
 ceived her support at critical times. But this 
 also supposes a group attachment on the part 
 of the males, an outcome in turn of the larger 
 psychical nature. 
 
 A strengthening of the psychical attribute 
 of jealousy in the males might be conceived 
 to take place with evolution. Since the time of 
 Darwin the " law of battle " has been recognized 
 as obtaining among the males of the more highly 
 developed animals. Fighting for females at 
 pairing time quite generally obtains. The man- 
 like apes enter into conflict for the mastery of 
 females. Psychologically it is true that dur- 
 ing the process of marital evolution the emo- 
 tional life has been broadened and deepened. 
 Civilized man not only experiences more emo- 
 tions but is able to respond to any one of them 
 more profoundly than undeveloped men. The 
 
Origin of Marriage 47 
 
 emotional reaction we call jealousy comes under 
 this general rule. Jealousy developed among 
 animals with the evolution of higher forms, and 
 it likely grew apace during the ascent from apes 
 to man. Had early men an annual pairing sea- 
 son, as Westermarck believes, this jealousy would 
 operate only on those occasions, as in the case 
 of animals. Did men then live in isolation, males 
 and females would separate immediately after 
 pairing, for the interim between seasons would 
 be too long for sex jealousy to span. Only 
 the disappearance of the pairing season, the es- 
 tablishment of ties between the male and off- 
 spring, or the discovery of cooperative advan- 
 tages of group life could obviate the tendency 
 to fall apart. Separation of sexes would spell 
 promiscuity. Segregation would mean some kind 
 of marriage. 
 
 Fifth, Westermarck supposes that close in- 
 breeding and the "horror of incest" which arose 
 consequent to it in primitive times were prohib- 
 itive of promiscuity. He offers a wide array of 
 evidence to show that primitive people generally 
 have a horror of incest. There are exceptions, 
 and some of his evidence is contradicted by com- 
 petent observers. The sexual saturnalias that 
 primitive men periodically indulged in without 
 respect to kinship ties creates a presumption as 
 
48 The Family and Society 
 
 to its weakness. That it is an instinct which 
 became established early in the history of man 
 by natural selection, as he maintains, does not 
 appear to be true. It would not be necessary, 
 save on the narrow pairing basis on which he in- 
 sists and the existence of which is questionable. 
 Moreover, it does not appear to be an instinct, 
 as many modern experiences show. Not only 
 have near relatives often married consciously, 
 but at times unconsciously of the nearness of 
 kinship ties. Incest is of frequent occurrence. 
 The Chicago Vice Commission report gives start- 
 ^ ling facts of its frequency in producing vice. 
 These things could not occur were there a pro- 
 hibitive instinct. Like many other ideas, even 
 the idea of deity, incest is an idea that is im- 
 bedded in the family stock of ideas and impressed 
 on the minds of the young by the parental gen- 
 eration. Originally it may have grown out of 
 religious tabus, reinforced by the fact that fa- 
 miliar sexual associates possess a minimum of 
 sex attraction. 
 
 Whatever the exact nature of the origin of 
 the inhibitory idea against incest this statement 
 of Letoumeau's appears to represent the truth: 
 "It is quite certain . . . that during the first 
 ages of the evolution of societies the ties of kin- 
 ship, even those we are accustomed to regard as 
 
Origin of Marriage 49 
 
 sacred and respect for which seem to be incarnate 
 in us, have not been any impediment to sexual 
 unions. Like the sentiment of modesty, the 
 horror of incest has only been engraved on the 
 human conscience with great difficulty and by 
 long culture. Samples of this kind are un- 
 known to the animals, and before they could 
 arise in the human brain it was first necessary 
 that the family should be constituted, and then 
 that from some motive or other the custom of 
 exogamous marriage should be adopted." 
 
 The statement that the effects of close in- 
 breeding would have a prohibitive force on pro- 
 miscuity deserves more consideration than we 
 can give. A review of the evidences as to the 
 exact effects of breeding in and in would require 
 many pages. Westermarck's extensive consid- 
 eration of the facts gleaned from many inves- 
 tigators serves to show that the poorer strength 
 and fertility of the offspring of closely related 
 pairs are likely to show deterioration, though the 
 effects are not uniform. Consequently, in the 
 development of mankind, natural selection oper- 
 ated toward eliminating those groups of men 
 who in-breed and the selecting of those which 
 practiced exogamy, with the result that even- 
 tually a " powerful instinct " or aversion to mar- 
 riage with relatives was established. 
 
50 The Family and Society 
 
 J. Arthur Thomson, in his Heredity, throws 
 some doubt on such a hard and fast conclusion. 
 He quotes G. H. Darwin as saying: "Biolog- 
 ically it seems certain that close interbreeding 
 can go far without affecting physique, and that 
 it is useful in fixing character." Thomson says : 
 "The idea that there can be any objection to 
 the marriage of two healthy cousins who happen 
 to fall in love is preposterous." He gives in- 
 stances of frequent inbreeding in the production 
 of superior stocks of cattle. However, it must 
 not be supposed that Thomson is an advocate 
 of close inbreeding. Moreover, some of the his- 
 torical examples of human inbreeding without 
 serious results which he cites had previously been 
 fairly disposed of by Westermarck. We may 
 fairly conclude, I think, that continuous promis- 
 cuity practiced within a small group of primi- 
 tive men would have caused deterioration of the 
 stock, which in contact with the cross-breeding 
 stocks, would ultimately disappear.* 
 
 Sixth, the principle of parallelism may have 
 some application to the original human sex- 
 
 *0n Mendelian principles the reason why outbreeding 
 is better than inbreeding is that it scatters and hence 
 covers defects instead of combining and heightening 
 them as is done in inbreeding (see Walter, Genetics, 
 pp. 242-3). 
 
Origin of Marriage 51 
 
 relation. As obtaining in other primitive mat- 
 ters it means that because of men's unitary 
 origin they possess similar physical and mental 
 characteristics. Consequently, when migrations 
 had taken place and race stocks had been estab- 
 lished in widely separated regions, similar ar- 
 tifacts and institutions appeared. The stone 
 implements of Europe and America resemble 
 each other in form, though there are differences 
 of detail. Magic and tabus have occurred every- 
 where, though the particulars of their practice 
 varied from place to place. Therefore we might 
 expect that the similar sex instinct would work' 
 out some form of marriage, but that the institu- 
 tion would exhibit itself differently in various 
 regions. While promiscuity may have occurred 
 in places, the conflict of group with group, and 
 the battles of males for leadership in groups of 
 females, as well as the premium which natural 
 selection placed on out-breeding stocks, militated 
 against the establishment of a universal stage of 
 sexual promiscuity. 
 
 3, The Belief in Promiscuity 
 
 How, then, did the belief in promiscuity as 
 an original factor in the history of the family 
 arise if it has never been general? Several dif- 
 ferent theories have been invented to substantiate 
 
52 The Family and Society 
 
 promiscuity, but the practices of present primi- 
 tive men have chiefly given rise to the belief. 
 Temporary unions, marriages for a term, partial 
 marriages which are pecuniary transactions and 
 good for only certain days of the week, corro- 
 borees and sexual saturnalia in which restraints 
 are abandoned and free license prevails, wife 
 lending so widely practiced, the result of 
 viewing the female as property of the male, 
 and group marriages, are some of the facts which 
 have impressed travelers and led them to conclude 
 that such peoples are without marital institu- 
 tions. The group marriage which obtains among 
 certain tribes of Australia, in which a man has 
 a first wife and other secondary wives, and the 
 wife has a chief husband and several potential 
 husbands, all of which is regulated by tribal 
 custom, until understood, presented the appear- 
 ance of promiscuity. But carefully conducted 
 investigations among primitive peoples have 
 uniformly shown that some form of marital reg- 
 ulation obtains, although considerable license 
 may exist. Westermarck is convinced, however, 
 that a lack of chastity and the practice of license 
 did not obtain original^, but has been introduced 
 by the presence and contact of civilized men. 
 
 Marriage, like other institutions in the be- 
 ginning, was stumbled into by primitive men. 
 
^B 
 
 Origin of Marriage 53 
 
 As Letourneau safely says : " Every possible 
 experiment, compatible with the duration of sav- 
 age or barbarous societies, has been tried, or is 
 still practiced, amongst various races." Society 
 conducted an experiment as to how to Incubate 
 new social members successfully. The ancient 
 animal method would not suffice for the more 
 complicated life. The lengthened infancy and 
 dependence of the young constituted nature's 
 suggestion that a parental laboratory was re- 
 quired. The new economic requirements in rela- 
 tion to a changed food supply demanded a de- 
 pendence of women at critical times, and division 
 of labor between males and females in group 
 matters. A heightening psychical ability en- 
 larged the social capacity of the male and made 
 him more available for family purposes. The 
 operation of natural selection in weeding out 
 the groups which practiced close inbreeding still 
 further militated against promiscuity and ad- 
 vanced the chances of the family. All of these 
 factors organized about that of sexual instinct, 
 so far as we are able to approximate, account 
 for the origin of human marriage. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The Evolution of the Family 
 
 UPON an evolutionary basis it is quite natural 
 to suppose that the family grew out of a 
 primal stage of promiscuity, and that it ascended 
 through successive stages of polygyny, poly- 
 andry, and monogamy to its present status. 
 Theoretically this would constitute a perfect and 
 logical scheme. Unfortunately for the theory 
 the facts bearing on the development of the do- 
 mestic institutions do not permit us to follow 
 any such easy path. The course of the family 
 has been tortuous, and the form which it has 
 taken at any given time and place has evidently 
 been determined by a great many circumstances. 
 The family, like ( ther institutions, has had to ad- 
 just itself to varied conditions, and what it is 
 at any point of time has been determined by the 
 forces and conditions at work in the society of 
 the period. It is an institution which has been 
 subj ected to the vicissitudes of ignorance, war, 
 economic changes, religious and political ideas 
 and factors, and the passions and ideals of hu- 
 man beings. It has always been a product of 
 54 
 
Evolution of the Family 55 
 
 the factors of its age. Being a man-made or a 
 society-made affair, it is subject to improvement 
 and is an object with which the best intelligence 
 and idealism of the age may well busy them- 
 selves. 
 
 1. Types of Families 
 
 The following forms of marriage have been 
 developed in the course of human history: 
 Monogamy, or the pairing of one man with one 
 woman for more than a temporary lapse of 
 time. Polygyny, the state of marriage in which 
 one man possesses two or more wives or concu- 
 bines. Polyandry, the form of marriage in which 
 one woman is held as common wife by two or 
 more men. Group marriage, two or more forms 
 of which exist, one in which several brothers 
 are married to several sisters, all the brothers 
 being the husbands of all the sisters, and all the 
 sisters wives of all the brothers; the other in 
 which either all the husbands may be brothers, 
 or all the wives may be sisters. Besides the above 
 kinds of marriage, there are time and trial mar- 
 riages. These are not exclusive of the forms 
 monogamy, polygyny, and polyandry, but may 
 occur with either form. Thus, it may be a 
 custom among a primitive people that a man and 
 woman shall live together as man and wife for 
 
56 The Family an4 Society 
 
 a fixed time, then separate; or that they may 
 be husband or wife only on certain days of the 
 week, sustaining to others those relationships 
 on the other days. This is time or term mar- 
 riage, and may take place under a monogamous 
 or polygynous system. Or it may be the cus- 
 tom that fertility is regarded as the test of a 
 valid marriage. In this case the pair separate 
 as man and wife in case children do not result 
 at the end of a year or a few years. This form 
 may also operate in the case of either polygyny 
 or monogamy; possibly also in that of poly- 
 andry. Time and trial marriages are what have 
 been termed lax or brittle monogamy. That is, 
 they are more likely to be the accompaniment 
 of monogamy and enable it to pass as an easy 
 or bearable substitute for polygyny. 
 
 2, Occurrence of the Forms of the Family 
 
 The prevalence of the forms of the family 
 may be considered relative to time, or the vari- 
 ous stages of social evolution, and at any given 
 time, especially the present. The present dis- 
 tribution will receive treatment first. 
 
 One form of group marriage, 'punaluan, for- 
 merly existed in the Hawaiian Islands, and is 
 found among the Todas of India today. This 
 
Evolution of the Family 57 
 
 IS the marriage of a group of brothers to a 
 group of sisters, each sister being the wife of 
 all the brothers, and each brother the husband 
 of all the sisters. The larger form of group 
 marriage is to be found among the aborigines 
 of Australia. In some of the tribes, men from 
 certain groups of kinsmen may marry only with 
 women from certain other kinship groups. The- 
 oretically, each man is the husband of all the 
 women and each woman the wife of all the men 
 of the marriageable groups. In reality, each man 
 has what may be called a first or real wife with 
 whom he permanently abides. The other women 
 are potential wives with whom he may cohabit 
 under certain circumstances. The same situation 
 is true for the women. 
 
 Polygyny has been and is a widespread form 
 of marriage. It flourishes over large portions 
 of native Africa, was practiced by many of the 
 native tribes of America, obtains generally 
 among all Mohammedan peoples, among Jews 
 of Mohammedan countries, exists in various 
 islands of Oceania, and is widespread among 
 many peoples of Asia. It is impossible to state 
 what portion of the human race practices 
 polygyny, both because accurate statistics of 
 populations of all its votaries does not exist, 
 and because even where it is sanctioned by a 
 
58 The Family and Society 
 
 people it is in most cases impossible that more 
 than a small part of the male population is able 
 to support more than one wife. It is general 
 among certain West African negro tribes, peo- 
 ples living in what Dowd calls the banana zone. 
 Women are more numerous than men and little 
 capital is required to undertake the initial ex- 
 penses of housekeeping. The women perform 
 the labor, hence they are self-supporting. 
 Scarcity of women and the expense attached 
 to maintaining a number of wives militate 
 against the universality of the institution even 
 where it is sanctioned by custom. In India 95 
 per cent of the Mohammedan population are 
 monogamous by necessity or conviction, while 
 in Persia but S per cent practice polygyny. 
 In Africa, in ascending through the successively 
 higher economic zones, polygyny decreases by 
 reason of the greater equality between the num- 
 bers of the sexes, the growing cost of domestic 
 establishments, the increasing independence of 
 women, and the heightened ideals of life. 
 
 Polyandry is relatively rare. It is confined 
 to a few tribes and peoples of North America, 
 a smaller number in South Africa, certain islands 
 and peoples of Oceania, a few peoples of Africa 
 and Madagascar, and quite a large number of 
 peoples of Eastern and South Eastern Asia. 
 
Evolution of the Family 59 
 
 Tibet IS the great home of polyandry. In most 
 cases of polyandry the husbands are brothers. 
 It is a universal practice among but a few peo- 
 ples. It commonly occurs along with other forms 
 of marriage and may be practiced by all classes 
 of persons. Among'^the Khasias of Asia it 
 prevails among the poor and is said to be used 
 to facilitate divorce. In other places it is prac- 
 ticed by the wealthy. 
 
 It is evident from what has been said that at 
 the present time monogamy constitutes the domi- 
 nant form of marriage, at least conventionally. 
 It is even possible that it is rarer than it was in 
 earlier days of mankind, and high authorities 
 contend that immorality and sex-irregularity are 
 more widespread among mankind now than ever 
 before. As in various other matters relative to 
 marriage the scientific position is to refrain from 
 dogmatism. 
 
 When we seek to establish the occurrence of 
 the various forms of marriage along with definite 
 stages in social evolution the task is found to be 
 fairly difficult. Spencer gave his attentive 
 genius to the question. To his first question: 
 "Do societies of different degrees of composi- 
 tion habitually present different forms of domes- 
 tic arrangement?" he replied that no definite 
 relationship could be traced because monogamy, 
 
60 The Family and Society 
 
 polygyny, and polyandry occur in practically 
 every stage of social composition from the low- 
 est to the highest. Hov/ever, in this connection 
 one form of relation may be alleged. " Forma- 
 tion of compound groups, implying greater co- 
 ordination and the strengthening of restraints, 
 implies more settled arrangements, public and 
 private. Grov/th of custom into law, which 
 goes along with an extending governmental or- 
 ganization holding larger masses together, af- 
 fects the domestic relations along with the polit- 
 ical relations; and thus renders the family ar- 
 rangements, be they polyandric, polygynic, or 
 monogamic, more definite." 
 
 To his other question: "Are different forms 
 of domestic arrangement associated with the mili- 
 tant system of organization and the industrial 
 system of organization .^^ " he affirmed that a 
 general connection could be made out. But we 
 must bear in mind that predominant militancy 
 "is not so much shown by armies and the con- 
 quests they achieve, as by the constancy of their 
 predatory activities. The contrast between mili- 
 tant and industrial, is properly between a state 
 in which life is occupied in conflict with other 
 beings, brute and human, and a state in which 
 life is occupied in peaceful labor — energies spent 
 in destruction instead of energies spent in produc- 
 
Evolution of the Family 61 
 
 tion. So conceiving militancy, we find polyg- 
 yny to be its habitual accompaniment." Several 
 lines of evidence of this exist. First, the co- 
 existence of industrial development and monog- 
 amy among certain peoples, such as the natives 
 of Port Dory, New Guinea, the Land Dyaks, 
 certain hill tribes of India, the Lepachs, and 
 the Iroquois and Pueblos of North America. 
 Second, among primitive settled tribes, as in the 
 case of those just mentioned, the development 
 of chief and chiefly power is small, and the mili- 
 tancy is not great. Third, " the polygyny which 
 prevails in simply predatory tribes, persists in 
 aggregates of them welded together by war into 
 small nations under established rulers; and in 
 these frequently acquires large extensions." 
 Thus, polygyny was marked among the militant 
 ruling classes of the Fijians, of the peoples living 
 in Ashanti and Dahomey in Africa, the ancient 
 Peruvians, Mexicans, Chibchas, and Nicaraguans 
 of America, and the old despotisms of the East. 
 Fourth, " allied with this evidence is the evidence 
 that in a simple tribe all the men of which are 
 warriors, polygyny is generally diff*used; but 
 in a society compounded of such tribes, polyg- 
 yny continues to characterize the militant part, 
 while monogamy begins to characterize the in- 
 dustrial part." Fifth, a direct connection 
 
62 The Family and Society 
 
 between militancy and polygyny is seen in the 
 practice of capturing women as trophies of war 
 by warriors and making them additional wives 
 and concubines. Further, incessant war leaves 
 a surplus of women because the men fall in 
 battle. Polygynous peoples have the advantage 
 in such warfare of being able more rapidly to 
 reproduce warriors. On the other hand, the 
 decrease of war and increase of industry equal- 
 ize the numbers of the sexes and because every 
 man demands a wife, operate against polygyny. 
 Sixth, because polygyny means domestic despot- 
 ism and monogamy increases voluntary coopera- 
 tion in the family, the former is congruous with 
 a militant social system while the latter naturally 
 harmonizes with the industrial form of society. 
 (Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, Part 
 III, Chapter 9.) 
 
 3. Kinship Systems 
 
 Closely connected with marriage has gone the 
 method of tracing descent. L. H. Morgan, the 
 American ethnologist, traced several systems 
 of kinship. But for our purposes two gen- 
 eral systems may be spoken of — the metro- 
 nymic or maternal system, and the patronymic 
 or paternal system. The metronymic system pre- 
 vailed earliest in human society, and seems to have 
 
Evolution of the Family 63 
 
 been quite or almost a general stage through 
 which humanity passed. In this system the chil- 
 dren belong to the clan of the mother, are fos- 
 tered and cared for by it, and bear the name of 
 the maternal group. The father dwells with the 
 maternal group but his name is not taken by the 
 child. Further, the mother's kinsmen appear to 
 exercise the greater authority over the children. 
 Some investigators have believed that this sys- 
 tem arose during a system of promiscuity, since 
 under such a regime it would be impossible to 
 identify the father of a child, whereas the iden- 
 tity of the mother is always apparent. But as 
 we have seen, promiscuity likely has never been 
 general and it is necessary to explain the origin 
 of the kinship method otherwise. It is obvious 
 that animals know nothing of the paternal rela- 
 tionship. It is most probable that the earliest 
 men know nothing of it. In fact, a recent inves- 
 tigator asserts that among certain primitive peo- 
 ples of the present time the part the father plays 
 in fertilization is not known. The appearance 
 of the child is regarded as a matter of magic or 
 religion. Under such conditions the father could 
 lay no claim to a child and it would follow that it 
 would bear the mother's name. Moreover, since 
 the woman, because of her child bearing func- 
 
64 The Family and Society 
 
 tion, is more sedentary, more a fixture in camp 
 and locality than man, the offspring in primitive 
 times lived with the mother and the community 
 life formed about her. It is natural and logical 
 that the method of tracing lineage should center 
 in her. 
 
 It has been claimed that the existence of the 
 maternal system carries with it the idea of the 
 supremacy of woman in the social group. 
 Westermarck has compiled data to show that 
 among primitive peoples living now, the paternal 
 system is quite or even more general than the 
 maternal. Even if this does not prove that the 
 maternal system was never general, which he 
 thinks it does prove, it involves much evidence 
 that matriarchy — that is government and au- 
 thority by women — was never universal. It is 
 theoretically easy to assume that since the earli- 
 est groups probably formed about woman, she 
 therefore exercised control of group matters. 
 But it is pointed out that even where the ma- 
 ternal system prevails she does not generally 
 exercise any great authority. The cases of 
 large control by women as among the Iroquois, 
 Zuni Indians, etc., are rather exceptional. 
 
 The paternal system is so called because of 
 the method of naming children after the father 
 and of tracing descent through the main line. It 
 
Evolution of the Family 65 
 
 is the universal usage among civilized peoples 
 and, as has been said, obtains among the larger 
 number of present primitive men. It not only 
 involves the transfer of names through the male 
 line but also that of property. Moreover, it in- 
 volves the dominance of man over the wives and 
 children, and this sometimes in an exceedingly 
 harsh manner and to a very extreme degree. 
 The patriarchy was the culmination of it in its 
 exaggerated form. This is well pictured in the 
 Old Testament accounts of Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob, and Sir Henry Maine wrongly believed 
 it was the original form of human marriage. 
 
 The causes which operated to bring about 
 the revolutionary transformation from the ma- 
 ternal order to the paternal, wherever the change 
 has taken place, are numerous. Wife capture, 
 which tore the woman away from her kindred 
 group and made her a dependent in the group of 
 the man, had a decisive effect in that direction. 
 War, which by means of military organization 
 magnified the power of the male and also brought 
 him many human chattels in the shape of women, 
 would but build up a system of male inheritance. 
 Religion contributed its part by elevating the 
 male line through its development of ancestor 
 worship, women being too little heroic and spec- 
 tacular to serve as deities. Also great would be 
 
66 The Family and Society 
 
 the influence of the necessity imposed on the 
 family group of participating in distant hunt- 
 ing expeditions, of going far from home for 
 water for the herds, and most of all of passing 
 from the hunting to the pastoral stage of life. 
 The latter in particular imposed a permanent 
 separation of women from their blood group and 
 weakened their power. 
 
 ^. Reasons for Various Forms of the Family 
 
 To illustrate the force which social conditions 
 exercise on domestic institutions it may be well 
 to mention the causes which operated to produce 
 the chief forms of the family. And in this 
 undertaking only the larger causal conditions 
 can be noticed. 
 
 Relative to the least important of the three 
 great forms of marriage, polyandry, many dif- 
 ferent causes have been assigned. No special 
 kind of geographical environment can account 
 for it, since it obtains under most diverse cir- 
 cumstances. Economic conditions may be con- 
 tributive in that the cost of securing and keeping 
 a wife in naturally poor countries may be bur- 
 densome. But these are likely to operate only 
 after the custom is once established. Moreover, 
 it is practiced by the wealthy in some places. 
 Excess in the number of males because of female 
 
Evolution of the Family 6T 
 
 infanticide, or excess of male births, may play 
 a minor part, though, as Spencer remarks, it is 
 practiced in Tahiti, where the sexes are probably 
 equal. In Kunwar it is said to be assigned to 
 the desire to keep the patrimony from being 
 distributed among a number of brothers. To 
 guard the woman against danger and difficulty 
 during the absence of her husband, is an assigned 
 cause of minor value. The Shinalese ascribe it 
 to the desire to protect the rice fields during 
 forced attendance of the people on the king. 
 Fraternal affection on the part of the elder 
 brother operating to give the younger brothers 
 the privilege of a wife has received mention. 
 Spencer rejects scarcity of women and poverty 
 as sufficient causes and regards polyandry "as 
 one of the kinds of marital relations emerging 
 from the primitive unregulated state; and one 
 which has survived when competing kinds, not 
 favored by the conditions, have failed to 
 extinguish it." 
 
 While its causes may remain in doubt, polyan- 
 dry is a passing system. An advance in indus- 
 trial life appears to militate against it. In its 
 stronghold, Tibet, the introduction of commerce 
 with the consequent accumulation of wealth leads 
 to separate establishments on the part of the 
 several members of the household. Further it 
 
# 
 
 68 The Family and Society 
 
 tends to be modified in the direction of 
 monogamy, since in the case of brother hus- 
 bands the elder brother is the chief or real 
 husband, the younger brothers being regarded 
 as secondary husbands and are frequently the 
 servants of the elder brother. In other cases one 
 husband is accounted the real and the others are 
 secondary husbands, even servants. It is but a 
 step from this conception to a system in which 
 there is but a single husband. This principle 
 is essentially as that which operates to under- 
 mine polygyny. 
 
 The reasons assigned for the occurrence of 
 polygyny are more definite. First, polygyny is 
 frequently connected with wife capture. In 
 Africa many negro tribes make forays on neigh- 
 boring peoples to secure women. These become 
 concubines or slaves of the men. The reasons 
 for this may be numerous. The economic value 
 of women as labor units is very large in certain 
 regions, especially in west central Africa and on 
 the western coast. Also the ability to capture 
 women bestows a distinction on the most suc- 
 cessful warrior. The marked man is the one 
 who has captured or stolen a large number of 
 women. Hence numerous women become the 
 insignia of rank and honor. The desire for 
 novelty together with brutal lust operate 
 
Evolution of the Family 69 
 
 strongly in the primitive stage to promote 
 capture. ^ 
 
 Second, as has been remarked, the economic 
 importance of women in primitive society is 
 great. Women are easily subordinated in 
 slavery, or in a concubinage akin to it where 
 these secondary wives perform the bulk of the 
 labor. Their defenselessness and their tractable 
 nature make them easy prey. Not only is woman 
 captured and enslaved but she is purchased out- 
 right for that end, either by money or com- 
 modities, or by rendering service for a term of 
 years, as did Jacob. In New Caledonia chiefs 
 have from 5 to 30 wives and their wealth and 
 authority varies with this ownership. An East- 
 ern Central African finds no difficulty in sup- 
 porting hundreds of wives, since the more he 
 has the richer he is. An American Indian could 
 be absolved from the arduousness of hunting 
 to support his family whenever he could secure 
 as many as five wives. 
 
 Third, at a certain stage of social evolution a 
 man's rank and authority is dependent on the size 
 of his family. Not only is he rated by the number 
 of his wives but by that of his children. More- 
 over, his only friends are those of his family, 
 and his safety and fighting power are determined 
 by the size of his family group. Further, the 
 
 / 
 
70 The Family and Society 
 
 early marriage and hard labor of the women 
 impose small number of births per woman. The 
 mortality of children also reduces their number. 
 Hence the desire for many children tends to 
 promote polygyny. 
 
 Fourth, monogamy imposes continence on a 
 man during certain periods of time, namely, dur- 
 ing each month, and the period of pregnancy. 
 During the latter period it is especially enforced 
 among many primitive folk. Continence may be 
 compulsory also even until the weaning of the 
 child, which takes place late in the child's life 
 where people live on rough foods. The grounds 
 for these prohibitions may be either hygienic, 
 or religious, in the latter case disease being 
 ascribed to evil spirits. Escape from the state 
 of continence is secured by the multiplication 
 of wives. 
 
 Fifth, one of the chief causes of polygyny 
 exists in the attractive power of youth and beauty 
 upon men. Women age much younger than 
 men, especially in primitive conditions when they 
 marry and become mothers as early as twelve or 
 fourteen, perform the hardest of labor, and 
 where suckling the child extends over long 
 periods. Early intercourse with the other sex 
 is assigned as an additional cause of premature 
 aging. 
 
Evolution of the Family 71 
 
 Sixth, when once the custom of polygyny is 
 established and the rich and powerful practice 
 it religion throws about it its powerful sanction. 
 Indeed a developed religion may specifically pro- 
 mote it as in the cases of Mohammedanism and 
 Mormonism. Usually, however, religion sanc- 
 tions and promotes what has come to be estab- 
 lished. The Hebrew religion not only did not 
 prohibit polygyny but looked with special favor 
 on influential men who practiced it. 
 
 Seventh, the inequality of the sexes may pro- 
 mote polygyny. In some cases the women are 
 said to outnumber the men several fold. Among 
 tertain African peoples women are five times 
 more numerous than the men, and nearly the 
 same divergence occurs elsewhere. However, 
 these are exceptional cases. Among some peoples 
 this disproportion occurs at the time of birth, 
 the females largely exceeding the males in num- 
 ber. These also are special cases. Perhaps in- 
 cessant war which decimates the males is the 
 largest single factor in producing the inequality. 
 
 Certain comparative effects ensue from the 
 system of polygyny. First, on family matters ; 
 under polygyny, compared with polyandry and 
 other lower forms of marriage, the kinship rela- 
 tions are rendered more definite, since both the 
 father and mother of the off^spring are known. 
 
72 The Family and Society 
 
 Defining the relations undoubtedly strengthens 
 the parental, especially the paternal feeling. 
 This traceable male descent serves also to give 
 more cohesion to the group. On the other hand, 
 it is likely that the fraternal feelings are weak- 
 ened as compared with polyandry. Polygyny 
 commonly engenders intense jealousy among the 
 wives of a family, and this in turn is commu- 
 nicated to the offspring of each wife. Thus 
 the attachment among the half brothers and half 
 sisters can but be less than that of full brothers 
 and, sisters. 
 
 Second, polygyny has certain other effects. 
 One is connected with the self-preservation of 
 society. If by reason of war and other causes 
 females outnumber the males the population is 
 enabled to be duly increased by rendering all 
 the women of the group fecund by giving each 
 a husband. Again if in a militant state the 
 prowess of the men determines who shall have 
 wives and bear offspring, the stock of the group 
 is improved by the reproduction of the superior 
 stock. The political stability of a backward 
 social group is doubtless enhanced by bestowing 
 upon the males the power in society. Religion 
 in the form of ancestor worship, along with its 
 sanctions, is built up by the establishment of 
 descent through the male line. Polygyny has 
 
^Evolution of the Family 73 
 
 a bearing on the offspring that is superior to 
 other lower forms of marriage. Where the 
 region is fertile the protection afforded by a 
 father is doubtless conducive to their welfare. 
 Where the Levirate obtains, the brother of the 
 man upon his death adopts his wife and family, 
 thus affording protection and preventing child 
 mortality. Polygyny may also promote the 
 welfare of the adults as compared with lower 
 forms of marriage. By attaching all the females 
 of the group to a male it guarantees them food 
 and protection which otherwise in a primitive 
 state they would not have. But unless separated 
 in independent houses the state of the wives is 
 commonly miserable. Jealousy and strife is in- 
 cessant. Because of this the Hebrew term for 
 wife is tzarot, which means troubles, adversaries, 
 rivals. Higher sex sentiment is strangled by 
 viewing wives as chattels and through the very 
 numerousness of wives. It is common that among 
 savage polygynous peoples there is no manifesta- 
 tion of affection between the sexes. Negroes 
 have no term for love. Old age, moreover, 
 brings its own special penalties under polygyny. 
 There is a decided abridgement of life after the 
 reproductive period is past. Further, for men 
 all through life there is a lack of the comforts 
 of domestic affection. 
 
74 The Family and Society 
 
 The reasons for the establishment and con- 
 tinuance of monogamy are almost identical with 
 those for the elimination of polygyny. Hence 
 a consideration of the former will largely reveal 
 the latter. First, the sexes are and always 
 have been relatively equal in number. As we 
 have seen, in a few exceptional cases the women 
 are numerically superior. Generally then injus- 
 tice is done a large number of men where 
 polygyny prevails and monogamy is the natural 
 remedy for that injustice. Whenever enlighten- 
 ment develops and democracy takes root, and 
 especially wherever the freedom, equality, and 
 mutuality of an industrial society displaces the 
 arbitrary, despotic, and predatory character of 
 a militant one, the institution of marriage re- 
 sponds and conventional polygyny goes into dis- 
 repute. Because monogamy makes use of the 
 equality in the number of the sexes, it is the 
 method by which the largest number of family 
 groups for the training and rearing of children 
 is possible. In so far as the child is the justifi- 
 cation of the family this commends monogamy 
 as the highest form of marriage. 
 
 Second, the rise of the idea of property in 
 woman may have an influence towards monogamy. 
 When women have to be purchased rather ^than 
 captured, whether by money or service, they are 
 
Evolution of the Family 76 
 
 rendered more inaccessible to the average man 
 and hence come to have a higher value. Men 
 will resent encroachment or invasion of this prop- 
 erty right and be less likely to part with a wife 
 by an easy divorce method. 
 
 Third, as in polyandry, the preference by 
 custom or choice by the wife of one of the 
 husbands as the real husband tends to develop 
 monogamy, so in polygyny the elevation of one 
 wife, either because she is the first or because 
 of her beauty, operates in the same direction. 
 While under the sway of custom and religious 
 sanction, women living under polygyny may and 
 do support it, there are overwhelming indica- 
 tions that the system runs counter to their 
 jealous nature and that it degrades their best 
 sex sentiments. Polygyny finds its approval by 
 women where they carry all the burdens of out- 
 side and inside labor. Under such cases an 
 additional wife lessens the work of earlier ones, 
 and they may even importune that more wives 
 be procured. Yet wide evidence testifies to the 
 intense jealousy, rivalry, enmity, and oftentimes 
 bickering and fighting that exists among polyg- 
 ynous wives. Monogamy relieves the situation 
 and satisfies the desire of the wife to be regarded 
 as the sole object of marital affection. Says 
 Westermarck: "Where w^omen have succeeded 
 
76 The Family and Society 
 
 in obtaining some power over their husbands, 
 y or where the altruistic feehngs of men have be- 
 y^/ come refined enough to lead them to respect the 
 feelings of those weaker than themselves, mo- 
 nogamy is generally considered the only proper 
 form of marriage. Among monogamous savage 
 or barbarous races the position of woman is 
 comparatively good; and the one phenomenon 
 must be regarded as partly the cause, partly the 
 effect, of the other.'' 
 
 Fourth, polygyny will be abandoned and 
 monogamy advanced in so far as war declines 
 and economic conditions generally improve. The 
 decline of the first removes a great agency for 
 the exploitation of women through capture and 
 enslavement. Rising economic conditions tend to 
 eliminate women from the external field of labor 
 by making it imperative that man shall do the 
 work and carry the responsibility. This in turn 
 operates among the mass of men to make women 
 more independent and less inclined to bear the 
 burdens and disadvantages of polygyny. Thus, 
 as we ascend through the successive zones of 
 Africa — the banana, millet, cattle, and camel — 
 we discover an evolution towards monogamy. In 
 the first women are cheap and polygyny is gen- 
 eral; in the second women are scarcer and 
 dearer, men do part of the work, and polygyny 
 
Evolution of the Family 77 
 
 has decreased; in the third women are much 
 scarcer and dearer, men perform most of the 
 work, and monogamy obtains for much of the 
 population; in the fourth, women are inde- 
 pendent and will not put up with polygyny. 
 
 Fifth, many causes bound up with advancing 
 civilization, promote the extension of monogamy. 
 The development of the mental and moral quali- 
 ties refines the passions which unite the sexes, 
 makes love less dependent on mere external quali- 
 ties, and extends the sympathy between husband 
 and wife beyond the decline of youth and beauty. 
 The rise of romantic love is relatively a recent 
 occurrence. By this the affections are placed 
 on but one of the opposite sex, that one is 
 clothed with raiments of perfection, and chiv- 
 alric loyalty becomes the ideal of married life. 
 Though this halo of glory may fade away dur- 
 ing married life, it serves as a preparatory 
 period in which the substantial and permanent 
 characteristics may be discovered, and promotes 
 monogamy. Likewise the development of an 
 understanding of the conditions of life, of en- 
 lightenment and idealism, of a love and loyalty 
 for the good of mankind, of an appreciation of 
 childhood, and the importance of well trained 
 and rightly conditioned offspring for the promo- 
 tion of progress serve to create the highest type 
 
78 The Family and Society 
 
 of family. With the development of the monoga- 
 mous family kinship ties are made more definite, 
 fraternal affection enhanced, love for parents 
 and for offspring intensified and refined, child- 
 hood and youth rendered richer and more secure, 
 the contents of family life enlarged and deep- 
 ened, and the declining and oftentimes dependent 
 years of the parents given a security and sweet- 
 ness not to be found under other forms. 
 
 5. Development of the Monogamous Family 
 
 While there has been an evolution of mar- 
 riage through the various forms, as has been 
 seen, within monogamy itself there has been a 
 marked change. There is a vast distinction 
 between the monogamic family which exists in 
 America and that which obtained in early Rome, 
 or even in earlier Christendom. The transforma- 
 tions that have occurred have to do with woman's 
 position in the home, her relation to her husband 
 and children in matters of powers and duties, 
 her legal rights in property and marital matters, 
 and her social outlook and opportunities. 
 
 Rome, which is probably typical of Aryan 
 peoples, shows a distinct transformation of the 
 family. In its earlier period the extreme patri- 
 archal type of family flourished. Ancestor wor- 
 ship was the basis of this. The eldest male of 
 
Evolution of the Family 79 
 
 a large kinship group was the despotic ruler. 
 Because he represented the deified ancestors his 
 power was only limited by custom and religious 
 scruples. Property descended in the male line. ^ 
 The patriarch was the priest of the family. He 
 might divorce a sterile wife, accept or reject the 
 child at birth, choose the husband for his 
 daughter, disinherit his son, and put to death 
 the wife for adultery. He administered the 
 judicial power of the household. The Aryan 
 laws of Manu said: "Woman during her in- 
 fancy depends upon her father; during her 
 youth upon her husband; when her husband is 
 dead, upon her sons; if she has no son, on the .y 
 
 nearest relative of her husband, for a woman y^ 
 ought never to govern herself according to her 
 own will." This strict patriarchal system held 
 sway during, the first fiYe or six centuries of 
 Roman history. 
 
 But the growth of population, and the devel- 
 opment of agriculture, industry, and commerce, 
 undermined the primitive patriarchal groups, and 
 called for the exercise of powers over social 
 matters by a central legislative and adminis- 
 trative organization. The council and senate 
 assumed many of the powers and duties which 
 had been exercised by the patriarch. Ancestor 
 worship was undermined by the introduction of 
 
80 The Family and Society 
 
 nature worship and the appearance of philoso- 
 phy. The rights of children were equalized by 
 giving the father power to make a will which 
 might include all the children, females as well 
 as males. Marriage became a private contract 
 and the right of divorce extended to women. 
 Patriarchal kinship lines were broken by the 
 incorporation of inhabitants into cities, and 
 families were organized on the non-patriarchal 
 basis. 
 
 Under the Roman Empire social conditions 
 were corrupt. Family life had waned. Vice 
 was rampant, divorce frequent, and the family 
 of integrity and purity, at least in the city of 
 Rome, was infrequent. Juvenal cites the case 
 of a woman who married eight husbands in five 
 years. Yet there must have been many who 
 stood for the old standards, for Lecky writes: 
 "There can be no question that the moral tone 
 of the (female) sex was extremely low — lower, 
 probably, than in France under the Regency, or 
 in England under the Restoration — and it is 
 also certain that frightful excesses of unnatural 
 passion, of which the most corrupt of modem 
 courts present no parallel, were perpetrated with 
 but little concealment on the Palatine. Yet 
 there is probably no period in which examples 
 of conjugal heroism and fidelity appear more 
 
Evolution of the Family 81 
 
 frequent than in this very age, in which marriage 
 was most free, and in which corruption was so 
 general." It was in this period that Christianity 
 arose with its high conception of marriage and 
 its restricted sanction of divorce. The efforts 
 of early Christians were undoubtedly directed 
 towards the purification of the family, elimina- 
 tion of divorce and vice, and the improvement 
 of the lives of children. Early church writers 
 attacked sex immorality and licentiousness, and 
 praised chastity and celibacy. The family life 
 of the early Christians was undoubtedly superior 
 to that of the pagan world generally. 
 
 In a later period, with the church strongly 
 established and with weak political states, the 
 family came under the regulation of the former. 
 Marriage was made a sacrament of the church, 
 divorce was prohibited. Marriage was brought 
 under the entire control of the church. But bad 
 influences entered along with the good. lITie 
 patriarchal type of family was promoted, woman 
 being viewed as inferior to man and confined to 
 domestic duties exclusively. Further, the eleva- 
 tion of the doctrine of celibacy debased the mar- 
 ried state. Only the highest spiritual power 
 could be attained through abstaining from mar- 
 riage. Hence the latter involved spiritual pollu- 
 tion. Moreover, celibacy could not be kept 
 
82 The Family and Society 
 
 chaste. Family life was invaded and polluted 
 from the direction of a theoretically superior 
 spirituality. Moreover, the administration of 
 the canonical laws relative to prohibited degrees 
 and annulment of marriage was distorted to 
 meet the demands of influential persons. It is 
 questionable if a thousand years after Christ 
 marriage was improved as compared to its con- 
 dition in Rome in the first century. 
 
 The Reformation attacked the abuses of the 
 system of controlling marriage. Marriage 
 ceased to be viewed as a sacrament, it was widely 
 held to be a civil contract, notably by the 
 Puritans, and the grounds for divorce were 
 broadened. Since then the tendency has grown 
 to look on marriage in that way and to place it 
 under the entire control of the state. In recent 
 times the patriarchal family regime is being 
 loosened. Education has raised the intelligence 
 of women, vocations have been opened to them 
 so that marriage is not immediately imperative, 
 political and civil rights have been extended. 
 Woman has come to be regarded more as a human 
 being, possessed of much the same capacity as 
 man. As a consequence, her participation in 
 matters outside the home has enlarged with a 
 consequent improvement in the internal home 
 relationships. With the improvement of the 
 
Evolution of the Family 
 
 status of woman relative to the family and the 
 home that of children has grown apace. Their 
 rights and privileges in matters of play, enjoy- 
 ment, education, and to a just consideration on 
 the part of fathers as well as mothers are gen- 
 erally conceded, and mark one of the greatest 
 advances in family life. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Current Conditions Affecting the Family 
 
 FOR the purposes of this chapter it is assumed 
 that it has been amply established that the 
 modern family is marked by higher ethical char- 
 acteristics than that of previous times, and that 
 the welfare of society demands a further evolu- 
 tion in that direction. Further, that the mon- 
 ogamic form of marriage is the form of family 
 which best subserves the interests of the off- 
 spring, parents, and the community at large. 
 The conclusion is apparent that whatever 
 threatens the existence of the family, lowers its 
 tone, or affects its efficiency must be viewed as 
 inimical to society generally. The further in- 
 ference follows, that wisdom dictates that a 
 serious study of conditions affecting family life 
 should be made in order that their nature may 
 be understood and that evil consequences may 
 be averted. In the present chapter attention 
 will be paid only to the more pressing and 
 menacing of current conditions. To give a 
 treatment of all those that press on the family 
 is obviously impossible in a single chapter of a 
 small volume. However, it is worth while to 
 84 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 85 
 
 consider the more fundamental ones, and, where 
 possible, to point out remedies. It may be 
 superfluous to state that no single condition con- 
 sidered here stands apart by itself. In the nature 
 of the case by the very fact that they are social, 
 all conditions are more or less interdependent. 
 Consequently, like the directorates of the great 
 financial and industrial institutions of the time, 
 the conditions which affect the family are 
 interlocking. 
 
 1. Conditions Affecting Marriage 
 
 There are a number of conditions which affect 
 the entrance into matrimonial life. It is fre- 
 quently asserted that marriage is decreasing in 
 the United States. This opinion is based on 
 the fact that there is a large number of single 
 women and men, particularly the latter, in this 
 country. Thus in 1910, there were 12,550,129 
 males 15 years of age and over, or 38.7 per cent 
 of males of that age, and 8,933,170 females 
 belonging to the same age group, or 29.7 per 
 cent of females of that age, who were single. 
 But these facts are misleading and the opinion 
 cited is undoubtedly questionable, although no 
 absolutely decisive data covering a large lapse 
 of time are obtainable. However, there are two 
 5ets of facts which are suggestive. One consists 
 
86 The Family and Society 
 
 of statistics of single men and women 65 years 
 of age and over and who presumably will never 
 marry. In 1890, 5.6 per cent of each of males 
 and females belonging to this age group were 
 unmarried. Twenty years later, 6.2 per cent 
 of all males of this age group and 6.3 per cent 
 of females were reported single. This would 
 indicate a very insignificant increase in the num- 
 ber of single persons, since there are relatively 
 few persons 65 years of age and over. 
 
 The other set of facts comprises statistics of 
 marriage from 1887 to 1906. An increase in 
 the marriage rate is found for the United States 
 as a whole, and for each of the several geo- 
 graphic divisions. The number of marriages per 
 10,000 of population for the nation rose from 
 about 87.5 in 1887 to 105 in 1906. In the 
 western division, it rose from about 71 to about 
 127, this being the greatest gain. The North 
 Central Division showed the least ascent, rising 
 from about 91 to about 97.5. These facts 
 seemingly indicate that the unmarried element 
 of the population is being absorbed. But there 
 are two factors which evidently qualify this 
 interpretation. First, there is a growth in the 
 proportion of marriages reported during the 
 period involved. Second, there has been a growth 
 of divorce and remarriage during that time. 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 8T 
 
 However, a comparison of the percentages of 
 single persons 15 years of age and over re- 
 ported by the censuses of 1890, 1900 and 1910 
 respectively were: males, 41.7, 40.^, and 38.7; 
 females, 81.8, 61.2, and 29.7, indicating a de- 
 crease of unmarried persons in each case. Fur- 
 ther, in the South Atlantic states, where the 
 divorce rate is lowest, the rate of increase of 
 marriage far exceeded that of divorce, indicating 
 a large net increase of the former. The infer- 
 ence must be, consequently, that there is a prob- 
 able decrease in the number of unmarried persons 
 in the United States. 
 
 A supposedly considerable factor affecting 
 marriage is that of its asserted postponement. 
 Some careful writers assign postponement of 
 marriage as a fruitful source of increased divorce. 
 But a study of the statistics of married and 
 unmarried persons in the United States during 
 the last two decades reveals the fact that more 
 marriages of persons from 15 to 34 years of 
 age occurred in the decade ending 1910 than in 
 the one ending in 1890. The percentages of 
 decrease of single persons in the various age 
 groups, 15-19, 20-24, 25-34, were in the same 
 order, as follows: males, 1.1, 5.8, 1.8; females, 
 2.4, 3.5, 1.7. On the other hand, there was an in- 
 crease of single persons in the succeeding age 
 
88 The Family and Society 
 
 groups, 35-44, 45-64, and 65 and over, as fol- 
 lows: males, 1.4, 1.9, 0.6; females, 1.5, 1.4, 
 and 0.7. This would indicate that an increasing 
 number of persons are marrying early in life 
 rather than the reverse. The statistics of mar- 
 riage, though of less value because of the inclu- 
 sion of remarriage of widowed and divorced, 
 prove the same thing. No doubt in certain 
 callings there may be a postponement of mar- 
 riage, but they constitute a minimum of the 
 national population. But their conspicuousness 
 has given rise to the assumption of a general 
 postponement of marriage. 
 
 The reasons given for the supposed abandon- 
 ment and postponement of marriage are the 
 opening up of new occupations to women, their 
 . growing independence, the " woman movement," 
 heightening education, the increased cost of liv- 
 ing and relatively shortened incomes, and the 
 self -centered career of young men in cities. No 
 doubt these assigned reasons touch the case of 
 the groups in which there is an actual abandon- 
 ment and postponement of marriage. Severe 
 economic conditions demonstrably postpone mar- 
 riage temporarily. Thus following the panics 
 of 1893 and of 1903 the otherwise occurring 
 annual increase of marriages was reversed and 
 became a decrease. The decrease varied with the 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 89 
 
 severity of the panic and with the region. But 
 a growing increase in the number of marriages 
 took place during one of the two succeeding 
 years. A better regulation of the industry and 
 finance of the nation will obviate even this tem- 
 porary postponement. Most of the other causes 
 are inherent in an evolving progressive society 
 and are likely to remain. 
 
 ^. Conditions Affecting the Size of Families 
 
 The importance of the size of families has 
 been partly discussed in the chapter on the func- 
 tions of the family. There it was indicated that 
 the continuance of a stock or nation is dependent 
 on the general fecundity of the married persons 
 living in the given group. To keep up a stock 
 of people, it is necessary that there should be 
 as many as three offspring per pair. It is very 
 desirable that talented families should be per- 
 petuated, but in order that tfeey shall not be 
 eliminated the above rate of reproduction must 
 be maintained. A highly civilized nation should 
 not only perpetuate itself but at the same time 
 maintain a relatively .higL^te of fecundity in 
 order that it shall not sink int» such an incon- 
 spicuous place that its influence upon the world 
 at large is lost. But even a small nation may 
 be influential. That of Switzerland, for exam- 
 
90 The Family and Society 
 
 pie, on the world at large has been out of 
 keeping with its numerical importance. Perhaps 
 if militarism could be abolished, nations generally 
 could afford to pay less attention to the matter 
 of increase of population and devote their efforts 
 to developing the arts of peace and civilization. 
 However, there seems to be a connection between 
 fecundity and the production of a vigorous civ- 
 ilization. Large families and large nations ap- 
 pear to be productive of individuals of large 
 vitality. I know of no statistics on this par- 
 ticular point, but observation would seem to 
 substantiate it. It is claimed Karl Pearson has 
 demonstrated statistically that immunity from 
 tuberculosis increases with the second, and espe- 
 cially the third, child of the family. It is sup- 
 posed that this immunity may extend to other 
 diseases. But the claim requires further 
 proof. 
 
 The size of families has steadily declined in 
 J the United States since the first census was taken 
 I in 1790. The percentages of natural increase of 
 ^ population for the successive decades ending in 
 1800, 1810, 1820, 1830, and 1840 were respect- 
 ively 83.9, 33.5, 32.1, 30.9, and 29.6; showing 
 an average decennial decline of 0.86 per cent. 
 This was previous to the heavy immigration 
 which set in about 1840. Between 1850 and 1900 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 91 
 
 the number of persons in a family in the United 
 States was reduced from 5.6 to 4.7, a decrease 
 of 16.1 per cent. This would give 3.6 children 
 per family in 1850, and but S.7 in 1900. A 
 decline in the birth rate and reduction in the 
 size of families is a world phenomenon, one 
 common to civilized nations, Germany alone ex- 
 cepted, and is seen in the city populations of all 
 countries. 
 
 The postponement of marriage doubtless 
 operates to decrease the size of families, in so 
 far as it obtains. It is amply established that 
 the first few years of sexual maturity represent 
 the period of greatest fecundity. If marriage 
 is delayed until this period is past, a smaller 
 family is generally inevitable. In New South 
 Wales it is estimated that where the average 
 number of children is 3.6 per family, a woman 
 of 20 may expect 5 children, one of 28, 3, one 
 of 32, 2, and one of 37, 1. In Scotland the 
 period of greatest fecundity of women is between 
 the ages of 15 and 24. Coughlan believes that 
 one-sixth of the decline of birth rate of New 
 South Wales is due to late marriage and Heron 
 calculates it accounts for 50 per cent of the 
 decline in London. As we have seen, marriage 
 in the United States during the two decades 
 ending with 1910 has occurred earlier for the 
 
92 The Family and Society 
 
 nation as a whole. The small groups of people 
 who probably marry late, doubtless reduce their 
 fecundity by that event, whether or not they 
 actually reduce the size of their families. 
 
 The exercise of prudence or voluntary control 
 of reproduction is unquestionably the largest 
 factor in the reduction of the size of families. 
 Sidney Webb's investigation in England among 
 the middle-class people shows that out of 316 
 marriages, 242 practiced limitation of offspring, 
 while for the ten years, 1890-1899, out of 120 
 marriages, 107 were limited, and five of the 
 remainder were childless. His study of benefits 
 on child-birth in the Heart of Oaks Friendly 
 Society indicates that in 1880, 2,472 per 10,000 
 members received such benefits, whereas in 1904, 
 only 1,165 for the same number of members 
 drew on that fund. This is a higher decrease of 
 children than is noted for England at large. 
 No such inquiries have been made in the United 
 States, but it is likely that about the same forces 
 are at work here as in England, although it is 
 evident that the limitation of families is not as 
 widespread here as there. 
 
 The motives for the exercise of prudence 
 doubtless are numerous. Those who replied to 
 Webb's questions relative to reasons for limiting 
 reproduction, in the group of cases first cited 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 93 
 
 above, numbered 128. Of these, 73 alleged pov- 
 erty of the parents in relation to the standards 
 of comfort; 24 assigned sexual ill health; 38, 
 other ill health in parents; 24, disinclination of 
 wife; 8, termination of marriage by the death 
 of a parent. Since these were middle-class peo- 
 ple, it is not unlikely that their motives are 
 fairly representative for inhabitants of America. 
 Doubtless the rising standard of living, the 
 exhaustion of free public land, the growth of 
 luxury on the part of some, the higher education 
 of both men and women, the growing selfishness 
 in certain sections of the population, and the 
 abandonment of the belief in the binding force 
 of the Old Testament injunction on the Hebrews 
 to be fruitful and multiply are factors account- 
 ing for the increased exercise of prudence. 
 
 Immigration is assigned as a cause of the ^ 
 falling birth-rate in America. One of its effects 
 is taken to be the retardation of increase of the 
 native stock of America. While of some moment, 
 this factor has been overrated. The decline in 
 the birth-rate in the United States was quite as 
 marked previous to the advent of large scale 
 immigration as subsequent to it. Where workers 
 immediately compete with cheap foreign labor, 
 this influence would be most marked, but it has 
 little effect on the nation at large, which has been 
 
94 The Family and Society 
 
 predominantly agricultural during our history. 
 Goldenweiser, of the United States Census Bu- 
 reau, fairly demonstrates that the claim that our 
 national population would have been larger now 
 than it is if immigration had not taken place 
 has little to rest on; and connects the decrease 
 in number of the native stock with urbanization 
 and industrialization. 
 
 The spread of venereal diseases is a large fac- 
 tor in decreasing the size of families. There are 
 no governmental statistics bearing on this sub- 
 ject and data relative to these diseases will 
 appear in a later portion of this chapter. It 
 will be sufficient in the present place to call 
 attention to the fact that much sterility of 
 infected women, a large number of abortions 
 and expulsions of children dead before birth, 
 and an overwhelming decedence of children born 
 of infected parents result from the "Black 
 Plague." 
 
 Nor must we fail to mention the effect that 
 developing civilization exercises in this direction. 
 In the evolution of the forms of life the rate 
 of reproduction has fallen off with the growth 
 of brain and intelligence. Increasing rationality 
 and psychical development generally has created 
 parenthood and childhood and guaranteed life 
 against premature death. The supply of living 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 9S 
 
 forms could be secured advantageously by saving 
 individuals already born from ruthless extermina- 
 tion. Hence, in the higher forms of life, birth- 
 rates are lowered because deaths are postponed. 
 During the course of human evolution the same 
 tendency is noticeable. Nature seeks to strike 
 a balance. In nations having a heavy death-rate, 
 a high birth-rate is made imperative if the 
 nation is to live and grow. But where life is 
 made secure, where infant mortality is reduced 
 to the minimum and much attention given to 
 sanitation and education, national and racial per- 
 petuity are secured without a multiplicity of 
 births per family. 
 
 3. Divorce 
 
 Probably no condition that touches the family 
 has been discussed longer and at present attracts 
 more attention than that of divorce. Its rapid 
 growth in the United States especially, and its 
 increase in other nations renders it conspicuous 
 and causes many to seriously question whether 
 or not the principle of monogamy is not being 
 threatened. Some of the larger aspects of 
 divorce will be treated. It is unfortunate that 
 statistics are not available for correlating divorce 
 with other social phenomena in order that the 
 real causes of divorce might be discovered. Until 
 
96 The Family and Society 
 
 such a correlation is made the actual conditions 
 producing it can only be approximated. 
 
 Much care is needful in using statistics of 
 divorce because the case is likely to be exag- 
 gerated, and it is bad enough when truthfully 
 represented. The statement is ordinarily made 
 that there is about one divorce for every thirteen 
 marriages in the United States. But two correc- 
 tions must be made relative to this statement. 
 First, it pertains to native marriages only, that 
 is, marriages of native-bom persons. Second, 
 the comparison relates only to marriages which 
 have been terminated either by death or divorce. 
 Existing marriages do not enter into the ratio. 
 With these qualifications in view, Pictogram I 
 depicts the growth of divorce in the United 
 States from 1867 to 1906. In 1867 there were 
 less than 10,000 divorces granted; in 1906, there 
 were about 7^,000. The diagonal line indicates 
 the number there would have been in the latter 
 year had the rate of 1867 relative to the popu- 
 lation been maintained; that is, about 28,000. 
 In other words, the ratio of divorce to popula- 
 tion in 1906 was 3.13 times what it was in 1867. 
 
 A more significant measure of the frequency 
 of divorce is to denote its ratio to the number 
 of marriages. Viewed in this way, in 1870 there 
 were 81 divorces granted for each 100,000 of 
 
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 k 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 } 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
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 fi 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 4 
 
 Growth of divorce in the United States 
 
 Special U. S. Census Report, Marriage and Divorce, 
 
 Part I, p. 12 
 
% 
 
 98 The Family and Society 
 
 the married population, while in 1900 the num- 
 ber was 200, which indicates an increase of 247 
 per cent during that period. 
 
 As compared with European nations, the di- 
 vorce rate in the United States is very high. 
 In 1870 the rate in the United States was 29 
 per 100,000 of the population. That of Den- 
 mark was 18, being the highest European rate; 
 Sweden and Netherlands stood next with 3 each. 
 In 1900 the rates per 100,000 stood as follows: 
 United States, 73 ; Switzerland, 32 ; France, 23 ; 
 Denmark, 17; German Empire, 15; Servia, 13. 
 The other European countries for which com- 
 parative data are given range from 11 to 1, the 
 latter being the rate for Austria. It is to be 
 noticed that the divorce rate is increasing in 
 Europe, especially in Switzerland, France, and 
 Germany. 
 
 Coming to the question of causes of divorce 
 we enter a debatable field. Some general socio- 
 logical conditions connected with the situation 
 may be treated. Geographically, the Western, 
 North Central and South Central Divisions of the 
 United States bear the highest divorce-rate. The 
 Western Division rose from 50 to about 170 
 divorces per 100,000 of population from 1867 
 to 1906. In the same time, the North Central 
 rose from about 44 to about 108; the South 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 99 
 
 Central from about 15 to about 118; the North 
 Atlantic from about 17 to about 41 ; the South 
 Atlantic from about 8 to about 43. Thus the 
 Western and South Central Divisions made the 
 greatest increases. 
 
 A probably somewhat similar situation occurs 
 relative to urban and rural communities. The 
 divorce-rate is generally higher in cities than in 
 the country. In some states the urban and rural 
 rates diverge markedly. Thus per 100,000 pop- 
 ulation the city and rural rates in their order for 
 these states in 1900 are: Rhode Island, 119 
 and 60; Indiana, 233 and 134; Iowa, 251 and 
 85; Washington, 266 and 162; California, 219 
 and 128. In Kansas City the rate is 2.6 times 
 as high as for the rural counties of Missouri. 
 It is estimated that the newer sections of the 
 nation and the cities which are building up rap- 
 idly present somewhat similar conditions for pro- 
 ducing divorce. The ambitious, the restless, and 
 frequently the less scrupulous rush towards both 
 kinds of communities. The restraints of former 
 community life are removed so that divorce arises 
 as a probable concomitant of other excesses in 
 life. 
 
 Race and nationality do not appear to play a 
 very large part in the production of divorce. 
 It is difficult to determine whether or not negroes 
 
100 The Family and Society 
 
 account for the rising rate in the South. In 
 Louisiana the rate is highest in the densest negro 
 counties, while the reverse is true in Florida. 
 But it is determined that the rate is lower among 
 foreign-born white persons than among native 
 whites of native American parentage. For every 
 100,000 persons 15 years of age or over living 
 in the United States in 1910, bom in foreign 
 countries, there were 346 persons divorced. 
 Among native whites of the same age group 
 bom of foreign or mixed parentage the rate was 
 S40, while among native whites born of native 
 parents it was 589. Immigrants from nations 
 having low divorce rates and oftentimes empha- 
 sizing the sacramental character of marriage 
 would be expected to apply for fewer divorces 
 than citizens of our nation generally. But why 
 the second group, native whites bom of foreign 
 or mixed parents, should secure relatively so 
 much fewer divorces, does ncft appear. 
 
 It may be fair to conclude that barrenness is 
 a standing cause of divorce, since for the period 
 1887 to 1906, 40.2 per cent of all cases of 
 divorce reported no children. Occupation may 
 affect the case, but little is known about this. 
 The Special Report on Marriage and Divorce 
 of the United States Census Bureau arranges 
 the occupations relative to their probable f re- 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 101 
 
 quency of divorce. Of 39 occupations and occu- 
 pational groups the five highest in the list are 
 actors and professional showmen ; musicians and 
 teachers of music; commercial travelers; tele- 
 graph and telephone operators ; and physicians 
 and surgeons. The five lowest in the scale 
 are agricultural laborers ; clergymen ; draymen, 
 hackmen, teamsters, etc. ; blacksmiths ; farmers, 
 planters, and overseers. But not a great deal 
 of weight is claimed for this arrangement. 
 
 A growing proportion of divorces is being 
 granted to women. Among other things shown, 
 Pictogram II* exhibits this fact. It is seen that 
 practically twice as many divorces are issued 
 to wives as to husbands. Various reasons are 
 suggested to explain this, such as the decay of 
 the spirit of submission to the double standard 
 of morality on woman's part, and her growing 
 independence of thought and of action which are 
 due to education and opportunities in the indus- 
 trial or occupational fields. 
 
 The growing disbelief in the religious theory - ;?<^ 
 of marriage unquestionably fosters divorce. The 
 popular education of people in matters of law, 
 and especially into taking advantage of those 
 relating to dissolution of marriage, doubtless 
 
 *I am indebted for this pictogram to Mr. Geo. R. 
 Davies, instructor in sociology and history in the Uni- 
 versity of North Dakota, 
 
102 The Family and Society 
 
 possesses some force. The recognition in law 
 of more numerous grounds of divorce must have 
 considerable productive force; as also does the 
 laxness in administering divorce laws, though this 
 has been exaggerated. Other factors contribute 
 their influence, such as increasing industrialism 
 with large populations living on insufficient in- 
 comes, rising cost and standard of living which 
 strain family incomes to the breaking point, the 
 existence of large city areas where vicious con- 
 ditions obtain and sex matters are loose, the in- 
 troduction of venereal infection into the family, 
 chiefly by the husband, and the waning in many 
 quarters of the family ideal. Dr. Morrow be- 
 lieves that venereal infection is a frequent cause 
 of divorce, although it seldom appears in the 
 court record as such for the obvious reason that 
 few would care to be published as having been 
 contaminated. 
 
 Legally, about 40 grounds of divorce are rec- 
 ognized, but the vast majority of divorces are 
 granted for adultery, drunkenness, cruelty, de- 
 sertion, and neglect to provide, though during 
 the last 40 j^slys there has been a tendency to 
 increase the relative importance of the grounds 
 which involve the less serious off^enses. In the 
 period 1902-1906, the percentage of all divorces 
 granted for the five chief legal causes are as 
 
DIVORCES— -THOUSANDS 
 
104 The Family and Society 
 
 follows: desertion, 38.5; cruelty, 23.5; adul- 
 tery, 15.3 ; drunkenness, 3.9 ; neglect to provide, 
 3.8. Combination of the preceding causes rep- 
 resented 9 per cent and all other causes, 5.9 
 per cent. In the period 1867-71, adultery fol- 
 lowed desertion as next to the leading cause. 
 The largest gain made by any of these causes 
 between 1902-1906 was that of cruelty to hus- 
 bands, which increased in that time 1,609.8 per 
 cent ;* while the smallest rate of increase was for 
 adultery on the part of husband, divorces on that 
 ground growing but 237.1 per cent. More 
 divorces were granted to husbands than to wives 
 for the ground of adultery, the percentages 
 being 59.1 and 40.9. It is likely this difference 
 is largely due to the fact that adultery is 
 condoned when practiced by men. 
 
 It is often asserted that remarriage is a very 
 large motive towards securing divorce. The only 
 statistics in the United States touching this issue 
 are gathered in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and 
 Maine. They indicate that a somewhat larger 
 proportion of divorced persons remarried in 1906 
 than 25 years earlier. Special qualifying condi- 
 tions enter, however, and too much faith should 
 not be placed on these facts. In those states 
 
 *This large per cent, however, is based on the occur- 
 rences of only a few such cases. 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 105 
 
 about 35 per cent of divorced persons remarry. 
 
 It has been asserted by high authorities that 
 general postponement of marriage is a fruitful 
 condition of divorce because habits and the con- 
 sequent characters are well crystallized by the age 
 of thirty, and those who marry are more likely 
 to clash, whereas those who marry early are able 
 to mould their characters relative to each other. 
 As has been shown already in this chapter, mar- 
 riage is occurring earlier, generally. Some 
 groups are marrying later, doubtless, but they 
 are the ones in which higher education and disci- 
 pline prevail. Persons of these groups, by rea- 
 son of their maturity and control, are the less 
 likely to separate except in those instances where 
 the occupation puts a premium on personal van- 
 ity and gratification. Millions are marrying 
 before they are mature in judgment, mating 
 on the call of passing impulse, soon disagreeing 
 and divorcing. Pictogram II indicates that di- 
 vorce sets in in the first year of married life and 
 reaches its maximum rate in the fourth year, a 
 situation we might expect in the face of so many 
 child and youthful marriages. The Court of 
 Domestic Relations in Chicago finds juvenile 
 marriage is a most fruitful occasion of divorce. 
 
 How far divorce is an evil and to what degree 
 it is a benefit is a debatable question. To those 
 
106 The Family and Society 
 
 who believe in the religious sanctity of marriage 
 and that the state should leave marriage matters 
 to the church, all divorce, save a minimum 
 granted by the church, is bad. To others who 
 think that marriage and the family are social 
 institutions to be regulated as are other institu- 
 tions by civil agencies, the abuses arising in con- 
 nection with divorce are bad, but divorce in itself 
 is good. Without stopping to discuss that now, 
 let us turn to the effect loose divorce is likely 
 to produce. 
 
 In discussing divorce it is necessary to divest 
 ourselves of older theories of the nature of mar- 
 riage and remember that marriage is sociological 
 in nature. It is an institution established by 
 society through ages of evolution, as we have 
 abundantly seen in previous chapters, the essen- 
 tial function of which is to perpetuate society 
 by reproducing, first, fit physical organisms, and 
 second, well equipped social members. A con- 
 comitant function is to secure the happiness and 
 well-being of the adults through the privileges 
 and comforts of family life. The highest in- 
 terests of society are secured when the fam.ily is 
 sanitary and bodily sound, when the offspring 
 are duly socialized so as to be able to fill their 
 places in society, and when there is loyal coopera- 
 tion between husband and wife. Divorce must 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 107 
 
 be inspected, then, relative to its effects on chil- 
 dren and on parents. 
 
 First, an appreciation of the function of 
 parents relative to children enables us to realize 
 that where parents are separated so that the off- 
 spring enjoy the love and care of but one parent, 
 they have lost one of the greatest benefits of 
 life. The care and influence of both father and 
 mother are needful to a proper nourishing and 
 disciplining of children. Juvenile courts bear 
 abundant testimony to the efficacy of weak 
 parental control and decadent home life in pro- 
 ducing delinquency. Professor Charles A. 
 EUwood secured information from 84< reform 
 schools and four juvenile courts relative to de- 
 linquency and separation of parents. He found 
 that out of the 7,575 children in the former, 
 29.6 per cent came from families in which there 
 had been divorce or desertion; 35.03 per cent 
 from families in which either father or mother 
 were dead. Including a considerable per cent 
 of cases which overlap these first two cases, the 
 per cent of children in reform schools coming 
 from homes demoralized by drink, vice, or crime, 
 was 38.05 per cent. Four thousand two hundred 
 seventy-eight juvenile court children show a per- 
 centage of S3. 7 whose parents were separated 
 and 27.8, one or both parents of whom were 
 
108 The Family and Society 
 
 dead. Out of 687 such children in St. Louis in 
 1909 at least 400 had not both parents living 
 at home. Thirty-two institutions for dependent 
 children whose professed policy was to take des- 
 titute children, whether orphans or not, showed 
 that out of 3,595 children, 24.7 per cent were 
 from families in which there had been desertion 
 or divorce, while only 47.5 per cent were either 
 orphans or half orphans. Thus it is seen that 
 from 50 to 75 per cent of these classes of chil- 
 dren emanate from conditions in which one or 
 both parents are missing. It can hardly be gain- 
 said that the absent parental factor directly or 
 indirectly affects the situation. 
 
 Of course where there are no children in the 
 home, as we found is the case in about 40 per 
 cent of divorces, the evil effects arising from 
 separation, if any, are not directed toward 
 offspring. 
 
 The discussion of the effects of divorce and 
 separation on the husband and wife hinges on 
 settling the question of whether or not they 
 would be better off living together or apart, 
 conditions in the divorce being as they are. The 
 following propositions may be briefly made. 
 First, where there are children in the home, and 
 where it is a case of incompatibility only, it is 
 the duty of parents to live together if at all 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 109 
 
 possible, until the children are duly reared. Since 
 they have brought children into the world and 
 become responsible for them, they should sink 
 personal happiness to the maximum possible ex- 
 tent in order to discharge that responsibility. 
 Second, where personal purity, as in the case of 
 the presence of venereal disease, and conjugal 
 fidelity, as in the case of adultery, are the issue, 
 separation would appear to be the better course ; 
 although in the latter case exceptions should be 
 made, dependent on parties and conditions. So 
 far there probably would be a large measure of 
 agreement. In the case of cruelty, 83 per cent 
 of which men are responsible for, where it is 
 really severe, it is unreasonable to expect human 
 nature will bear with it. The presence in the 
 home of a really cruel parent is little conducive 
 even to the nurture of offspring. Fortunately, 
 for the period 1887-1906, 47.3 per cent of aU 
 cases of divorce on the ground of cruelty 
 involved no children. But 48.9 per cent of 
 divorces secured by wives on the ground of 
 cruelty did involve children, which may indicate 
 an attempt on the part of mothers to protect the 
 children, as it is 7.8 per cent above the average 
 for this cause in which children were represented. 
 The case of drunkenness is similar. Husbands 
 were offenders in 90.6 per cent of divorces on 
 
110 The Family and Society 
 
 that ground, while 55.1 per cent of divorces 
 granted to wives on this charge involved chil- 
 dren. In an age where drunkenness represents 
 bestiality, its confirmed practice warrants sep- 
 aration and divorce. Moreover, its concomitants 
 are likely to be most undesirable virtues. Neg- 
 lect to provide is almost solely a woman's ground 
 for divorce, but 6 divorces in a total of 316,149 
 issued to men between 1887 and 1906 being given 
 on that ground, 5 of which reported children. 
 As compared with other fundamental grounds, 
 it is unimportant, representing but 3.7 per cent 
 of the total divorces issued. The husband is 
 even yet the almost sole support of the wife and 
 children. If he voluntarily fails in this, he does 
 not justify his function and the wife is justified 
 in obtaining release, especially where she is called 
 upon to support him and to rear the family at 
 the same time. In 49.1 per cent of all divorces 
 granted to wives on the ground of unsupport, 
 children are involved. 
 
 It would appear that desertion could but issue 
 in divorce on any just sociological basis. Sep- 
 aration ensues, anyway, and it is often better 
 that a divorce should be granted and that the 
 innocent party be allowed to remarry. This may 
 secure a measure of justice for the husband or 
 wife off^ended against, and provide a home for 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 111 
 
 be children. About one-third of all divorces 
 granted to wives in the period 1887-1906 were 
 on the ground of desertion, and but 7.9 per cent 
 of these were contested; while nearly one-half of 
 those granted to husbands was for desertion, of 
 which 11.4 per cent were contested. This indi- 
 cates that the ground was generally warranted. 
 Children were involved in but 23.4 per cent of 
 cases of divorce for desertion granted to hus- 
 bands and in 43.9 per cent of such divorces 
 granted to wives. 
 
 Remedies proposed for the "divorce evil" 
 must rest on the recognition of certain things. 
 First, the right of the state on the part of society 
 to exercise final control of marital matters. 
 This means that a return to the religious the- 
 ory and ecclesiastical control of marriage is im- 
 possible. Marriage is a civil contract, whatever 
 else it may be, and society cannot afford to re- 
 linquish its interest in the matter and hand it 
 over to any partial organization. Second, the 
 inevitableness of divorce in an age of transition 
 in general and of human emancipation in par- 
 ticular. It must be viewed as a symptom of so- 
 cial change, a freeing of both men and women 
 from a system of conventional and often im- 
 moral restraint. When individuals are seeking 
 a larger liberty in every field of action and life 
 
;/^ 
 
 112 The Family and Society 
 
 it is inevitable that abuses shall arise. To check 
 this movement is quite impossible without sti- 
 fling modern science and industry, the springs 
 of progress and civilization. To cure divorce 
 can only be done by getting back to the condi- 
 tions which produce it along with many other 
 modern evils. 
 
 The lines of rectification would appear to lie 
 in the following directions: First, minimize and 
 remove the present abuses in divorce by securing 
 better divorce laws. Uniform divorce legisla- 
 tion such as has been proposed by the Congress 
 on Uniform Laws would remove certain abuses 
 but would not remove divorce. It would, no 
 doubt, lessen the number granted. It recog- 
 nizes seven grounds for the annulment of mar- 
 riage and six for divorce, the latter being adul- 
 tery, bigamy, two years' imprisonment for crime, 
 extreme cruelty, willful desertion for two years, 
 and habitual drunkenness for two years. It rec- 
 ognizes absolute divorce, and that from bed and 
 board. A decree of nisi is issued in the case 
 of the former, to become absolute at the expira- 
 tion of a year unless appealed or otherwise or- 
 dered by the court. Divorce from bed and board 
 may consist in a decree of separation forever, or 
 for a limited time, the latter revocable after ap- 
 plication of the parties interested upon reconcili- 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 113 
 
 ation. Bona fide residence in the state is re- 
 quired of applicants, and notification of the de- 
 fendant is sought to be secured. This latter 
 requirement is necessary since divorce is con- 
 siderably reduced where defendants receive no- 
 tice. To the provisions of this law should be 
 added a regulation prohibiting remarriage 
 within a certain time, say a year or two. 
 Further, the law should provide for parental 
 responsibility of the children where such exist, 
 the court of domestic relations or other court 
 to determine which parent is to be responsible 
 at the time of the decree. 
 
 Second, the establishment of special courts 
 of domestic relations which shall have sole juris- 
 diction over applications for annulment or di- 
 vorce. The Chicago and New York courts have 
 demonstrated the efficacy of such courts to pre- 
 vent divorce, frequently by securing a reconcili- 
 ation between husband and wife, and to improve 
 family conditions. These courts should be 
 copied in all the states. 
 
 Third, the greatest remedial agency consists 
 in reforming marriage rather than divorce. 
 Hasty and ill-advised marriages are the most 
 fruitful cause of divorces. The foremost stu- 
 dents of divorce are agreed in this. They are 
 also agreed that recourse must be had to educa- 
 
114 The Family and Society 
 
 tion of our young people into the functions 
 of marriage and the duties of parents in order to 
 bring due rehef. This is the work of the home, 
 the church, and especially the schools. It is 
 a part of the great task of social hygiene which 
 society must take up. Matters of marriage and 
 family should be taught as a part of prepara- 
 tion for life. Their social significance and their 
 ethical nature must be inculcated. A choice of 
 life mates with eyes open to the meaning of life 
 and the possibilities of happiness, and service 
 based on a well placed affection, will increase the 
 security of married life and reduce divorce ap- 
 pellates. 
 
 4, The Social Evil 
 
 The social evil broadly treated represents sex- 
 ual immorality and sexual disease in all forms. 
 Prostitution is peculiar to the higher stages of 
 social evolution. It did not exist in savage times 
 but was introduced in the course of barbarism. 
 So long as women were regarded as chattels 
 there was no call for professional women. In 
 medieval times prostitution was regarded as a 
 necessity, a form of moral protection of society, 
 and the state and city engaged procurers to keep 
 up the supply of immoral women. This belief 
 still lingers in certain communities and nations, 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 115 
 
 although they do not engage in procuring 
 women and girls for the trade. 
 
 How widespread vice is it is difficult to state. 
 Statistics are not kept by any communities of 
 more than the registered prostitutes, and in such 
 communities these represent a minimum of all 
 fast women. The Chicago Vice Commission 
 made a conservative estimate that there are five 
 thousand professional prostitutes in that city. 
 But various estimates place the number at from 
 25,000 to 80,000. Likewise several estimates 
 of prostitution in New York City closely agree 
 that there are about 40,000 women profession- 
 ally or casually engaged in it. Estimates for 
 London range from 40,000 to 50,000; for 
 Berlin, from 30,000 to 40,000 ; and for Paris, 
 30,000. Smaller cities contribute their quota. 
 Rough estimates which assign one prostitute to 
 about 15 men enable us to form a conception of 
 how the evil radiates. But, it is to be remem- 
 bered that the extensive prostitution of great 
 cities is chiefly due, not to male residents, but 
 to visitors and transients. 
 
 Prostitution afl*ects the family in several ways. 
 It lowers the moral tone of the community in 
 which it exists, particularly if it receives public 
 recognition and regulation. It is the fountain 
 head of venereal diseases which enter the family, 
 
116 The Family and Society 
 
 contaminate wives, produce repugnance, dissen- 
 sion, and separation, render women barren, pro- 
 duce abortions, and impose hereditary diseases 
 on the children which Hve. It is an especial af- 
 fliction to the section of the city in, which it is 
 allowed to exist, making vice a common fact of 
 life and inviting the youth of both sexes into 
 its practice. 
 
 To get at its removal it is necessary to know 
 its producing conditions. The vice commissions 
 of Chicago, Minneapolis, and Portland, and the 
 special investigation into prostitution made by 
 the United States Department of Commerce and 
 Labor agree that while industrial conditions are 
 prolific secondary or ultimate factors, the fact 
 that multitudes of women receive starvation 
 wages and yet lead moral lives proves that other 
 causes operate. The special government inves- 
 tigation finds little direct connection between 
 occupation and prostitution, but traces higher 
 professional prostitution back to home and 
 neighborhood conditions of vice and immorality. 
 It adds the factor of abnormality and weak wills 
 in many individuals of the lower professionals 
 and casual prostitutes. It found that domestic 
 service callings and home conditions were the 
 most fruitful sources of the life. Special vicious 
 situations in childhood, lack of discipline and 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 117 
 
 training and the temptations the young worker 
 is subject to either in or in connection with the 
 occupation are the greatest sources of the fall. 
 Many conditions in society exist which are con- 
 tributing factors, such as ignorance of sexual 
 matters, unregulated dance halls, amusements 
 and drinking places, white slavery traffic, de- 
 bauchery of little girls, vicious lodging houses, 
 and even public schools in some instances. Low 
 wages are the background, which failing to fur- 
 nish women with comforts and luxuries, drive 
 those who are ignorant, weak, and undisciplined 
 to gain them by occasional or habitual vice. 
 
 Venereal disease is widespread, but because 
 of its hidden nature it evades statistics. Some 
 perception of its widespread existence, however, 
 may be gained from certain statements: Nor- 
 way, under a compulsory system of reporting 
 venereal diseases by doctors, which, of course, se- 
 cures cognizance of only part of the cases, 
 shows from 10 to 15 cases per 1,000 population 
 annually for Christiania during the period of 
 years 1879-1898, two-fifths of which were gonor- 
 rhoea! and over three-tenths syphilitic. The 
 rate for the whole of Norway ranged from 3.55 
 in 188^ to 2.14 per 1,000 population in 1889. 
 Nations that have compulsory military service 
 for all males are a gauge of the presence of 
 
118 The Family and Society 
 
 the "Black Plague." In the period 1881-86, the 
 rates per 1,000 men in the following nations were 
 as follows : Germany, 85.1 ; France, 58.2 ; Austria, 
 73.6 ; Italy, 102.9. In 1891-96 they were as fol- 
 lows for these nations : 29.1 ; 56.7 ; 61.0 ; 84.9. 
 Neisser estimates that gonorrhoea represents 75 
 per cent or more, and syphilis from 5 to 18 
 per cent of all male diseases in the United States. 
 Noeggreath calculates that 80 per cent of mar- 
 ried men in New York City have or have had 
 gonorrhoea, from which wives are probably in- 
 fected. Dr. Morrow states that 70 per cent of 
 all his women patients suffering from syphilitic 
 infection were respectable married women who 
 had been diseased by their husbands. Further, 
 it is estimated that from 1.5 to 8 per cent of all 
 venereal infection is due to extra-genital sources. 
 The deadly effect of these diseases will indi- 
 cate their vital influence on the family. Dr. 
 Morrow believes that one-eighth of all disease 
 and suffering is due to this source. Moreover, 
 the incidence of such diseases falls on the young 
 during the active and productive period oi 
 life. The danger to innocent members of society 
 is enormous. "Eighty per cent of the deaths 
 from inflammatory diseases peculiar to women, 
 75 per cent of all special surgical operations 
 performed on women, and over 60 per cent of 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 119 
 
 all the work done by specialists in diseases of 
 women are the result of infection of innocent 
 women. Moreover, 50 per cent or more of 
 these infected women are rendered irremedially 
 sterile, and many are condemned to life-long in- 
 validism." The dangers to offspring are great 
 and disastrous. All grades of society are subject 
 to them. Eighty per cent of the ophthalmia 
 which produces blindness in babies, and 20 to 
 35 per cent of all blindness come from gono- 
 coccus infection. Murderous mortality of off- 
 spring comes from syphilis. European data in- 
 dicate that 60-61 per cent of cases in private 
 practice and 84-86 per cent in hospitals, espe- 
 cially visited by prostitutes, entail death. Four- 
 nier gives a table of families in which 216 births 
 were followed by 183 deaths, and another in 
 which 157 births were succeeded by 157 deaths 
 of offspring. Further, syphilis is hereditary 
 and passes its effects to the third generation of 
 those that live. Gonorrhoea is not hereditary 
 but wields an even greater depopulating effect. 
 Neisser thinks it causes 45 per cent of invol- 
 untary sterility, and in 80 sterile marriages 
 Kehrer found that 45 were caused by inflamma- 
 tory and other changes — all of gonorrhoeal 
 origin. These figures are for absolute sterility. 
 But its greatest effect is to produce one-child 
 
1^0 The Family and Society 
 
 sterility. When it is remembered further that 
 insanity, feeble-mindedness, and other abnormal 
 effects are entailed by venereal infection, its 
 deadly results become all the more apparent. 
 
 The cure for the social evil is not in counte- 
 nancing and segregating it. Regulation does 
 not regulate, as experience in European and 
 American cities proves. Regulation means rec- 
 ognition of its right to exist on the part of the 
 public and government. Every system of regis- 
 tration, sequestration, and inspection has broken 
 down. Berlin has 10,000 prostitutes under sur- 
 veillance by the police and 30,000 more at large. 
 So far as statutory enactment and governmental 
 action relative to it goes, it must be on the basis 
 of absolute prohibition. There is no dissent 
 from this on the part of vice commissions. 
 Many of their members began their work be- 
 lievers in segregation and regulation. Their 
 investigations uniformly converted them to the 
 position of prohibition as the only right and 
 feasible governmental attitude. It is also note- 
 worthy that medical men are more and more 
 coming to this position. 
 
 Instruction in sexual hygiene is coming to be 
 viewed as imperative. Boys and girls must be 
 taught the nature and function of sex, the right 
 care of themselves, the awful perils that await 
 
Conditions Affecting the Family 121 
 
 the patrons of vice. This should be the work 
 of the home, but in default of parents who are 
 prepared to give the proper instruction, the 
 schools must respond and carry on the work. 
 This should be done in a sympathetic, yet sci- 
 entific, manner. Moreover, an appeal must be 
 made to the moral nature and a higher and 
 stronger self-control and personal discipline se- 
 cured. This is a work, not for the prudish, con- 
 ventional moralist, but for the trained expert 
 who loves humanity and sympathizes with the 
 temptations and trials of youth. 
 
 Social conditions generally stand in need of 
 regulation so that special temptations and pit- 
 falls shall be removed, and the grounds of ne- 
 cessity to practice vice to secure a decent living 
 be eliminated. The public regulation of amuse- 
 ment, recreation, and dance halls, and the pro- 
 vision of healthful forms of recreation and sport 
 are essentials of a constructive program of re- 
 form. A minimum wage for working girls and 
 women is a necessary factor in this work. Fur- 
 ther, the elimination of vicious conditions in 
 lodging houses where working girls live must 
 be secured. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Biological Phases of Sex and the Family 
 
 BIOLOGICAL factors intrude themselves into 
 the institution of the family in a most pro- 
 found manner. The primary relation of husband 
 and wife in the exercise of the reproductive 
 function is purely a physiological one. The di- 
 vision of labor which obtains normally between 
 man and woman in carrying on the life work of 
 the domestic institution was originally deter- 
 mined by the demands which arose as a result of 
 the differences of sex. As bearer and nurturer 
 of the child primitive woman was compelled to 
 be relatively sedentary, an attendant, and func- 
 tionary of the camp because of the child. The 
 man, unfettered by infant dependents, v/as free 
 to travel far from camp in quest of game and in 
 the execution of his militant duties of protector. 
 Likewise in modern times, because of relief from 
 childbearing and nurturing, his division of 
 labor has lain principally outside the home, 
 while that of the woman has chiefly followed 
 the lines established by her primitive and pre- 
 historic prototype. 
 
 The view that the male is the central and the 
 122 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 123 
 
 more essential factor in human affairs is as old 
 as recorded history. Long before the time of 
 scientific biologic conceptions the notion was 
 dominant that man is the center and head of the 
 social order. It was held that he dominated 
 in life matters because of innate superiority. 
 When the science of biology arose it was nat- 
 ural that this conception should have been in- 
 corporated into its doctrines. But in recent 
 years another philosophy of the relative im- 
 portance of the sexes has been proposed which 
 reverses the order biologically, and further ex- 
 plains man's leading role in society as due to 
 artificial conditions ; that is, to those which have 
 arisen as a consequence of social evolution. This 
 new view has been appropriated by members of 
 the "feminist" movement, and used as a justi- 
 fication of universal sex equality. Since this 
 theory, in large measure, involves the biological 
 history of the sexes, it is important that it be 
 examined. 
 
 Again the question arises as to whether the 
 family is purely a biological matter, whether it 
 has arisen solely for the convenience of the 
 mating sexes, or whether it has other promoting 
 causes. The earlier chapters of this volume, 
 together with this one, furnish data for arriving 
 at a conclusion relative to this question. 
 
124 The Family and Society 
 
 Lastly, the family institution is closely re- 
 lated to the issues involved in the increase of pop- 
 ulation, the determination of sex, and the im- 
 provement of the physical stock. Each of these 
 items is closely linked with important problems 
 of the present day. 
 
 i. The Appearance of Sex 
 
 A discussion of the origin of sex is difficult 
 for the layman, as are many other phases of the 
 biological history of sex. Many of these mat- 
 ters are still unsettled and their discussion is 
 technical and extensive. Yet it is safe to say 
 that sex is a somewhat late innovation in the 
 evolution of life forms. This is obvious if 
 we make a distinction in the mode of reproduc- 
 tion, as is the common practice. That is, the 
 earlier mode of reproduction was asexual; the 
 later one, sexual. Thomson says that the feature 
 common to the ordinary forms of asexual multi- 
 plication is that "reproduction is independent 
 of eggs or sperms, or any process comparable 
 to fertilization." He also states that " although 
 we can no longer say that unicellular organisms 
 are without sexual reproduction, since many ex- 
 hibit the liberation of special reproductive units 
 and the occurrence of amphimixis, we may still 
 say that, apart from transitional forms (like 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 1^5 
 
 volvox, which form colonies, or * bodies' of 
 one thousand to ten thousand cells), there is 
 among the unicellulars only the beginning of 
 the important distinction between somatic or 
 bodily and germinal or reproductive material, 
 which distinguishes multicellular organisms. This 
 makes a notable distinction." {Heredity, pp. 
 34, S6). A brief exposition of the methods of 
 reproduction will help to make this clear. 
 
 The protozoa constitute the lowest forms of 
 life, the world of single-cell animals. The 
 method of multiplication of many of these crea- 
 tures is that of segmentation. This process of 
 division begins in what appears to be the active 
 agent of the cell, namely, the nucleus. Gradu- 
 ally two nuclei develop from the original nu- 
 cleus and new organisms are formed about them 
 which finally separate, each constituting a com- 
 plete protozoan. Prior to reproduction after 
 this manner a conjugation between unrelated 
 creatures commonly takes place. Just what is 
 the significance of this, whether a mode of reju- 
 venation of the stock or a kind of fertilization, 
 is in dispute. It seems safe to say that although 
 scores of generations may take place without 
 such conjugation the stock will ultimately de- 
 teriorate and die unless either such crossing is 
 made or suitable nutritive conditions are main- 
 
126 The Family and Society 
 
 tained. Thus, conjugation and nourishment ap- 
 pear to be close equivalents in the lowest forms 
 of Hfe. 
 
 Some of the single-cell animals multiply by 
 means of " spores." These are very small por- 
 tions of the original form which are liberated 
 and which develop into complete organisms. 
 New creatures have also been grown from arti- 
 ficial cuttings. But in this case it is held that 
 the fragment must have a representative of the 
 various partners entering into the " organiza- 
 tion " of the original being in order to develop. 
 
 Ascending in the scale of life it is found that 
 in certain multicellular organisms multiplication 
 is sexless. It takes place asexually by separa- 
 tion of gemmules, and by budding, as seen in 
 fresh water sponges, polyps, and fresh water 
 hydra; also in some worms and tunicates, the 
 latter really being vertebrates. In some cases 
 where asexual multiplication does not really 
 occur, cut-ofF portions may, under suitable con- 
 ditions, grow into mature individuals. Such is 
 the case in the sponge, starfish, planarian worm, 
 etc. Plants produce detachable buds. Mature 
 individuals may be secured by means of slips and 
 roots, such as in the case of strawberries and 
 currants. Potatoes are grown from cuttings. 
 Such instances show that little division of labor 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 12^ 
 
 in the body and slight differentiation between 
 body and germ cells exist. 
 
 In higher multicellular animals germ plasm, 
 spermatozoa, and ova are introduced. Real sex 
 appears, the male possessing the sperm and the 
 female the ovum. A junction of the two are 
 necessary for reproduction. The ovum is sup- 
 posed to furnish the food-yolk for the early de- 
 velopment of the embryo. The sperm con- 
 tributes the centrosome which is the active agent 
 in the organization of the fertilized cell for 
 further growth by subdivision. Both parents 
 contribute to the organization which ensues by 
 imparting chromatic material. But experiments 
 of DeLage indicate that individuals may be 
 produced without the presence of the nucleus 
 and chromosomes of the -ovum. On the other 
 hand Loeb's experiments on the same kind of 
 organisms, sea-urchins, show that they may be 
 developed without the presence of the sperm, by 
 supplying a 50 per cent solution of magnesium 
 chloride and sea water. These experiments 
 merely confirm "the general assumption that 
 spermatozoon and ovum are completely equipped 
 potential organisms." "When we consider the 
 ovum and spermatozoon as two fully equipped 
 potential individualities which unite to form the 
 
128 The Family and Society 
 
 beginning of a new individuality, we see more 
 clearly how, on the one hand, there is a double 
 likelihood of the essential specific characters be- 
 ing sustained, and how, on the other hand, there 
 is every likelihood that the intermingling will 
 lead indirect^, if not directly, to something 
 new." (Thomson, Heredity, Chap. II.) The 
 further development of the sexes of the higher 
 forms of life from this stage on presents no 
 new principle. Because of this, it requires no 
 special treatment. 
 
 The view developed by Professor Lester F. 
 Ward departs widely from the concept outlined 
 above. In his opinion all life in the beginning 
 and for some time after was exclusively female. 
 " In all the different forms of asexual reproduc- 
 tion, from fission to parthenogenesis, the female 
 may ... be said to exist alone and perform all 
 the functions of life including reproduction. In 
 a word, life begins as female." However, he 
 recognizes that initial life is really pre-sexual. 
 How the male was evolved he summarizes as fol- 
 lows: "The manifest advantage of crossing 
 strains and infusing into life elements that come 
 from outside the organism, or even from a spe- 
 cialized organ of the same organism, was seized 
 upon by natural selection, and a process was 
 inaugurated that is called fertilization, first 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 129 
 
 through an organ belonging to the organism 
 itself (hermaphroditism), and then by the de- 
 tachment of this organ and its erection into an 
 independent but miniature organism wholly un- 
 like the primary one. This last was at first 
 parasitic upon the primary organism, then com- 
 plemental to it and carried about in a sac pro- 
 vided for the purpose. Its simplest form was a 
 sac filled with spermatozoa in a liquid or gelatin- 
 ous medium. . . . This fertilizing organ . . . was 
 the primitive form of what subsequently devel- 
 open into the male sex, the female sex being the 
 organism proper, which remained practically un- 
 changed. The remaining steps in the entire proc- 
 ess consisted, therefore, in the subsequent modi- 
 fication and creation, as it were, of the male or- 
 ganism." Because the female constantly selected 
 the form which best fitted her needs the shapeless 
 sac " gradually assumes a definite form agreeing 
 in general characteristics with that of the orig- 
 inal organism. There is no other reason why the 
 male should in the least resemble the female." 
 After the male had become an independent 
 organism capable of carrying on fertilization 
 functions, the esthetic tastes of the female and 
 the competition among the males for the favor 
 of the females, selected the most highly deco- 
 rated and strongest males for reproductive pur- 
 
130 The Family and Society 
 
 poses. Thus, by the time the human stage was 
 reached, males became equal to, and oftentimes 
 "superior" to, the females. 
 
 But, before male dominance set in there 
 existed a state of society or relationship be- 
 tween the sexes which Ward, following Bachofen, 
 terms gynecocracy, or female rule. The evi- 
 dence for this is based on the occurrence of 
 amazonism, or militant feminism, the matri- 
 archate, or metronymic, family, and the absence 
 of a knowledge of the part the father played in 
 fertilization, with the resulting absence of con- 
 trol of the offspring. Consequently it was a con- 
 dition of female selection, a situation where the 
 males had to sue for the favors of the females. 
 
 Then came the fall. "As it was brain devel- 
 opment which alone made man out of an animal 
 by enabling him to break over faunal barriers 
 and overspread the globe, so it was brain de- 
 velopment that finally suggested the causal nexus 
 between fertilization and reproduction, and led 
 to the recognition by man of his paternity and 
 joint proprietorship with woman in the off- 
 spring of their loins. This produced a pro- 
 found social revolution, overthrew the author- 
 ity of woman, destroyed her power of selection, 
 and finally reduced her to the condition of mere 
 slave of the stronger sex, although that strength 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 131 
 
 had been conferred by her. . . . Throughout 
 all human history woman has been discriminated 
 against and held down by custom, law, literature, 
 and public opinion. All opportunity has been 
 denied her to make any trial of her powers in 
 any direction. In savagery she was underfed, 
 overworked, unduly exposed, and abused, so that 
 in so far as these influences could be confined to 
 one sex, they tend to stunt her physical and 
 mental powers. During later ages her social 
 ostracism has been so universal and complete that, 
 whatever powers she may have had, it was im- 
 possible for her to make any use of them, and 
 they have naturally atrophied and shriveled. 
 Only during the last two centuries and in the 
 most advanced nations, under the growing power 
 of the sociogenetic energies of society, has some 
 slight relief from her long thraldom been grudg- 
 ingly and reluctantly vouchsafed. What a 
 continued and increasing tendency in this direc- 
 tion will accomplish it is difficult to presage, but 
 all signs are at present hopeful." {Pure So- 
 ciology, Chap. 14.) 
 
 The origin of sex is too much a mooted ques- 
 tion to express a dogmatic opinion about it. 
 However, it would appear that Ward takes too 
 little cognizance of the conjugation which op- 
 
132 The Family and Society 
 
 erates among low forms of life. Moreover, 
 he takes much of his evidence from animals, 
 which are not ancestral forms of life relative to 
 man. His position that originally the female 
 was equal to, or superior to, the male as an or- 
 ganism, is evidently true. Also the most of 
 what he says relative to the place of woman in 
 social evolution is true. But it is probable that 
 there was never a universal stage of gynecoc- 
 racy or matriarchy such as he proposes, although 
 among some peoples there was something akin 
 to it; as for instance the strong influence in 
 tribal matters exercised by the women among 
 the Iroquois. 
 
 2. The Function of Sex 
 
 Sex undoubtedly is a device worked out by 
 nature in a stumbling way but which at the same 
 time secures the desirable result of multiplying 
 the possibilities of improvement of the stock or 
 race through variation. The lowest forms of life 
 multiply themselves by self -division. Life runs in 
 a cycle of a very narrow and identical kind. 
 Millions of years may have elapsed before 
 variations occurred which improved the stock 
 and resulted in race progress. Conjugation, 
 which takes place between individual organisms, 
 seems to have for its function the rejuvenation 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 133 
 
 of the stock, since a change of the nutritive ele- 
 ment secures the same result. 
 
 When sex in the true sense is introduced the 
 possibilities of race evolution are enormously in- 
 creased. The laws of heredity still obtain, but 
 the hereditary elements which come together in 
 the offspring of the union are derived from dif- 
 ferent and dissimilar stocks of individuals. The 
 possibility of this is seen in the fact that each 
 individual has two parents, four grandparents, 
 eight great-grandparents, and sixteen in the 
 fourth set of parents removed. Under the oper- 
 ation of inheritance, reversion to type occurs 
 and the stirps from any one of the parents of 
 the fourth generation removed from the off- 
 spring, has a possibility, according to Galton, 
 of one-sixteenth of total possibilities of influ- 
 encing the nature of the child. Although 
 the exactitude of the Galtonian law has been 
 questioned, the possibility of new com.binations 
 arising from uniting stirps from so many diver- 
 gent directions is simply enormous. A good 
 illustration of this is seen in the ethnological 
 field. According to Deniker a race is a pure 
 stock of people that in reproduction breeds pure. 
 That is, stature, form of head, complexion, form 
 and color of hair, color of eyes, and other bodily 
 characters, would remain similar in offspring and 
 
134 The Family and Society 
 
 parent. The original races were of this nature. 
 But interminghng of races and stocks with cross- 
 ing of parent strains have so varied the peoples 
 of the earth that scarcely a pure type exists to- 
 day. Race strains and stock strains of most di- 
 verse characters are found in modem individuals. 
 Variations in respect to all the bodily character- 
 istics enumerated above take place. Other things 
 being equal, improvement of the physical stock 
 occurs by this procedure. Holmes has artistic- 
 ally represented the gradual mingling of the 
 races during ethnological history and pictures 
 the complete fusion of all the stocks of people 
 and the disappearance of anything like distinct 
 races in the somewhat distant future. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that heredity dom- 
 inates in the process of variation. The influence 
 of parentage is bound to be felt. The stirps 
 that come down from the past to unite in the 
 new creature are those from a race, a stock, 
 a family. The new creature is bound to be much 
 like the old. Even in stock breeding, where 
 artificial selection governs the matter of pairing, 
 heredity sets bounds. Bateson says that the 
 part prophecy plays is small. " Variation leads ; 
 the breeder follows. The breeder's method is 
 to notice a desirable novelty, and to work up 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 135 
 
 a stock of it, picking up other novelties in his 
 course — for these genetic disturbances often 
 spread — and we may rest assured the method 
 of nature is not very different." As Thomson 
 says, from whose work this is quoted, "Let 
 the believer in the efficacy of selection operating 
 on continuous fluctuations try to breed a white 
 or black rat from a pure strain of black-and- 
 white rats by choosing for breeding the whitest 
 or the blackest ; or to raise a dwarf ( ' Cupid ' ) 
 sweet pea from a tall race by choosing the 
 shortest. It will not work. Variation leads and 
 selection follows." (Heredity, p. 89.) 
 
 Intelligent selection, however, on the part of 
 would-be parents may accomplish much both 
 positively and negatively for the improvement 
 of the human race. As a positive matter the 
 woman or man desiring to mate has the power 
 to choose a mate who has the characteristics of 
 a good race stock. If mates are selected who 
 have the advantage of size, strength, freedom 
 from abnormalities in form and physiognomy, 
 and of mental ability, the assurance is warranted 
 that the offspring which may issue from the 
 mating will be adequate for the undertakings of 
 life. On the other hand, security for the off- 
 spring may be attained negatively by avoiding 
 
136 The Family and Society 
 
 mating with persons having diseased, abnormal, 
 or undesirable characteristics. Most character- 
 istics are transmitted directly from parents to 
 offspring, and an examination of the candidate 
 for marriage will usually reveal the defect and 
 be sufficient to prevent undesirable results. 
 Others msij lie back in the parentage and, though 
 not affecting the present individuals who mate, 
 may use them as a means of transmission. De- 
 fects of many bodily structures are transmissible 
 and evidence of this may be found in works on 
 eugenics and genetics. It is fairly certain that 
 feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, and certain phases 
 of insanity, narcotism, syphilis, and of crimi- 
 nality, are inheritable. The reader will find these 
 amply treated in the class of works just men- 
 tioned. Further, the effects of venereal diseases 
 are not confined to the first generation, but often 
 visit terrible afflictions upon those who follow. 
 Nothing short of a bill of health based upon 
 physical examination is sufficient to protect the 
 integrity of the race from the scourges which 
 now afflict humanity. 
 
 V 
 
 3. Nature of Sex Differences 
 
 It Is obvious that the sexes are different. 
 Not only do they vary in matters of height, 
 weight, size of head, form and proportion of 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 137 
 
 body, functions and organs of reproduction, and 
 in many other physical particulars, but there 
 appears to be some grounds for declaring that 
 they are dissimilar in physical respects. What- 
 ever the cause and permanency of many of the 
 physical characteristics peculiar to each sex, it 
 can hardly be doubted that some of the present 
 psychic differences have sprung out of past so- 
 cial conditions. Thus, all or most of the seeming 
 mental inferiority of women, together with the 
 so-called character of indirection, undoubtedly 
 arose out of the fact that for untold centuries 
 woman occupied the position of a dependent 
 relative to man. Any failure to be interested 
 in man's world and affairs, her small showing in 
 the world of achievement, her dominant interest 
 in domestic and social matters have their expla- 
 nation in her almost complete severance from the 
 world of affairs, even to this day. Where there 
 is no responsibility for carrying on the world's 
 external work, it is useless to expect a high 
 mental ability in those directions. And the fact 
 of dependence is sufficient to account for woman's 
 methods of indirection. Not being able to de- 
 cide issues on their merit, because of the ar- 
 bitrary course of the master to whom all prop- 
 erty and civil rights belonged, she has been 
 ;forced to accomplish her purposes by the subtle 
 
188 The Family and Society 
 
 manipulation of her over-lord. Woman's so- 
 called "peculiar" characters, instead of being in- 
 herent and innate, are quite a matter of social 
 heredity, having been handed down through the 
 line of daughters in an imitative manner. 
 
 On the other hand it can hardly be doubted 
 that there is a fundamental psychical difference 
 between the sexes which arises from their di- 
 vergent reproductive natures. That woman 
 should always and everywhere manifest an in- 
 terest in all matters that concern children im- 
 measurably greater than the interest shown by 
 man should be expected in consideration of her 
 reproductive functions. The child's long period 
 of incubation in her body, its suckling from 
 her breasts, its absolute dependence on her for 
 care during several years, have created a special 
 and intense psychical constitution relative to 
 child affairs that can only be fitly denoted by the 
 term maternal. 
 
 In so far as the distinctions between the sexes 
 are biological in origin and nature the question 
 arises as to whether they are primary or second- 
 ary. That is, whether they are inherent in the 
 very constitution of sex or whether they have 
 appeared as incidents in the evolution of the 
 sexes. A discussion and decision of this ques- 
 tion does not involve and pronounce on the 
 
Biological Phases of Sea: 139 
 
 " inferiority " of woman. She might be inferior 
 in strength, activity, size, and other respects, 
 and yet be equal or superior to her male con- 
 sort. The relation of the sexes and their posi- 
 tion in society must be placed on a functional 
 and an adaptative basis and the merits of the 
 two must be viewed in that light. If there ap- 
 pears to be a biologic and sociologic division of 
 labor, and the woman is as well adapted to 
 carry on her natural functions as man is to 
 exercise his, she evidently cannot in any sense 
 be regarded as inferior. To pronounce her in- 
 ferior, when she executes the functions to which 
 she is adapted would be as illogical as to assert 
 that the linotype machine is inferior to the loco- 
 motive. 
 
 Whether the physical characteristics of the 
 sexes are constitutional or not is a large and 
 complicated question. All parties are agreed 
 that the reproductive organs and functions are 
 primordial. The other characteristics which, 
 were called by Charles Darwin secondary sex- 
 ual characteristics are matters of dispute. On 
 these at least two general views are held. 
 
 Darwin believed that natural selection accounts 
 for the evolution of the various forms of life 
 in the vegetable and animal world, and that 
 sexual selection explains the secondary differ- 
 
140 The Family and Society 
 
 ences between the sexes of plants and animals, 
 including human beings. That the male human 
 being is larger, taller, stronger, heavier, he be- 
 lieved to be due to the operation of the selec- 
 tive process exercised by the females during the 
 ages past in choosing mates, together with that 
 of the law of battle obtaining among males. 
 Women, by exercising a preference for mates 
 that were strongest, most active, most deco- 
 rated with hair, have placed a premium on that 
 type of man and have chosen to mate and breed 
 with such. Consequently, successive generations 
 of males have responded by more and more ap- 
 proximating those characters. Hence, men have 
 differentiated from women in those particulars. 
 Such characteristics are, therefore, not original 
 and primordial, but somewhat incidental and sec- 
 ondary. They may also and consequently be 
 modified. Such is not the case with the pri- 
 mary distinctions of sex. This, in brief, was 
 Darwin's theory, the one that most commonly 
 is held. 
 
 In recent years a new theory has grown up 
 and is gaining in acceptance. Wallace, the col- 
 league of Darwin in the statement and proof of 
 evolution by natural selection, dissented from 
 Darwin's position that sexual selection accounted 
 for the divergences between man and woman. 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 141 
 
 Instead he made certain criticisms and sug- 
 gested that the dissimilarities were so deep that 
 they can only be primary in nature. 
 
 More recently Geddes and Thomson have de- 
 veloped the primordial constitutional theory and 
 given it support by a vast array of facts. Other 
 writers have contributed in the same direction. 
 It is believed that the so-called secondary sex- 
 ual characters have been merely the expression 
 of primordial constitutional differences. Meta- 
 bolism — that is protoplasmic changes that go 
 on constantly in all organic bodies — is common 
 to man and woman. But this metabolism is 
 of two kinds, namely, anabolic or constructive, 
 and katabolic or destructive. Metabolism of the 
 constructive and conserving kind characterizes 
 the female. In her the building up process tends 
 to exceed the tearing down process. The male, 
 on the other hand, is more dominantly anabolic. 
 He tends to use up energy, to dissipate it. 
 Woman, as a consequence, is more conservative 
 in the expenditure of her forces, is steadier, 
 more patient, more enduring in the things she 
 does. Man is inclined to run into excesses of 
 expenditure, particularly In his earlier period, 
 takes great spurts witl intermittent slumps, is 
 less passive than woman and more active. Hence, 
 Geddes and Thomson say : " The life-ratio of 
 
142 The Family and Society 
 
 anabolic to katabolic changes, A:K, in the fe- 
 male is normally greater than the corresponding 
 life-ratio, ark, in the male. This, for us, is the 
 fundamental, the physiological, the constitu- 
 tional difference between the sexes; and it be- 
 comes expressed from the very outset in the 
 contrast between their essential reproductive ele- 
 ments, and may be traced on into the more su- 
 perficial secondary sexual characters." 
 
 Should readers desire to have the evidence for 
 the above theories they will find Darwin's facts 
 in his Descent of Man, Part II, which deals with 
 sexual selection; Geddes and Thomson in their 
 Evolution of Sex present much evidence of the 
 other theory ; and Professor Thomas, in his Sex 
 and Society, Chap. I, has collected from all di- 
 rections and summarized facts in its support. 
 It must be said that there is much to commend 
 in the constitutional theory. It falls in line with 
 what we ought to expect in consideration of the 
 specialized reproductive function of females 
 among all child-bearing animals. It also touches 
 the matter of nutrition, as all the evidence in 
 support of it so abundantly shows. Nutrition 
 and reproduction are closely associated. Re- 
 production makes enormous demands on females. 
 This is shown by the difference in specific grav- 
 ity of the blood of man and woman. In woman 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 143 
 
 this change in specific gravity is related to the 
 reproductive period. It is less than that in 
 man up to about the age of 55, equals his dur- 
 ing the next ten years, and is greater after that. 
 Her energy, which is represented in the hema- 
 globin of her blood, the latter deciding the spe- 
 cific gravity of the blood, is consumed by the 
 drain made during the period of reproduction. 
 This process calls for a conservative and con- 
 structive metabolism. Hence woman and other 
 females are anabolic, conserving of their energy 
 which is gained through nutrition, perhaps 
 more responsive to nutritive changes than males, 
 because their physiological division of labor de- 
 mands it. 
 
 Jf,. Sex Determination 
 
 In recent scientific books two new theories of 
 determining the sex of the offspring have ap- 
 peared. One of these is based on the operation 
 of gravity during the process of copulation, 
 the other on the application of adrenalin. These 
 are but samples of theories numbering above 
 five hundred which have been proposed for the 
 determination of sex. Since so many ways have 
 been suggested and probably not more than 
 one can be true it would appear that the subject 
 is one of much doubt. 
 
144 The Family and Society 
 
 The theory that sex is determined by the 
 amount and quality of nutrition is one of the 
 most favored theories. Experiments on develop- 
 ing tadpoles, bees, and many other forms of life 
 have been made. Those on tadpoles may be 
 used illustratively. I quote Geddes and Thom- 
 son: "Adopting the view stated by Yung, v*^e 
 shall simply state the striking results of one 
 series of observations. When the tadpoles were 
 left to themselves, the percentage of females 
 was rather in the majority. In three lots the 
 proportion of females to the males was as fol- 
 lows: 54:46; 61:39; and 56:44. The aver- 
 age number of females was thus about 57 in the 
 hundred. In the first brood, by feeding one 
 set with beef, Yung raised the percentage of 
 females from 54 to 78; in the second, with 
 fish, the percentage rose from 61 to 81 ; while 
 in the third set, when the flesh of frogs was 
 supplied, the percentage rose from 56 to 92, 
 That is to say, in the last case the result of 
 altered diet was that there were 92 females to 
 8 males. From the experience and carefulness 
 of the observer, these striking results are en- 
 titled to great weight." * 
 
 It is a long journey in the evolutionary series 
 
 from tadpoles to man, yet the authorities just 
 
 * Geddes and Thomson, The Evolution of Sex, pp. 45-6. 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 146 
 
 quoted are inclined to believe that the same holds 
 true respecting the latter. They say : " Ploss 
 may be mentioned as an authority who has em- 
 phasized this factor in homo. Statistics seem to 
 show that after an epidemic or a war the male 
 births are in a greater majority than is usually 
 the case. Diising also points out that females 
 with small placenta and little menstruation bear 
 more males, and contends that the number of 
 males varies with the harvest and prices. In 
 towns, and in prosperous families, there seem 
 to be more females, while males are more nu- 
 merous in the country and among the poor.'' 
 But Geddes and Thomson recognize that other 
 factors than nutrition enter into sex-determina- 
 tion, and they connect the latter with their theory 
 of sex difference which was exposited in the 
 immediately preceding section. Such factors as 
 heat, light, moisture, enter into the situation. 
 We will hear their conclusions : 
 
 "Such conditions as deficient or abnormal 
 food, high temperature, deficient light, mois- 
 ture, and the like, are such as tend to induce a 
 preponderance of waste over repair — a rela- 
 tively kataholic habit of body — and these con- 
 ditions tend to result in the production of males. 
 Similarly, the opposed set of factors, such as an 
 abundant and rich nutrition, abundant light and 
 
146 The Family and Society 
 
 moisture, favor constructive processes; i. e., 
 make for a relatively anabolic habit, and these 
 conditions tend to result in the production of 
 females. With some element of uncertainty, we 
 may also include the influence of the age and 
 physiological prime of either sex, and of the 
 period of fertilization. But the general con- 
 clusion is tolerably secure — that in the deter- 
 mination of sex, influences inducing a relative 
 predominance of katabolism tend to result in 
 production of males, as those favoring a relative 
 predominance of anabolism similarly increase the 
 probability of females." * 
 
 This theory takes us into the controversy over 
 the question whether or not the germ plasm may 
 be influenced by external conditions. This is 
 close to the problem of the transmission of ac- 
 quired characters, but it is not identical with it. 
 That the germ plasm should be influenced by 
 the transfusion of the nutrition of the body so 
 that the reproductive elements are determined as 
 to their sexual structure is a far dift^erent mat- 
 ter from passing on a scar or skill through 
 their agency. Says Thomson, in his Heredity, 
 "the case does not do more than show that the 
 
 * Geddes and Thomson, The Evolution of Sex, pp. 53, 
 55, 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 147 
 
 gonads (germ glands) are reachable by somatic 
 influences, which no biologist has ever denied." 
 
 It is interesting to note that one of the two 
 collaborators and expositors of the above the- 
 ory has moved away from it toward the other 
 theory of sex determination which we shall no- 
 tice. His statement forms a real connection be- 
 tween the two. Referring to the earlier position 
 he had held he says : " In some cases it still seems 
 legitimate to believe that external conditions 
 may have a role in sex determination, but in 
 many cases further experiment has invalidated 
 results previously accepted. More and more it 
 seems being proved that the sex is fixed in the 
 fertilized ovum or earlier, and it is difficult to 
 verify any hypothesis as to the conditions of 
 determination at this early stage." Since the 
 proportion of male and female births through- 
 out is quite constant, the mean being 1,060 males 
 to 1,000 females, and since "about 30 per cent 
 of ordinary twins are of different sexes, while 
 identical (monochorial) twins — surrounded by 
 one foetal membrane or chorion, and almost cer- 
 tainly developed from one ovum — are always 
 of identical sex," it is apparent that external 
 conditions have little to do in sex-determination, 
 and that this takes place in the fertilized ovum. 
 
148 The Family and Society 
 
 Sex-determination, then, may depend either on 
 "a number of minute and variable factors," or 
 upon heredity. What the latter means is that 
 there is an abiding ratio between the sexes, which 
 probably is somewhat different race by race ; and 
 that sex is determined in the fertilized ovum by 
 means of some sort of a compromise between the 
 parental factors which enter into the situation. 
 (Heredity, J. Arthur Thomson, pp. 205 and 
 500-504.) We now pass on to what may be 
 called the chance theory, which various cytolo- 
 gists at the present time support. Mr. Charles B. 
 Davenport has embodied it in his work on eugen- 
 ics, and Professor Walter in his Genetics. 
 
 On the subject of sex-determination, Daven- 
 port indicates that it is necessary to study the 
 offspring of human marriage. He says : " Now 
 marriage can be and is looked at from many 
 points of view. In novels, as the climax of 
 human courtship ; in law, largely as a union of 
 two lines of property descent; in society, as 
 fixing a certain status ; but in eugenics, which 
 considers its biological aspect, marriage is an 
 experiment in breeding; and the children, in 
 their varied combinations of characters, give the 
 result of the experiment. That marriage should 
 be only an experiment in breeding, while the 
 breeding of many animals and plants has been 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 149 
 
 reduced to a science, is a ground for reproach. 
 Surely the human product is superior to that of 
 poultry ; and as we may now predict with preci- 
 sion the characters of the offspring of a partic- 
 ular pair of pedigreed poultry, so may it some 
 time be with man. As we now know how to make 
 almost any desired combination of the characters 
 of the guinea-pigs, chickens, wheats, and cottons, 
 so may we hope to do with man." (Heredity in 
 Relation to Eugenics, p. 7.) 
 
 The transmission of sex must take place by 
 means of the mechanism by which other charac- 
 teristics are conveyed. What are known as unit 
 characters lie at the basis of this. Traits are 
 handed down from generation to generation 
 through the sperm and ovum. These combine 
 in the fertilized ovum and determine that the 
 offspring is to be of a given species or sex. " The 
 resulting characteristics are determined by chem- 
 ical substances in the fertilized egg. It is be- 
 cause of certain chemical and physical differences 
 in two fertilized eggs that one develops into an 
 ox and the other into a man. The differences 
 may be called determiners,'^ (Same, p. 10.) 
 
 Unit characters are closely connected with 
 transmitting traits. Illustrations of unit char- 
 acters would be brown eyes, blue eyes, straight 
 
160 The Family and Society 
 
 hair, curly hair, epilepsy, insanity, and so on. 
 Each character is simple and is transmitted as 
 a unit. Unit characters are transmitted by 
 means of what are known as determiners. These 
 determiners reside in the germ plasm of the 
 reproductive organs, namely, in the sperm of the 
 male and the ^gg of the female. Since the germ 
 plasms are isolated away from the bodily struc- 
 ture at large, many of the characters of the 
 latter do not influence them. Thus mutilations 
 made on the body and skill attained by it are 
 not transmissible because they do not act on the 
 germ plasms. But since the germ cells, in com- 
 mon with bodily cells, are nourished by the blood, 
 poor conditions of the blood may affect them. 
 They may be pauperized by lack of nutrition, 
 and what is known as "race poisons" might 
 ensue. While the presence of characters in the 
 body does not always prove that their deter- 
 miners are present, their absence generally indi- 
 cates that the determiners are not present. 
 
 Each of the germ cells contains a nucleus 
 which is the organizing part of the cell in mat- 
 ters of growth. The nucleus, in turn, contains 
 chromosomes, which appear to be its real active 
 portion. These chromosomes, or certain of them, 
 are thought to bear the determiners. Hence, 
 unit characters, those of sex included among 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 151 
 
 their number, are handed down by means of the 
 chromosomes. 
 
 But whether the resulting offspring will be 
 male or female appears to be a matter of chance. 
 Each kind of sex-cell possesses what are known 
 as X chromosomes. These are regarded as " sex- 
 chromosomes." One half of the mature male 
 cells have these, the other half do not. On the 
 other hand, all the mature female sex-cells bear 
 such "sex-chromosomes." When a sperm and 
 an ovum, each possessing X chromosomes, unite 
 in fertilization, the fertilized ^gg will develop 
 into a female. But when a sperm without this 
 X chromosome fertilizes an ^gg', the issue is a 
 male. Hence it may be said that the presence 
 of two determiners produces a female and that 
 of but one a male. (Davenport, Heredity in Re- 
 lation to Eugenics, Chap. 2; Walter, Genetics y 
 Chap. 10.) 
 
 This theory has been attested by various 
 groups of facts of a demonstrative nature. Its 
 positivity is, of course, dependent on verification. 
 The theory is held by men like Loeb, Davenport, 
 Walter, and other well-known authorities. Wal- 
 ter in his Genetics, presents three lines of data 
 which are believed to prove its certainty. It 
 would appear, therefore, that this theory of sex- 
 determination is no longer a mere hypothesis. 
 
152 The Family and Society 
 
 A comprehension of this theory demonstrates 
 that all efforts on the part of parents to regu- 
 late the sex of desired offspring must prove 
 abortive. For, according to our present knowl- 
 edge, the mechanism of determination is beyond 
 the reach of artifice. There appears to be no 
 means of so influencing the X chromosomes that 
 they shall combine in the exact proportion which 
 results in either male or female as desired. 
 
 5. Summary 
 
 The importance of sex and sex-differences in 
 the problems of the family and society warrants 
 a scientific treatment of sex in order that its 
 nature and influence may be understood. We 
 have discovered the following facts relative to it : 
 First, it is probable that sex-differences and sex 
 itself do not exist in the lowest forms of life, but 
 are introduced at the time when reproduction of 
 the young by means of special sex organs begins 
 to occur. Previous to this the members of a spe- 
 cies were alike. Afterward, they were distinguished 
 as male and female. This stage of development 
 was not specifically and universally reached until 
 higher forms of animals and vegetation appeared. 
 
 Ward's theory that males are the result of the 
 development of females, having been differen- 
 tiated from their appended fertilizing organs, 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 153 
 
 is ingenious but probably erroneous. His expla- 
 nation of the subordination of woman, however, 
 by reason of the superior strength of man, and 
 ' because of woman's limitations due to child- 
 bearing, is unquestionably true. 
 
 Second, the function of sex is largely a race 
 and evolutionary matter. Using the language 
 of teleology, we may say that nature originated 
 sex in order that individuals might become more 
 variable. This has been a distinct advantage for 
 securing a more rapid evolution of life forms, 
 since the greater variety of strains there are to 
 cross, the greater the variety of forms there are 
 for the working of natural selection. It may also 
 serve advantageously to men and women now 
 who intelligently choose life mates. By under- 
 standing the nature of reproduction^ a more 
 valid, or at least a less debilitated and diseased 
 type of offspring, and hence human stock, may 
 be secured. 
 
 Third, we find that the sexes are different in 
 their natures. They have human nature in com- 
 mon, but the fact of their physiological differ- 
 ences relative to reproduction has a consequence 
 for them, physically and psychically. Each sex 
 has been differentiated for a specific reproductive 
 purpose. This, in turn, has affected their de- 
 
164 The Family and Society 
 
 sires and center of interest in life. Since the 
 woman is more intimately associated with the 
 offspring, her interests in life and her division 
 of labor more immediately center in them. This 
 does not mean that she is inferior to man, because 
 her particular function, her greatest purpose in 
 life, is as important as any that man may at- 
 tempt. Man's dominance in the affairs of the 
 world and over woman has made it appear that 
 he is innately superior. But it is probable that 
 woman's exclusion from w^orld affairs, her lack 
 of practice in and development relative to them, 
 are sufficient explanations of her backwardness. 
 
 Fourth, it has been seen that there have been 
 almost innumerable theories as to how the sex of 
 offspring is determined. We found I'eason for re- 
 jecting Geddes' and Thomson's theory that nutri- 
 tion chiefly accounts for sex, because more recent 
 investigations point to another solution of the 
 problem. It is inevitable that the results recently 
 gained by cytologists should be accepted, since 
 they are so amply substantiated by different 
 kinds of evidence. It may be accepted as a scien- 
 tific fact that sex is determined in the fertilized 
 ovum by the sex determinants carried by the 
 combining sperm and ovum. This means that 
 external influences and all sorts of artifice are 
 powerless to decide the results. Briefly stated, 
 
Biological Phases of Sex 155 
 
 the X chromosomes decide the issue. If a sperm 
 which contains no X chromosome fertilizes an 
 egg — X chromosomes being constituents of all 
 eggs — the issue will be male ; but if it contains 
 such chromosome, the issue will be female. So 
 far as human artifice extends, it appears to be 
 a mere chance whether the one or the other kind 
 of combination will occur. 
 
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