Bosanquet:The Family, pages 221-227, 324-333.Thomas:Sex and Society, pages 123-146.Small and Vincent:Introduction to the Study of Society, pages 105-108.Mason:Woman's Share in Primitive Culture.Weeden:Economic and Social History of New England, I, pages 324-326.
Bosanquet:The Family, pages 221-227, 324-333.
Thomas:Sex and Society, pages 123-146.
Small and Vincent:Introduction to the Study of Society, pages 105-108.
Mason:Woman's Share in Primitive Culture.
Weeden:Economic and Social History of New England, I, pages 324-326.
72.Causes of Changes in the Family.—The family at the present time is in a transition era. Its machinery is not working smoothly. Its environment is undergoing transformation. A hundred years ago the family was strictly rural; not more than three per cent of the people lived in large communities. Now nearly one-half are classified as urban by the United States census of 1910, and those who remain rural feel the influences of the town. There is far less economic independence on the farm than formerly, and in the towns and cities the home is little more than a place in which to sleep and eat for an increasing number of workers, both men and women. The family on the farm is no longer a perfectly representative type of the family in the more populous centres.
These changes are due mainly to the requirements of industry, but partly at least to the desire of all members of the family to share in urban life. The increasing ease of communication and travel extends the mutual acquaintance of city and country people and, as the city is brought nearer, its pull upon the young people of the community strengthens. There is also an increasing tendency of the women folk to enter the various departments of industry outside of the home. It is increasingly difficult for one person to satisfy the needs of a large family. This tends to send the family to the city, where there are wider opportunities, and to drive women and children into socialized industry; at the same time, it tends to restrict the number of children in families that have high ideals for women and children. Family life everywhere is becoming increasingly difficult, and at the same time every member of the family is growing more independent in temper. The result is the breaking up of a large number of homes, because of thedeparture of the children, the separation of husband and wife, the desertion of parents, or the legal divorce of married persons. The maintenance of the family as a social institution is seriously threatened.
73.Static vs. Dynamic Factors.—There are factors entering into family life that act as bonds to cement the individual members together. Such are the material goods that they enjoy in common, like the home with its comforts and the means of support upon which they all rely. In addition to these there are psychical elements that enter into their relations and strengthen these bonds. The inheritance of the peculiar traits, manners, and customs that differentiate one family from another; the reputation of the family name and pride in its influence; an affection, understanding, and sympathy that come from the intimacy of the home life and the appreciation of one another's best qualities are ties that do not easily rend or loosen.
On the other hand, there are centrifugal forces that are pushing the members of the family apart. At the bottom is selfish desire, which frets at restriction, and which is stimulated by the current emphasis upon personal pleasure and individual independence. The family solidarity which made the sons Democrats because their father voted that party ticket, or the daughters Methodists because their mother's religious preferences were for that denomination, has ceased to be effective. Every member of the family has his daily occupations in diverse localities. The head of the household may find his business duties in the city twenty miles away, or on the road that leads him far afield across the continent. For long hours the children are in school. The housewife is the only member of the family who remains at home and her outside interests and occupations have multiplied so rapidly as to make her, too, a comparative stranger to the home life. Modern industrialism has laid its hand upon the women and children, and thousands of them know the home only at morning and night.
74.The Strain on the Urban Family.—The rapid growth of cities, with the increase of buildings for the jointoccupancy of a number of families, tends to disunity in each particular family and to a reduction in the size of families. The privacy and sense of intimate seclusion of the detached home is violated. The modern apartment-house has a common hall and stairway for a dozen families and a common dining-room and kitchen on the model of a hotel. The tenements are human incubators from which children overflow upon the streets, boarders invade the privacy of the family bedroom, and even sanitary conveniences are public. Home life is violated in the tenement by the pressure of an unfavorable environment; it perishes on the avenue because of a compelling desire to gain as much freedom as possible from household care.
The care of a modern household grows in difficulty. Although the housekeeper has been relieved of performing certain economic functions that added to the burden of her grandmother, her responsibilities have been complicated by a number of conditions that are peculiar to the modern life of the town. Social custom demands of the upper classes a far more careful observance of fashion in dress and household furnishings, and in the exchange of social courtesies. The increasing cost of living due to these circumstances, and to a constantly rising standard of living, reacts upon the mind and nerves of the housewife with accelerating force. And not the least of her difficulties is the growing seriousness of the servant problem. Custom, social obligations, and nervous strain combine to make essential the help of a servant in the home. But the American maid is too independent and high-minded to make a household servant, and the American matron in the main has not learned how to be a just and considerate mistress. The result has been an influx of immigrant labor by servants who are untrained and inefficient, yet soon learn to make successful demands upon the employer for larger wages and more privileges because they are so essential to the comfort and even the existence of the family. Family life is increasingly at the mercy of the household employee. It is not strange that many women prefer the comfort and relief of an apartment or hotel, that manymore hesitate to assume the responsibility of marriage and children, preferring to undertake their own self-support, and that not a few seek divorce.
75.Family Desertion.—While the burden of housekeeping rests upon the wife, there are corresponding weights and annoyances that fall upon the man. Business pressure and professional responsibility are wearying; he, too, feels the strain upon his nerves. When he returns home at evening he is easily disturbed by a worried wife, tired and fretful children, and the unmistakable atmosphere of gloom and friction that permeates many homes. He contrasts his unenviable position with the freedom and good-fellowship of the club, and chafes under the family bonds. In many cases he breaks them and sets himself free by way of the divorce court. The course of men of the upper class is paralleled by that of the working man or idler who meets similar conditions in a home where the servant does not enter, but where there is a surplus of children. He finds frequent relief in the saloon, and eventually escapes by deserting his family altogether, instead of having recourse to the law. This practice of desertion, which is the poor man's method of divorce, is one of the continual perplexities of organized charity, and constitutes one of the serious problems of family life. There are gradations in the practice of desertion, and it is not confined to men. The social butterfly who neglects her children to flutter here and there is a temporary deserter, little less culpable than the lazy husband who has an attack ofwanderlustbefore the birth of each child, and who returns to enjoy the comforts of home as soon as his wife is again able to assume the function of bread-winner for the growing family. From these it is but a step to the mutual desertion of a man and a woman, who from incompatibility of temper find it advisable to separate and go their own selfish ways, to wait until the law allows a final severance of the marriage bond.
It is indisputable that this breaking up of the home is reacting seriously upon the moral character of the present generation; there is a carelessness in assuming the responsibility of marriage, and too much shirking of responsibilitywhen the burden weighs heavily. There is a weakening of real affection and a consequent lack of mutual forbearance; there is an increasing feeling that marriage is a lottery and not worth while unless it promises increased satisfaction of sexual, economic, or social desires and ambitions.
76.Feminism.—There can be no question that the growing independence of woman has complicated the family situation. In reaction against the long subjection that has fallen to her lot, the modern woman in many cases rebels against the control of custom and the expectations of society, refuses to regard herself as strictly a home-keeper, and in some cases is unwilling to become a mother. She seeks wider associations and a larger range of activities outside of the home, she demands the same rights and privileges that belong to man, and she dreams of the day when her power as well as her influence will help to mould social institutions. The feminist movement is in the large a wholesome reaction against an undeserved subserviency to the masculine will. Undoubtedly it contains great social potencies. It deserves kindly reception in the struggle to reform and reconstruct society where society is weak.
The present situation deserves not abuse, but the most careful consideration from every man. In countless cases woman has not only been repressed from activities outside of the family group, but has been oppressed in her own home also. America prides itself on its consideration for woman in comparison with the general European attitude toward her, but too often chivalry is not exercised in the home. Often the wife has been a slave in the household where she should have been queen. She has been subject to the passion of an hour and the whim of a moment. She has been servant rather than helpmeet. Upon her have fallen the reproaches of the unbridled temper of other members of the family; upon her have rested the burdens that others have shirked. Husband and children have been free to find diversion elsewhere; family responsibilities or broken health have confined her at home. Her husband might even find sex satisfaction away from home, but public opinion would be more lenient with him than with herif she offended. The time has come when it is right that these inequalities and injustices should cease. Society owes to woman not only her right to her own person and property, but the right to bear, also, her fair share of social responsibility in this modern world.
Yet in the process of coming to her own, there is danger that the wife will forget that marriage is the most precious of human relations; that the home has the first claim upon her; that motherhood is the greatest privilege to which any woman, however socially gifted, can aspire; and that social institutions of tried worth are not lightly to be cast upon the rubbish heap. It is by no means certain that society can afford or that women ought to demand individualistic rights that will put in jeopardy the welfare of the remainder of the family. The average woman has not the strength to carry properly the burden of home cares plus large political and social responsibilities, nor has she the money to employ in the home all the modern improvements of labor-saving devices and skilled service that might in a measure take her place. Nor is it at all certain that the granting of individual rights to women would tend to purify sex relations, but it is quite conceivable that the old moral and religious sanctions of marriage may disappear and the State assume the task of caring for all children. It is clear that the rights and duties of women constitute a very serious part of the problem of family life.
77.Individual Rights vs. Social Duties.—The greatest weakness to be found in twentieth-century society is the disposition on the part of almost all individuals to place personal rights ahead of social duties. The modern spirit of individualism has grown strong since the Renaissance and the Reformation. It has forced political changes until absolutism has been yielding everywhere to democracy. It has extended social privileges until it has become possible for any one with push and ability to make his way to the top rung of the ladder of social prestige. It has permitted freedom to profess and practise any religion, and to advocate the most bizarre ideas in ethics and philosophy. It has brought human individuals to the place where theyfeel that nothing may be permitted to stand between them and the satisfaction of personal desire. The disciples of Nietzsche do not hesitate to stand boldly for the principle that might makes right, that he who can crush his competitors in the race for pleasure and profit has an indisputable claim on whatever he can grasp, and that the principle of mutual consideration is antiquated and ridiculous. Such principles and privileges may comport with the elemental instincts and interests of unrestrained, primitive creatures, but they do not harmonize with requirements of social solidarity and efficiency. Social evolution in the past has come only as the struggle for individual existence was modified by consideration for the needs of another, and social welfare in the future can be realized only as men and women both are willing to sacrifice age-long prejudice or momentary pleasure and profit to the permanent good of the larger group.
Cooley:Social Organization, pages 356-371.Brandt and Baldwin:Family Desertion.Dealey:The Family in Its Sociological Aspects, pages 85-95, 109-118.Goodsell:The Family as a Social and Educational Institution, pages 456-477.Howard:History of Matrimonial Institutions, III, pages 239-250.
Cooley:Social Organization, pages 356-371.
Brandt and Baldwin:Family Desertion.
Dealey:The Family in Its Sociological Aspects, pages 85-95, 109-118.
Goodsell:The Family as a Social and Educational Institution, pages 456-477.
Howard:History of Matrimonial Institutions, III, pages 239-250.
78.The Main Facts About Divorce.—An indication of the emphasis on individual rights is furnished by the increase of divorce, especially in the United States, where the demands of individualism and industrialism are most insistent. The divorce record is the thermometer that measures the heat of domestic friction. Statistics of marriage and divorce made by the National Government in 1886 and again in 1906 make possible a comparison of conditions which reveal a rapid increase in the number of divorces granted by the courts. Certain outstanding facts are of great importance.
(1) The number of divorces in twenty years increased from 23,000 to 72,000, which is three times the rate of increase of the population of the country. If this rate of progress continues, more than half the marriages in the United States will terminate in divorce by the end of the present century.
(2) In the first census it was discovered that the number of divorces in the United States exceeded the total number of divorces in all the European countries; in the second census it was shown that the United States had increased its divorces three times, while Japan, with the largest divorce rate in the world, had reduced its rate one-half.
(3) Divorces in the United States are least common among people of the middle class; they are higher among native whites than among immigrants, and they are highest in cities and among childless couples.
(4) Two-thirds of the divorces are granted on the demands of the wife.
(5) Divorce laws are very variable in the differentStates, but most divorces are obtained from the States where the applicants reside.
79.Causes of Divorce.—The causes recorded in divorce cases do not represent accurately the real causes, for the reason that it is easier to get an uncontested decision when the charges are not severe, and also for the reason that State laws vary and that which best fits the law will be put forward as the principal cause. Divorce laws in the United States generally recognize adultery, desertion, cruelty, drunkenness, lack of support, and crime as legitimate grounds for divorce. In the five years from 1902 to 1906 desertion was given as the ground for divorce in thirty-eight per cent of the cases, cruelty in twenty-three per cent, and adultery in fifteen per cent. Intemperance was given as the direct cause in only four per cent, and neglect approximately the same. The assignment of marital unfaithfulness in less than one-sixth of the cases, as compared with one-fourth twenty years before does not mean, however, that there is less unfaithfulness, but that minor offenses are considered sufficient on which to base a claim; the small percentage of charges of intemperance as the principal cause ought not to obscure the fact that it was an indirect cause in one-fifth of the cases.
It is natural that the countries of Europe should present greater variety of laws and of causes assigned. In England, where the law has insisted on adultery as a necessary cause, divorces have been few. In Ireland, where the church forbids it, divorce is rare, less than one to thirty-five marriages. In Scotland fifty per cent of the cases reported are due to adultery. Cruelty was the principal cause ascribed in France, Austria, and Rumania; desertion in Russia and Sweden. The tendency abroad is to ascribe more rather than less to adultery.
The real causes for divorce are more remote than the specific acts of adultery, desertion, or cruelty that are mentioned as grounds for divorce. The primary cause is undoubtedly the spirit of individual independence that demands its rights at the expense of others. In the case of women there is less hesitancy than formerly in seekingfreedom from the marriage bond because of the increasing opportunity of self-support. The changing conditions of home life in the city, with the increasing cost of living, coupled with the ease of divorce, encourage resort to the courts. The unscrupulousness of some lawyers, who fatten their purses at the expense of marital happiness, and the meddlesomeness of relatives are also contributing causes. Finally the restraint of religion has relaxed, and unhappy and ill-mated persons do not shrink from taking a step which was formerly condemned by the church.
80.History of Divorce.—The history of divorce presents various opinions and practices. The Hebrews had high ideals, but frequently fell into lax practices; the Greeks began well but degenerated sadly to the point where marriage was a mere matter of convenience; the Romans, noted for their sterling qualities in the early days of the republic, practised divorce without restraint in the later days of the empire.
The influence of Christianity was greatly to restrict divorce. The teaching of the Bible was explicit that the basis of marriage was the faithful love of the heart, and that impure desire was the essence of adultery. Illicit intercourse was the only possible moral excuse for divorce. True to this teaching, the Christian church tried hard to abolish divorce, as it attempted to check all sexual evils, and the Catholic Church threw about marriage the veil of sanctity by making it one of the seven sacraments. As a sacrament wedlock was indissoluble, except as money or influence induced the church to turn back the key which it alone possessed. Separation was allowed by law, but not divorce. Greater stability was infused into the marriage relation. Yet it is not possible to purify sex relations by tying tightly the marriage bond. Unfaithfulness has been so common in Europe among the higher classes that it occasioned little remark, until the social conscience became sensitive in recent decades, and among the lower classes divorce was often unnecessary, because so many unions took place without the sanction of the church. In Protestant countries there has been a variable recessionfrom the extreme Catholic ground. The Episcopal Church in England and in colonial America recognized only the one Biblical cause of unfaithfulness; the more radical Protestants turned over the whole matter to the state. In New England desertion and cruelty were accepted alongside adultery as sufficient grounds for divorce, and the legislature sometimes granted it by special enactment.
81.Investigation and Legislation in the United States and England.—The divorce question provoked some discussion in this country about the time of the Civil War, and some statistics were gathered. Twenty years later the National Government was induced by the National Divorce Reform League to take a careful census of marriage and divorce. This was published in 1889, and revised and reissued in 1909. These reports aroused the States which controlled the regulation of marriage and divorce to attempt improved legislation. Almost universally among them divorce was made more difficult instead of easier. The term of residence before divorce could be obtained was lengthened; certain changes were made in the legal grounds for divorce; in less than twenty years fourteen States limited the privilege of divorced persons to remarry until after a specified time had elapsed, varying from three months to two years. Congress passed a uniform marriage law for all the territories. It was believed almost universally that the Constitution should be amended so as to secure a federal divorce law, but experience proved that it was better that individual States should adopt a uniform law. The later tendency has been in this direction.
At the same time, the churches of the country interested themselves in the subject. The Protestant Episcopal Church took strong ground against its ministers remarrying a divorced person, and the National Council of Congregational Churches appointed a special committee which reported in 1907 in favor of strictness. Fourteen Protestant churches combined in an Interchurch Committee to secure united action, and the Federal Council of Churches recorded itself against the prevailing laxness. The purpose of all this group action was to check abuses and to create a moresensitive public opinion, especially among moral and religious leaders.
In Great Britain, on the other hand, divorce had always been difficult. There the strictness of the law led to a demand for a study of the subject and a report to Parliament. The result was the appointment of a Royal Commission on Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, consisting of twelve members, which investigated for three years, and in 1912 presented its report. It recognized the fact that severe restrictions were in force, and a majority of the commission regarding marriage as a legal rather than a sacramental bond, favored easier divorce and a single standard of morality for both sexes. It was proposed that the grounds for legal divorce should be adultery, desertion extending over three years, cruelty, incurable insanity after confinement for five years, habitual drunkenness found incurable after three years, or imprisonment carrying with it a sentence of death. A minority of the committee still regarding marriage as a sacrament, favored no relaxation of the law as it stood.
82.Proposed Remedies.—Various remedies have been proposed to stem the tide of excessive divorce. There are many who see in divorce nothing more than a healthy symptom of individual independence, a revolt against conditions of the home that are sometimes almost intolerable. Many others are alarmed at the rapid increase of divorce, especially in the United States, and believe that checks are necessary for the continued existence of the family and the well-being of society. The first reform proposed as a means of prevention of divorce is the revision of the marriage laws on a higher model. The second is a stricter divorce law, made as uniform as possible. The third is the adoption of measures of reconciliation which will remove the causes that provoke divorce.
The proposed laws include such provisions as the prohibition of marriage for those who are criminal, degenerate, or unfitted to perform the sex function; the requirement of six months' publication of matrimonial banns and a physical certificate before marriage; a strictly provisional decreeof divorce; the establishment of a court of domestic relations, and a prohibition of remarriage of the defendant during the life of the plaintiff. These are reasonable restrictions and seem likely to be adopted gradually, as practicable improvements over the existing laws. It is also proposed that the merits of every case shall be more carefully considered, and the judicial procedure improved by the appointment of a divorce proctor in connection with every court trying divorce cases, whose business it shall be to make investigations and to assist in trying or settling specific cases. Experiment has proved the value of such an officer.
83.Court of Domestic Relations.—One of the most significant improvements that has taken place is the establishment of a court of domestic relations, which already exists in several cities, and has made an enviable record. In the early experiments it seemed practicable in Kansas to make such a court a branch of the circuit and juvenile courts, so arranged that it would be possible to deal with the relations of the whole family; in Chicago the new tribunal was made a part of the municipal court. By means of patient questioning, first by a woman assistant and then by the judge himself, and by good advice and explicit directions as to conduct, with a warning that failure would be severely treated, it has been possible to unravel hundreds of domestic entanglements.
84.Tendencies.—There can be no question that the present tendency is in the direction of greater freedom in the marriage relation. Society will not continue to sanction inhumanity and immorality in the relations of man to woman. Marriage is ideally a sacred relation, but when it is not so treated, when love is dead and repulsion has taken its place, and especially when physical contact brings disease and suffering, public opinion is likely to consider that marriage is thereby virtually annulled, and to permit ratification of the fact by a decree of divorce. On the other hand, it is probable that increasing emphasis will be put on serious and well-prepared marriage, on the inculcation of a spirit of mutual love and forbearance through the agencyof the church, and on the exhaustion of every effort to restore right relations, if they have not been irreparably destroyed, before any grant of divorce will be allowed. In this, as in all problems of the family, the spirit of mutual consideration for the interests of all concerned is that which must be invoked for a speedy and permanent solution. Education of young people in the importance of the family as a social institution and in the responsibility which every individual member should feel to make and keep the family pure and strong as a bulwark of social stability, is the surest means of preventing altogether its dissolution.
"Report on Marriage and Divorce," 1906,Bureau of the Census, I, pages 272-274, 331-333."Reports of the National League for the Protection of the Family."Post:Ethics of Marriage and Divorce, pages 62-84.Dealey:The Family in Its Sociological Aspects, pages 96-108.Howard:History of Matrimonial Institutions, III, pages 3-160.Willcox:The Divorce Problem.
"Report on Marriage and Divorce," 1906,Bureau of the Census, I, pages 272-274, 331-333.
"Reports of the National League for the Protection of the Family."
Post:Ethics of Marriage and Divorce, pages 62-84.
Dealey:The Family in Its Sociological Aspects, pages 96-108.
Howard:History of Matrimonial Institutions, III, pages 3-160.
Willcox:The Divorce Problem.
85.Sexual Impurity.—A prime factor in the breaking up of the home is sexual impurity. The sex passion, an elemental instinct of humanity, is sanctified by the marriage relation, but unbridled in those who seek above all else their own pleasure, becomes a curse in body and soul. It is not limited to either sex, but men have been more self-indulgent, and have been treated more leniently than erring women. Sexual impurity is wide-spread, but public opinion against it is steadily strengthening, and the tendency is to hold men and women equally responsible. For the sake of clearness it is advisable to distinguish between various forms of impurity, and to observe the proper terms. The sexual evil appears in aggravated form in commercial prostitution, but is more prevalent as an irregularity among non-professionals. Sexual intercourse before marriage, or fornication, was not infrequent in colonial days, and in Europe is startlingly common; very frequently among the lower classes there is no marriage until a child is born. Sexual infidelity after marriage, or adultery, is the cause of the ruin of many homes. In the cities and among the well-to-do classes the keeping of mistresses is an occasional practice, but it is far less common than was the case in former days, when it was the regular custom at royal courts and imitated by those lower in the social scale.
86.Prostitution.—Prostitution, softened in common speech to "the social evil," is a term for promiscuity of sex relationship for pay or its equivalent. It is a very old practice, and has existed in the East as a part of religious worship in veneration of the power of generation. In the West it is a frequent accompaniment of intemperance and crime. Modern prostitutes are recruited almost entirely from the lower middle class, both in Europe and America.Ignorant and helpless immigrant girls are seduced on the journey, in the streets of American cities, and in the tenements. Domestic servants and employees in factories and department stores seem to be most subject to exploitation, but no class or employment is immune. A great many girls, while still in their teens, have begun their destructive career. They are peculiarly susceptible in the evening, after the strain of the day's labor, when they are hunting for fun and excitement in theatres, dance-halls, and moving-picture shows. In summer they are themselves hunted on excursion steamers, and at the parks and recreation grounds. The seduction and exploitation of young women has become a distinct occupation of certain worthless young men, commonly known as cadets, who live upon the earnings of the women they procure. Three-fourths of the prostitutes have such men dependent on them, to whom they remain attached through fear or need of pecuniary relief in case of arrest, or even through a species of affection, though they receive nothing but abuse in return. Once secured, the victim is not permitted to escape. Not many women enter the life of prostitution from choice, but when they have once yielded to temptation or force, they lose their self-respect and usually sink into hopeless degradation, and then do not shrink from soliciting business within doors or on the streets.
87.Promotion and Regulation of Vice.—The social evil is centred in houses of ill fame managed by unprincipled women. The business is financed and the profits enjoyed by men who constantly stimulate the trade to make it more profitable. As a result of investigations in New York, it is estimated that the number of prostitutes would be not more than one-fourth of what it is were it not for the ruthless greed of these men. The houses are usually located in the poorer parts of the city, but they are also to be found scattered elsewhere. In cases where public opinion does not warrant rigid enforcement of the law against it, the illicit traffic is disregarded by the police, and often they are willing to share in the gains as the price of their leniency. As a rule the business is kept under cover and notpermitted to flaunt itself on the streets. Definite segregation in a particular district has been attempted, and has sometimes been favored as a means of checking vice, but this means is not practised or favored after experiment has shown its uselessness as a check upon the trade. Government regulation by a system of license, with registration of prostitutes and regular though superficial examination of health, is in vogue in parts of western and southern Europe, but it is not favored by vice commissions that have examined into its workings.
88.Extent of the Social Evil.—It is probable that estimates as to the number of prostitutes in the great urban centres has been much exaggerated. In the nature of the case it is very difficult to get accurate reports, but when it is remembered that the number of men who frequent the resorts is not less than fifteen times the number of women, and that in most cases the proportion is larger, it is not difficult to conceive of the immense profits to the exploiters, but also of the enormous economic waste, the widely prevalent physical disease, and the untold misery of the women who sin, and of the innocent women at home who are sinned against by those who should be their protectors.
A "white-slave traffic" seems to have developed in recent years that has not only increased the number of local prostitutes, but has united far-distant urban centres. It is very difficult to prove an intercity trade, but investigation has produced sufficient evidence to show that there is an organized business of procuring victims and that they have been exported to distant parts of the world, including South America, South Africa, and the Far East.
89.The Causes.—The social evil has usually been blamed upon the perversity of women and their pecuniary need, but investigation makes it plain that the causes go deeper than that. The first cause is the ignorance of girls who are permitted to grow up and go out into the world innocently, unaware of the snares in which they are liable to become enmeshed. Added to this ignorance is the lack of moral and religious training, so that there is often no firm conviction of right and wrong, an evil which isintensified in the city tenements by the conditions of congested population. A third grave cause is the public neglect of persons of defective mentality and morality. Women who are not capable of taking care of themselves are allowed full liberty of conduct, and frequently fall victims to the seducer. An investigation of cases in the New York Reformatory for Women at Bedford in 1913 showed one-third very deficient mentally; the Massachusetts Vice Commission in 1914 reported one-half to three-fourths of three hundred cases to be of the same class. It seems clear that a large proportion of prostitutes generally belong in this category. It has been estimated that there are now (1915) as many defective women at large in Massachusetts as there are in public institutions.
Poverty is an important factor in the extension of the sexual evil. It is notorious that thousands of women workers are underpaid. In factories, restaurants, and department stores they frequently receive wages much less than the eight dollars a week required by women to maintain themselves, if dependent on their own resources. The American woman's pride in a good appearance, the natural human love of ease, luxury, and excitement, the craving for relaxation and thrill, after the exacting labor of a long day, all contribute to the welcome of an opportunity for an indulgence that brings money in return. The agency of the dance-hall and the saloon has also an important place in the downfall of the tempted. Intemperance and prostitution go together, and places where they can be enjoyed are factories of vice and crime. Many so-called hotels with bar attachment are little more than houses of evil resort. Especially notorious for a time were the Raines Law hotels in New York City, designed to check intemperance, but proving nurseries of prostitution. Commercial profit is large from both kinds of traffic, and one stimulates the other.
Among minor causes of the social evil is the postponement or abandonment of marriage by many young people, the celibate life imposed upon students and soldiers, the declaration of some physicians that continence is injurious, and lax opinion, especially in Europe.
90.The Consequences.—It is impossible to measure adequately the consequences of sexual indulgence. It is destructive of physical health among women and of morals among both sexes. It results in a weakening of the will and a blunting of moral discernment. It is an economic waste, as is intemperance, for even on the level of economic values it is plain that money could be much better spent for that which would benefit rather than curse. But the great evil that looms large in public view is the legacy of physical disease that falls upon self-indulgent men and their families. The presence of venereal disease in Europe is almost unbelievable; so great has it been in continental armies that governments have become alarmed as to its effects upon the health and morale of the troops. College men have been reckless in sowing wild oats, and have suffered serious physical consequences. Most pathetic is the suffering that is caused to innocent wives and children in blindness, sterility, and frequent abdominal disease. This is a subject that demands the attention of every person interested in human happiness and social welfare.
91.History of Reform.—Spasmodic efforts to suppress the social evil have occurred from time to time. The result has been to scatter rather than to suppress it, and after a little it has crept back to its old haunts. Scattering it in tenements and residential districts has been very unfortunate. The cure is not so simple a process. Neither will segregation help. It is now generally agreed, especially as a result of recent investigations by vice commissioners in the large cities, that there must be a brave, sustained effort at suppression, and then the patient task of reclaiming the fallen and preventing the evil in future.
Organization and investigation are the two words that give the key to the history of reform. International societies are agitating abroad; other associations are directly engaged in checking vice in the United States, most prominent of which is the American Vigilance Association. Rescue organizations are scattered through the cities. Especially active have been the commissions of investigation appointed privately and by municipal, State, and FederalGovernments, which have issued illuminating reports. The United States in 1908 joined in an international treaty to prevent the world-wide traffic in white slaves, and in 1910 Congress passed the Mann White Slave Act to prevent interstate traffic in America.
92.Measures of Prevention and Cure.—The social evil is one about which there have been all sorts of wild opinions, but the facts are becoming well substantiated by investigations, and these investigations are the basis upon which all scientific conclusions must rest, alike for public education and for constructive legislation. No one remedy is adequate. There are those who believe that the church has it in its power to stir a wave of indignation that would sweep the whole traffic from the land, but it is not so simple a process. It is generally agreed that both education and legislation are necessary to check the evil. The first is necessary for the public health, and to support repressive laws. As a helpful means of repression it is proposed that the social evil, along with questions of social morals, like gambling, excise, and amusements, shall be taken out of the hands of the municipal police and the politicians, and lodged with an unpaid morals commission, which shall have its own special corps of expert officers and a morals court for the trial of cases appropriate to its jurisdiction. This experiment actually has been tried in Berlin. Measures of prevention as well as measures of repression are needed. Restraint is needed for defectives; protection for immigrants and young people, especially on shipboard, in the tenements, and in the moving-picture houses; better housing, better amusements, and better wages for all the people. Finally, the wrecks must be taken care of. Rescue homes and other agencies manage to save a few to reformed lives; homes are needed constantly for temporary residence. Private philanthropy has provided them thus far, but the United States Government has discussed the advisability of building them in sufficient numbers to meet every local need. Many old and hardened offenders need reformatories with farm and hospital where they can be cared for during a long time; some of the States have provided these already.The principles upon which a permanent cure of the social evil must be based are similar to those that underlie all family reform, namely, the rescue as far as possible of those already fallen, the social and moral education of youth to nobler purpose and will, the removal of unfavorable economic and social conditions, and the improvement of family life until it can satisfy the human cravings that legitimately belong to it.
Addams:A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil.Willson:The American Boy and the Social Evil.Morrow:Social Diseases and Marriage, pages 331-353.Kneeland:Commercialized Prostitution in New York City, pages 253-271.
Addams:A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil.
Willson:The American Boy and the Social Evil.
Morrow:Social Diseases and Marriage, pages 331-353.
Kneeland:Commercialized Prostitution in New York City, pages 253-271.