LITERATURE

2. Authority over the Family: Divorce.—The strains which have been noticed in the foregoing paragraphs have centered public attention on the outward symptoms of unrest and maladaptation. Current discussions of family problems are likely to turn largely upon the increase of divorce. For the reasons which have been given there has doubtless been increasing tendency to seek divorce, and this may continue until more stable conditions are reached. Now that the authority of the church is less implicitly accepted, individuals are thrown back upon their own voluntary controls, and whether marriages are arranged by parents as in France, or formed almost solely on the initiative and unguided will of the parties as in America, the result is much the same. Two classes of persons seek divorce. Those of individualistic temperament, who have formed the marriage for selfish ends or in frivolous moments, are likely to find its constraints irksome when the expected happiness fails to be realized and the charm of novelty is past. This is simply one type of immoral conduct which may be somewhat checked by public opinion or legal restraint, but can be overcome only by a more serious and social attitude toward all life. The other class finds in the bond itself, under certain conditions, a seemingly fatal obstacle to the very purpose which it was designed to promote: unfaithfulness, cruelty, habitual intoxication, and other less coarse, but equally effective modes of behavior may be destructive of the common life and morally injurious to the children. Or alienation of spirit may leave external companionship empty of moral unity and value, if not positively opposed to self-respect. This class is evidently actuated by sincere motives. How far society may be justified in permitting dissolution of the family under these conditions, and how far it may properly insist on some personal sacrifice for the sake of larger social ends is simply another form of the problem which we considered in the economic field—the antithesis between individual rights and public welfare. The solution in each case cannot be reached by any external rule. It will be found only in the gradual socializing of the individual on the one hand, and in the correlative development of society to the point where it respects all its members and makes greater freedom possible for them on the other. Meanwhile it must not be overlooked that the very conception of permanence in the union, upheld by the state, is itself effective toward thoughtful and well-considered action after as well as before marriage. Some causes of friction may be removed, some tendencies to alienation may be suppressed, if the situation is resolutely faced from the standpoint of a larger social interest rather than from that of momentary or private concern.

General Law of Social Health.—Divorce is a symptom rather than a disease. The main reliance in cases of family pathology, as for the diseases of the industrial and economic system, is along the lines which modern science is pursuing in the field of medicine. It is isolating certain specific organisms which invade the system under favorable circumstances and disturb its equilibrium. But it finds that the best, and in fact the only ultimate protection against disease is in the general "resisting power" of the living process. This power may be temporarily aided by stimulation or surgery, but the ultimate source of its renewal is found in the steady rebuilding of new structures to replace the old stagnation; the retention of broken-down tissues means weakness and danger. The social organism does not escape this law. Science will succeed in pointing out the specific causes for many of the moral evils from which we suffer. Poverty, crime, social injustice, breaking down of the family, political corruption, are not all to be accepted simply as "evils" or "wickedness" in general. In many cases their amount may be greatly reduced when we understand their specific causes and apply a specific remedy. But the great reliance is upon the primal forces which have brought mankind so far along the line of advance. The constant remaking of values in the search for the genuinely satisfying, the constant forming, criticizing, and reshaping of ideals, the reverence for a larger law of life and a more than individual moral order, the outgoing of sympathy and love, the demand for justice—all these are the forces which have built our present social system, and these must continually reshape it into more adequate expressions of genuine moral life if it is to continue unimpaired or in greater vigor.

We do not know in any full sense whence the lifeof the spirit comes, and we cannot, while standing upon the platform of ethics, predict its future. But if our study has shown anything, it is that the moralisa life, not a something ready made and complete once for all. It is instinct with movement and struggle, and it is precisely the new and serious situations which call out new vigor and lift it to higher levels. Ethical science tracing this process of growth, has as its aim not to create life—for the life is present already,—but to discover its laws and principles. And this should aid in making its further advance stronger, freer, and more assured because more intelligent.

LITERATUREOn the early history of the Family, see the works cited at close of ch. ii.; also Starcke,The Primitive Family, 1889; Westermarck,The History of Human Marriage, 1901; Howard,A History of Matrimonial Institutions, 3 vols., 1904. On present problems: H. Bosanquet,The Family, 1906; Parsons,The Family, 1906; Bryce,Marriage and Divorce in Roman and in English Law, in Studies in History and Jurisprudence, 1901; Ellis,Man and Woman; Thomas,Sex and Society, 1906; Bebel,Woman and Socialism; Riehl,Die Familie.

On the early history of the Family, see the works cited at close of ch. ii.; also Starcke,The Primitive Family, 1889; Westermarck,The History of Human Marriage, 1901; Howard,A History of Matrimonial Institutions, 3 vols., 1904. On present problems: H. Bosanquet,The Family, 1906; Parsons,The Family, 1906; Bryce,Marriage and Divorce in Roman and in English Law, in Studies in History and Jurisprudence, 1901; Ellis,Man and Woman; Thomas,Sex and Society, 1906; Bebel,Woman and Socialism; Riehl,Die Familie.

FOOTNOTES:[249]Morals in Evolution, Part I., p. 216.[250]Howard,History of Matrimonial Institutions, I., ch. vii.[251]Pollock and Maitland,Hist. Eng. Law, II., 383, quoted in Howard, I., 325-26.[252]Eckstein,Woman under Monasticism, p. 478.[253]Hobhouse,op. cit., I., 218.[254]Helen Bosanquet,The Family, p. 313: "'They must hinder your work very much,' I said to a mother busy about the kitchen, with a two-year-old clinging to her skirt. 'I'd never get through my work without them,' was the instant rejoinder, and in it lay the answer to much of our sentimental commiseration of hard-worked mothers. It may be hard to carry on the drudgery of daily life with the little ones clamoring around; it is ten times harder without, for sheer lack of something to make it worth while."[255]Bosanquet, Part II., ch. x.[256]Man and Woman.[257]Sex and Society.[258]Helen Bosanquet,The Family, p. 272.

[249]Morals in Evolution, Part I., p. 216.

[250]Howard,History of Matrimonial Institutions, I., ch. vii.

[251]Pollock and Maitland,Hist. Eng. Law, II., 383, quoted in Howard, I., 325-26.

[252]Eckstein,Woman under Monasticism, p. 478.

[253]Hobhouse,op. cit., I., 218.

[254]Helen Bosanquet,The Family, p. 313: "'They must hinder your work very much,' I said to a mother busy about the kitchen, with a two-year-old clinging to her skirt. 'I'd never get through my work without them,' was the instant rejoinder, and in it lay the answer to much of our sentimental commiseration of hard-worked mothers. It may be hard to carry on the drudgery of daily life with the little ones clamoring around; it is ten times harder without, for sheer lack of something to make it worth while."

[255]Bosanquet, Part II., ch. x.

[256]Man and Woman.

[257]Sex and Society.

[258]Helen Bosanquet,The Family, p. 272.

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