1. What have been the general tendencies in social treatment of the aged?2. What are some of the social needs in respect to public and private health, vocational training, wages and standards of living, family and personal insurance and educational opportunities which must be met if old age is to be prolonged as far as possible and made happy and comfortable to the end of life?3. What should be the aim of youth and middle life in respect to preparation for old age?4. ReadOld Age Support of Women Teachers, by Dr. Lucille Eaves,A Study in Economic Relations of Women, by the Department of Research of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston, Mass., and read "The Trade Union and the Old Man," by John O'Grady, Catholic University of America, published inAmerican Journal of Sociologyof November, 1917. Are the suggestions in these articles along needed lines?
1. What have been the general tendencies in social treatment of the aged?
2. What are some of the social needs in respect to public and private health, vocational training, wages and standards of living, family and personal insurance and educational opportunities which must be met if old age is to be prolonged as far as possible and made happy and comfortable to the end of life?
3. What should be the aim of youth and middle life in respect to preparation for old age?
4. ReadOld Age Support of Women Teachers, by Dr. Lucille Eaves,A Study in Economic Relations of Women, by the Department of Research of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston, Mass., and read "The Trade Union and the Old Man," by John O'Grady, Catholic University of America, published inAmerican Journal of Sociologyof November, 1917. Are the suggestions in these articles along needed lines?
[6]SeeThe State and Pensions in Old Age, by J.A. Spender.
[6]SeeThe State and Pensions in Old Age, by J.A. Spender.
"The members of the ancient family were united by something more powerful than birth, affection, or physical strength; this was the religion of the sacred fire and of dead ancestors. This caused the ancient family to form a single body, both in this life and in the next,"—De Coulanges, inThe Ancient City."Land belonged to the clan and the clan was settled upon the land. A man was thus not a member of the clan because he lived upon or even owned the land, but he lived upon the land and had interest in it because he was a member of the clan."—Hearn, inThe Aryan Household."Three things if possessed by a man make him fit to be a chief of kindred: that he should speak in behalf of his kin and be listened to; that he should fight in behalf of his kin and be feared; that he should be security on behalf of his kin and be accepted."—Welsh Triads(cited by Seebohm).
"The members of the ancient family were united by something more powerful than birth, affection, or physical strength; this was the religion of the sacred fire and of dead ancestors. This caused the ancient family to form a single body, both in this life and in the next,"—De Coulanges, inThe Ancient City.
"Land belonged to the clan and the clan was settled upon the land. A man was thus not a member of the clan because he lived upon or even owned the land, but he lived upon the land and had interest in it because he was a member of the clan."—Hearn, inThe Aryan Household.
"Three things if possessed by a man make him fit to be a chief of kindred: that he should speak in behalf of his kin and be listened to; that he should fight in behalf of his kin and be feared; that he should be security on behalf of his kin and be accepted."—Welsh Triads(cited by Seebohm).
"I cannot choose but think upon the timeWhen our two loves grew like two buds;School parted us; we never found againThat childish world where our two spirits mingledLike scents from varying roses that remain one sweetness.Yet the twin habit of that earlier timeLingered for long about the heart and tongue.We had been natives of one happy climeAnd its dear accent to our utterance clung.And were another childhood world my share,I would be born a little sister there."—George Eliot,inBrother and Sister.
"I cannot choose but think upon the timeWhen our two loves grew like two buds;School parted us; we never found againThat childish world where our two spirits mingledLike scents from varying roses that remain one sweetness.Yet the twin habit of that earlier timeLingered for long about the heart and tongue.We had been natives of one happy climeAnd its dear accent to our utterance clung.And were another childhood world my share,I would be born a little sister there."—George Eliot,inBrother and Sister.
"When love is strong it never tarries to take heedOr know if its return exceedIts gift; in its sweet haste no greed,No strife belong.It hardly asks if it be loved at all, to takeSo barren seems, when it can makeSuch bliss, for the beloved's sake,Of bitter tasks."—H.H.
"When love is strong it never tarries to take heedOr know if its return exceedIts gift; in its sweet haste no greed,No strife belong.It hardly asks if it be loved at all, to takeSo barren seems, when it can makeSuch bliss, for the beloved's sake,Of bitter tasks."—H.H.
Ancient Kinship Bond.—The relation of brothers and sisters in the family group has passed through many changes and must at times have caused much confusion and difficulty in the home. For example, in that state of familial association in which all the brothers of a certain relationship were considered as husbands of all sisters within a certain bond there must have been some heart-burnings and several kinds of family unpleasantness. We have some hints of these from many historical sources. In the era of complete subjection of the individual to the community such unpleasantness may have counted only for negligible unhappiness on the part of a few social rebels, but the custom alluded to did not prove to work well enough to become permanent.
Again, the form of family bond which demanded that a man take to wife the widow of his dead brother and "raise up children to the name" of the deceased had a long but not a permanent life. In the well-known passage from Deuteronomy, the 25th chapter, the faithful are commanded that "if brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no son, the wife of the dead shall not be married without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall ... take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother unto her. And the first-born ... shall succeed in the name of his brother that is dead, that his name be not blotted out of Israel." The same passage shows that while it was doubtless at first an imperative social law, there came a time when the living brother had a choice as to whether or not he should take to wife the widow of one who had died. Perhaps there might have been an economic pressure that made it difficult to perform this ancient duty. Perhaps there might have been objection from the wife or wives already in command of the household matters. Perhaps thewidow was sometimes of a type to make the brotherly and family duty seem very hard. At any rate, there came a time when, as the writer in Deuteronomy says, "If the man like not to take his brother's wife" he could refuse the family service. It cost him, however, in such cases a severe ordeal. He could be haled before the elders on the complaint that he "refused to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel." The widow "could loose his shoe from his feet and spit in his face" and say "so shall it be done unto the man that doth not build up his brother's house."
The large requirement for the brother, thus indicated, passed outward to the next of kin in certain circumstances. There are many deeply interesting accounts of readjustment of family life through the taking over by the living of duties once undertaken by the dead. The lovely idyl of Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz, shows this widely spreading brother-duty. Here the mother-in-law, so sweet and so wise that her sons' wives loved her deeply, shrewdly manages a contact between Ruth and Boaz to the lasting service of her son's inheritance of name and land. The whole story is redolent of the finer side of ancient forms of familial duty, the man being rich and generous enough to take on his more remote relative's responsibilities, the young widow being sweet and charming enough to capture the interest of the rich man even before he knows who she is, and the mother-in-law showing statesmanship of the highest order in managing the affair, together with such fine character of her own that all respect and love her.
To-day we have left in law and custom but the shadow of these ancient demands upon brothers in the family. That shadow is limited to the purely economic aspect of brotherly responsibilities. The old law of inheritance made the sons the preferred heirs. Only when there was no son could the daughter inherit if at all. The responsibility of that heir, however, was often made commensurate with his inheritance. He must financially care for the near relatives—the father and mother first, the sister and brother next, the uncles and aunts and cousins not to be forgotten.
Present Demands of Kinship.—The existing statutes make it incumbent upon any man in receipt of income beyond his own immediate needs to do what is possible to prevent his near relativesfrom requiring aid from the general public. The custom of all charitable organizations when appealed to for aid for individuals, or for a family, is to ask, "What can your relatives do for you?" The pressure upon those connected even by marriage to help relatives privately, and so reduce public relief, is often very severe. In those of English ancestry the disgrace of having a near relative, even so distant as a great-uncle or great-aunt or sister-in-law, "come upon the town" is felt keenly. The sacrifices of many people of limited means to prevent such a catastrophe would make a long and heavy list of discomforts and privations. The duty of brothers, sisters, and next of kin to help provide for the poorer members of the family connection is thus still held firmly by social ideals. That all people, however, pay this debt of family responsibility or that as many struggle to do it as used to do so cannot be affirmed. On the contrary, many charitable societies make it a serious business to discover and hold to responsibility shirking members of families in which there is great discrepancy in financial condition.
There is now, however, no recognized social responsibility for giving support to poorer members of the family within one household. There is no pressure to bring those needing material relief tinder the roof of the well-to-do of the family circle. Even parents cannot claim residence with adult children, although they can claim by law some support commensurate with their children's income. It is seen now that the duty of aid does not carry with it the obligation for personal association. That is, on the whole, a gain, especially in cases where there is temperamental incompatibility.
The whole relationship of brothers, sisters, and next of kin is simplified and placed more securely on bases of affection and ethical ideal in modern life, and people are good brothers and sisters or good family relatives in proportion as they are unselfish and useful in all their other social relationships. There is a real family tie, however, which still holds. We see it in the Family Reunions, in the listing of relationships in those devoted to genealogy, and in the patriotic societies that indicate by membership what ancestors fought in the Revolution or held office in Colonial days. There is the permanent tie of blood that makes a peculiar bond unlike that of friendship and unlike that of marriage—a tiesometimes carried to extremes, as in the case of the woman who, angry with her husband for a breach of etiquette, declared she "was glad that he was no relation of hers!" On the whole, in reasonable moderation, one of the best ways we have to-day of helping a group is by means of the generosity of the more successful members of that group.
Special Burdens of Women in Family Obligations.—Brothers, usually, marry and have their own households to take care of. The unmarried sisters, coming from a long line of women who were supposed to work entirely for the family, with no commercial value placed upon their household service, feel a call to duty from ancient times to carry family burdens. The sons, however, do not escape the parental call for help and have often in the immediate past (when women ceased to have a large economic value in the home and had not yet acquired the capacity or desire for self-support) borne a heavy burden of financial aid for unmarried sisters. The tables are well-nigh turned now, however, and the number of self-supporting women who have relatives of varied nearness and ages dependent or partially dependent upon them, is much larger than that of spinsters care-free and independent. In all cases, however, whether of men or women, those who respond loyally to the needs of those kin to them are the unselfish and capable. The slogan of socialism, "To all in the measure of their need; from all in the measure of their capacity," may never be accepted by society in general, but it is now the rule in the family relation.
Disadvantages of the Only Child.—In the individualistic family of the modern monogamic type the chief need is for every child to have brothers and sisters or at least a brother or sister. The "one-child" plan, which places a solitary little creature as sole recipient of money, affection, and care of the household, is one that shows poverty of condition for the child concerned, no matter how rich the parents. Such a child lacks a chief aid in its development. Nature sometimes sends, even in a large family, all boys or all girls and makes coeducation at the start difficult. Usually, however, when there are two, three, four, or more children they are mixed in due and helpful proportion. When the family is toolarge, as it so often was in the older days, it must subdivide according to ages and tastes, and in many old-fashioned families some brothers and sisters were near in sympathy and love and others wide apart. In the moderate-size modern family, however, where there is enough companionship within the home for family good times and not enough to cause breakage into groups within the group, we have the ideal conditions for child development. For the only child there are happily some substitutes for this home companionship in the "residential school," or the school with long days of group relationship of like age and condition, but it is not the same and seldom as good as the home circle of the right size and variety.
The modern conditions make the old ties seem less important to many. In the United States, where people move about so freely across the vast spaces of our continent, and where in the large cities so many move each year to try vainly to better themselves in hired houses, the ties of family outside of the immediate circle seem remote and to be easily set aside. It is not, however, a sign of advanced social spirit which makes a young girl declare "she has no use for her relations; she cares only for her chosen friends," and it is often of the essence of social danger that a young man wants to give up all connection with his family. The fact is that one can understand better how one came to be what one is by knowing something of one's forbears and one's living relatives.
Permanent Value of the Family Bond.—The feeling that one belongs to a blood group, the feeling so old and so wonder-working in the past, gives at least one ideal of permanence in a world of affairs whirling in such rapid change that the common mind becomes dizzy and the common idealism confused. On the other hand, it is cause for gratitude unspeakable that the old bondage of the family life is relaxed, never to be tightened again to such oppression as once prevailed. The fact that inheritance is now seen to be so varied and so unpredictable that one child in a family may "take back" to one ancestor and another to a different one to ends of complete divergence of character and capacity, shows that the old attempt to keep them together, whether they could love each other or not, was a social mistake. To-day we are more reasonable.We even say that fathers and mothers may not be taken into the home of their children if it best serves the mutual happiness for them to have separate homes. We seldom now in enlightened families make the mistake of holding to "living together" when living apart is clearly the wiser thing.
The old sense of family responsibility is, however, happily not lost and in its new ways of working often gives a finer representation of mutual aid than was common of old. The will of one rich man which included many gifts to sisters, cousins, and nieces, and left directions to the principal heirs to find out if there were any relatives of the same nearness left out and if so to make them equal sharers, is but a type of many who, with or without large means, share generously with all their name and kin.
On the other hand, we have examples of those who, in the effort to leave a large fortune for some specific object of education or of public charity, wholly neglect, often with cruel indifference, the needs of some member or members of their own family. One man of conspicuous gift to education left a sister and her two daughters without means for comfortable living while piling up money for his pet scheme. Many men skimp themselves and also their wives, children, and still more their parents and more remote kin, to hoard a monster sum for some charity to be forever called by their name. These, however, are unusual examples of losing sight of the near in the remote. The average man and woman has in mind a series of concentric circles, those nearest to be helped first, those next beyond to share next, and the world outside to have what is left when these inner claims upon love and generosity are fully met.
If it were not for this general tendency society-at-large would have far more responsibility for all sorts of care of the aged, of the incapable, of the unsuccessful, of the invalid, of the defective, of the insane, of the "cranky" and of the lonely. Finally, without this innate tendency to feel a sense of responsibility for those nearest related by family ties much of the discipline toward social usefulness would be lacking in the lives of average people. We learn the larger duty through faithful response to the nearer and closer obligation. For this reason the family holidays and reunions, the family birthday celebrations which include all the relativeswithin reach, the pressure of the law and of custom upon those able to care for those less strong and competent within the kinship bond, are all socializing influences which it is well to keep warm and consciously active.
The lovely spirit of Mrs. Hodgson Burnett's "Tembarom" when he finds a "real relative" is duplicated by many immigrants who after years of loneliness greet one of the family on the shores of the new country; and the member of the eastern family "gone west" is the most hospitable of all relatives to the visitor from the old home who has the same family tree.
The gratitude of the ancient poet that "God has set the solitary in families" is not a sentiment to be outgrown. Those who feel that it is, lose something precious from the basis of human affection. The adjustment of this old bond to the new individualistic life is not yet made even in the Western world, while in the Eastern the vital problems of family adjustment press in supreme unrest. The one principle that should guide us in this as in all inheritance from the past is surely this, that while the sacredness of personality of any one member of any group, even of the family, shall not be wholly sacrificed to the needs and demands of any other member, yet "they that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak" in the old spirit of unselfish service.
1. In the monogamic system of the family what, in general, has been the legal responsibility toward blood kin?2. Is the inherited legal and social responsibility for the care and well-being of relatives lessened at the present time? If so, is that for good or for ill in the wider social fabric?3. How far should accepted obligations toward near relatives be met in ways to bring under one roof more than the fathers and mothers and children of a given generation?4. Should natural kinship weigh heavily in considering arrangements for material relief in poverty? In the care of orphans and half-orphans? And in provisions for aid to the aged, the sick, and those out of work?5. What special conditions make appeal to family feeling difficult in a population like that of the United States with many immigrants and great mobility in industrial relations?6. Is there any way of strengthening family feeling without attempting return to older forms of family autonomy?
1. In the monogamic system of the family what, in general, has been the legal responsibility toward blood kin?
2. Is the inherited legal and social responsibility for the care and well-being of relatives lessened at the present time? If so, is that for good or for ill in the wider social fabric?
3. How far should accepted obligations toward near relatives be met in ways to bring under one roof more than the fathers and mothers and children of a given generation?
4. Should natural kinship weigh heavily in considering arrangements for material relief in poverty? In the care of orphans and half-orphans? And in provisions for aid to the aged, the sick, and those out of work?
5. What special conditions make appeal to family feeling difficult in a population like that of the United States with many immigrants and great mobility in industrial relations?
6. Is there any way of strengthening family feeling without attempting return to older forms of family autonomy?
"The path by which we twain did go,Which led by tracts that pleased us well,Thro' four sweet years arose and fell,From flower to flower, from snow to snow:And we with singing cheer'd the way,And, crown'd with all the season lent,From April on to April went,And glad at heart from May to May.And all we met was fair and good,And all was good that Time could bring,And all the secret of the SpringMoved in the chambers of the blood."—Tennyson.
"The path by which we twain did go,Which led by tracts that pleased us well,Thro' four sweet years arose and fell,From flower to flower, from snow to snow:
And we with singing cheer'd the way,And, crown'd with all the season lent,From April on to April went,And glad at heart from May to May.
And all we met was fair and good,And all was good that Time could bring,And all the secret of the SpringMoved in the chambers of the blood."—Tennyson.
"There is no man that imparteth his joy to his friend but he joyeth the more; and no man who imparteth his grief to his friend but he grieveth the less."—Bacon."True, active, productive friendship consists in equal pace in life, in moving forward together, steadily, however much our way of thought and life may vary."—Goethe."Accept no person against thy soul."—Ecclesiasticus.
"There is no man that imparteth his joy to his friend but he joyeth the more; and no man who imparteth his grief to his friend but he grieveth the less."—Bacon.
"True, active, productive friendship consists in equal pace in life, in moving forward together, steadily, however much our way of thought and life may vary."—Goethe.
"Accept no person against thy soul."—Ecclesiasticus.
"Your love, vouchsafe it royal-hearted FewAnd I will set no common price thereon;But aught of inward faith must I forego,Or miss one drop from truth's baptismal hand,Think poorer thoughts, pray cheaper prayers, and growLess worthy trust, to meet your heart's demand.Farewell! Your wish I for your sake deny;Rebel to love, in truth to love, am I."—D.A. Wasson.
"Your love, vouchsafe it royal-hearted FewAnd I will set no common price thereon;But aught of inward faith must I forego,Or miss one drop from truth's baptismal hand,Think poorer thoughts, pray cheaper prayers, and growLess worthy trust, to meet your heart's demand.Farewell! Your wish I for your sake deny;Rebel to love, in truth to love, am I."—D.A. Wasson.
The Power of Friendship.—The man who said, "Our relations are thrust upon us; thank heaven we may choose our friends" expressed a feeling shared by many, that fate may handicap us by giving us birth in an uncongenial circle, but we may recoup ourselves by chosen friends and enjoy companionship with them which our kin cannot furnish.
Friendship has inspired many of the greatest deeds and many of the noblest poems, and has given us examples of heroic devotion almost passing the love of man for woman. It is not within our purpose to recall these great friendships, but they are familiar and furnish the unfailing stimulus of finer sentiment in youth as the classic examples are recited to each generation. Real friendship is a sacred thing. There are pinchbeck imitations which are neither sacred nor helpful. The "mashes" and the "crushes" of school-life are not even good imitations. The bargain-counter exchange of services—"you give me society uplift, and I will give you under-current influence," as one woman frankly stated it to another, although it may be called friendship, has no element of real affection in it, as the first one to fail in "value received" so clearly understands. The unwholesome absorption of one woman with another, so that no minute apart can be endured, may be long-lived or an ephemeral expression of a weakness on one or the other side, but it is not the best type of friendship. Among men the submergence of one personality in another, so that although there are two people there is but one mind and one purpose, may be friendship, but it is not that equal comradeship which the healthy-minded seek. The friendship between a man and a woman which does not lead to marriage or desire for marriage may be a life-long experience of the greatest value to themselves and to all their circle of acquaintance and of activity; but for this type of friendship both a rare man and a rare woman are needed. Perhaps it should be added that either the man or the woman thus deeply bound in life-long friendship who seeks marriage must find a still rarer man or woman to wed, to make such a three-cornered comradeship a permanent success. Friendship at its best is a task as well as a gratification. Nothing in this world can be had for nothing. "Earth gets its price for what earth gives us." A really great friendship is a test and a challenge and a "time-consumer," asEmerson says. It is, next to marriage and parenthood, the most exacting of human relationships. For this reason few men and women can have a great friendship that does not lead to marriage, and at the same time have a complete marriage with another. For this reason again, the great friendships are generally between two unmarried men or two unmarried women.
The Newly Wed and Old Friends.—Much is written of the sad disillusion experienced by the newly wedded man when he finds his friends are not as welcome at his new fireside as he had expected. These friends of his are not of the sort prophesied by the love of David and Jonathan, but they are valued comrades and he has anticipated sharing the delights of his new home with them. Many a woman in her desire to be all in all to her husband and in the selfish absorption of an undisciplined affection, starts married life the wrong way by making no place in the home life for these old friends of her husband's bachelor life. That reacts often in the worst possible manner upon his affection for her. She forgets too often that she is not called upon to give up her friends. They can come, and do come, when her husband is away at his work, while his friends, if they come at all, must come in his leisure hours which she often wishes to preempt for herself alone. It is the most short-sighted of follies for a woman to try to sweep clean of all former interests and friendships the life of the man with whom she is to try the great adventure of marriage.
The most a wife can accomplish by selfish denial to her husband of his right to keep his friends and enjoy the old as well as the new companionship is to make it impossible for him to enjoy his friends in her company. She can thus send him off on hunting trips or other outside enjoyments which leave her lonely at home. The fact that few worth-while men or women have lived to the marriage day without deep affection for some friend, or perhaps for many friends, is not a testimony to need of change when a new relation is formed but to the enlargement of both circles of comradeship and their amalgamation into friends of the family. This may be a difficult achievement. Many men and women have found, to their surprise, that although they are in love with wife or husband they are not at all in love with the respective families and still less inclined to accept each other's chosen friends as theirown. One angle alone of the many-sided character may have "made the match;" quite other angles have already attracted and still hold the friends. These often mutually incongruous friends of both sides must somehow be made to attach themselves to the marriage plan or they may work much harm to the new home.
The art of holding on to old associations and yet substituting, where substitution is wise or necessary, a new for an established relationship is a great art. In the case of the newly married whose friends have been in widely different circles, it is often an impossible one.
Here is where the social wisdom that in some manner essays to make the twain to be later one a part of the same or a very similar social group, shows its finest results. When marriage was arranged by the elders of the respective families there was likely to be a similarity in the social standards of the two circles from which the bride and groom were drawn. Their friends were usually so inevitably of the same financial standing and of similar cultural ideals and manners that they would be likely to be congenial to each other and all to both husband and wife. When the one chosen was selected by the fathers and mothers there were some essentials for successful married life secured in advance. We have now come to feel that each couple must choose for themselves and that conscious, selective love is the very essence of that choice. It is well, however, to name over the essentials secured by the arranged marriages, to which such an enlightened country as France still gives much heed and still holds to some extent in family control.
Some Advantages in Choices of Marriage by the Elders.—The old arranged choice for marriage, in the first place, secured, and still secures in countries not yet changed in this particular, a similar financial position. Often greed of family prestige made the money end the chief one and sacrificed everything else to the bringing together of two great fortunes. Yet the fact that family choices usually united those of similar financial standing and power of gratification of taste did lead toward an easy adjustment of the young couple to life together. One of the chief causes of unhappiness in marriages wholly from personal choice and in response to an impulse of passionate attachment is that the taste and "style" of living of the two has been so different that it is hard, after thefirst glamour wears away, to settle down to agreeable compromises. As a rule, "the beggar maid and King Cophetua" can get on better than the young woman heiress and the ex-chauffeur in such compromises; for it is always easier to extend one's income than to contract it, and women can still owe all to the loved one with better grace than men can bear the position of one "marrying above his lot." The tendency of the older custom, however, to limit all marriage choices on the basis of money to be contributed to the common fund was, and is when now in force, as destructive to real happiness in marriage as any ill-considered leaping across social barriers could well be. It is well, therefore, that it is outgrown.
The second condition believed essential to success in marriage from the point of view of family stability, when the marriage choice of the loved one was made by the elders, is far more important than that of financial equality. It is the congeniality of the two families to be united by the marriage. The custom of betrothing their children as a means of carrying on the close friendship of a lifetime beyond its natural limit into the generations yet to be, is an old and not a wholly bad one. It insures for the young couple a genuine love from both sides the family line. To be sure, that love may be an oppressive and undesired gift which one or the other of the young people ardently wishes to ignore or to be freed from, but it contains also some elements of a good start for those same young people in a mutually devoted double parentage. When, however, as in Eastern countries, it leads to betrothal in infancy or very early childhood and sets the girl who is to be the wife in the family of her betrothed when she is too young to know her own real nature or to have a mind to make up about what she would wish for herself, it may be and generally is an evil thing. In the questions concerning the family set forth by the Chinese inquiry, to which allusion has already been made, the first set of problems relates to "Early Engagements," and it is asked, "Is the practice of parents in arranging for the engagement of a girl while still a mere child productive of happiness in the future home?" And, again, "Can a woman refuse to marry a man whom her family decides she should marry, after the formal engagement has taken place?" To our Western ideas the answer is so plain to both these questions that one may be impatient at theirrepetition here. Yet it is certainly true that many people freely engage themselves to their later unhappiness and there have been many family virtues bred on even the outgrown fashion of family choice. Where unhappiness has been prevented in the results of family choice doubtless the friendship of the two family heads has had much to do with such mitigation of bad effects of extreme parental control in marriage.
Social protection of the young has in a measure superseded the ancient family arrangement, but where it has not, a young person may be found to-day in as bad a position through personal choice as that of the girl set in a home without her own consent to be the future wife of a man she has not seen. The difference is, however, a vital one.
In the case of the Chinese girl the status is fixed. In the case of a girl of the Western world, even of most unfortunate circumstance or weakness of character, there is a possibility of escape from even the worst conditions into a new relationship to life and to marriage. We have suicides in the Western world, and some of them of young girls who, free to choose their mates, loved not wisely but too well; but the toll of suicides of wives in China is one that testifies that polygamy and the power of fathers over their daughters in marriage and even in their sale for immoral uses, and the legal right to hold girls in domestic slavery, are evils not made tolerable even by the high-minded who try to perpetuate the friendship as well as the power of leading families by intermarriage.
An early Massachusetts law declared that "No female orphan could be given in marriage during her minority except with the approbation of a majority of the selectmen of the town." This was proof that in this country from the first, the social power was used not to make girls accept husbands that might be chosen for them but to protect girls from exploitation of designing persons, and if they had not a family protection they were held secure in that of the officers of the community. The law of 1719, in New York, that no person under twenty-one should be married without the written consent of parent or guardian was a step in the direction of social control. This law aimed not to make marriage choices for any young person but to safeguard such choice from possible harm.
The ancient family choice in marriage tried in the third place to give every one an equal chance to be married. The families concerned, when the age thought to be marriageable had been reached, sought to give the young persons a place in the family order. The idea of bachelors and maids of mature years was not only repugnant, it was an indictment of the vigilance and good offices of the elders. When a certain Doctor Brickell practised medicine in North Carolina in about 1731, he declared that "She that continues unmarried until twenty is reckoned a stale maid, which is a very indifferent character in this country;" and in New England the unmarried man, as elsewhere, was subjected to special tax and social odium.
The family arrangement for marriage of the young did one thing, at least, in a time when women and girls enjoyed little protection or financial security outside of marriage—it set at work forces to provide husbands for many girls who would not be the first choice in a free competition for masculine favor.
Some Ancient Spinsters, But Few.—There were, however, some distinguished women of the older time who never married. Margaret Brent, of Maryland, for example, whose appeal for "voyce and vote with men," in the making of laws to which she must owe allegiance, is historic. And that Mary Carpenter, sister of Alice, wife of Governor Bradford, who, at the beginning of her ninety-first year, was declared a "godly old maid;" and, again, that "ancient maid of forty years," who is said to have founded the town of Taunton, Massachusetts. Others of distinction might be mentioned. These show clearly that the right not to marry at all, and the right not to marry a person whom she had not seen or, having seen, did not want as husband, was well sustained in the case of young girls in our own country from the first.
The lot of most women here in the United States, as elsewhere in the world, includes marriage; and although no one wants to go back to family arrangement of nuptials, the desirability of marriage within a congenial and familiar circle—that which the family arrangement distinctly set out to secure—is still obvious.
The fourth element of family stability and well-being which the ancient parental arrangement of marriage was intended to secure is deliberation and chance for learning all the facts on bothsides, so that there may be no marrying in haste to repent at leisure. The reaction from this deliberation in tying the nuptial knot is seen in "running away to be married" without the slightest knowledge on either side of the qualities or capacities of the chosen partner and without giving the parents any opportunity of safeguarding from disastrous choice. This is the swing of the pendulum in a new freedom, often to personal disaster. Social ideals and legal provisions are alike engaged more and more to prevent too ignorant and too hasty marriages. Such may turn out to have been made in heaven as nearly as the average union, but the chances are against that happy consummation.
New Demands for Social Control of Marriage Choices.—Social wisdom obliges more deliberation in the case of young people seeking a marriage license on their own initiative and perhaps after a very brief acquaintance. There is a strong demand that a certain period shall elapse between the request for the license and its granting and that sufficient publicity be secured to make it easy for interested parties to ascertain any facts concerning both the man and the woman involved, which might make the marriage either illegal, as bigamy, or a catastrophe, as uniting one unfit for marriage with an unsuspecting person blinded by sudden attraction. More than this, many States of our Union are beginning processes of law to require certificates of physical fitness, of freedom from infectious or dangerous disease, and some statement of facts as to previous obedience to law and ability for self-support such as alone would make marriage successful. Ministers of religion of various sects are taking more and more a stand against marriage of persons whom they know are of bad habits or otherwise likely to give a married partner an unhappy life. Insanity in the family is now considered in some States a disqualification for marriage, and statutes requiring some family testimony to facts concerning that inheritance are coming into enactment and enforcement. The tragedy of marrying ignorantly into a certain and hopeless fate of union with one who can never be of sound mind is so terrible that the state itself is trying to safeguard carelessness on that point. The medical profession is more and more acting a parental part in requiring the registry of diseases that are most unsocialin their effect—diseases incident to vice, and which make any man while suffering from them unfit for marriage. It is proposed by many, and by law required in some States, that no marriage license shall be given without a certificate of both mental and physical fitness, to be handed to the officer before registry of the application, in order that there may be no public refusal on such grounds of unfitness after it is known that a license to marry has been sought. This would be far better than, as has been proposed by some persons, for clergymen to take the initiative in requiring such physical and mental tests after a request to marry two people and after a license has been secured. After a matter has gone so far as to result in a request to a clergyman to officiate at the marriage ceremony, the exaction of an examination which the state has not previously required would inevitably, as has been already shown in some instances, lead to suspicion and bad feeling. The duty of the state, which alone in our country gives power to marry (the clergyman performing the ceremony pronouncing the couple married "by virtue of the power invested in him by the state"), is clear. That duty is to take all initiative in all previous inquiries aimed at preventing the marriage of unfit persons. If the state does take such initiative and for all alike, no matter what their social standing or reputation may be, then there is no stigma for any individual and no suspicion aroused to injure any class of persons. There seems as good reason why a compulsory physical and mental examination, together with an inquiry into the main facts of a person's life in order to prevent fraud and exploitation, should always precede the giving of a marriage license as for the required physical and mental examination of children when they enter the tax-supported public school. It is, in both cases, a way by which society secures itself, in the interest of the family and of social life, against the fostering or continuance of evils that may be prevented from poisoning the sources of moral and intellectual growth.
The fiat has gone forth in the Western world that no one shall be compelled to marry against his or her will. The first revolt from family control of marriage, that which made so many persons believe that any one should be allowed to marry any one whom heor she might choose, is now, however, waning. Elements of social control are superseding the "marriage broker" and the parental office in deciding what unions shall be allowed.
The Young Should be Helped to Make Wise Choices.—Wisdom and consistency are not yet developed in this new way of helping the young, even against their will, to avoid mistakes of ignorance and folly, but they are developing. Meanwhile, many children still revere their parents' wishes and ideals, even if the wild few do as they please without regard to their elders. Most marriages in our country are not only safely entered upon but happy in results because of tendencies and tastes engendered in homes of love, truth, and goodness. The increase of social control in the direction of knowledge and caution even among the best people, and the safeguarding of the less advantaged in family training, must go on until all the good things parental choice gave to marriage arrangements are retained more perfectly and all the bad things outgrown.
The fifth element in the ancient parental control of marriage choices was the definite placing of youth under the leadership of age and thus holding firm the inherited "mores" to make the family stable in ideal as in practice. We have now a revolt of youth against the leadership of age. We have now, even among those whose affection for their parents is strong in feeling and generous in action, an idea that the convictions and reverences of the older generation are outgrown and for the better. There is a general impression, perhaps speeded unduly by the war, that what is new must be good, and what is old must be, if not bad, at least not the best. The decay of family religion lessens respect for old sanctions. The fact that business and pleasure alike take the different members of each family on different ways all the week and Sunday, too, make each age represented in the household influenced chiefly by its own set of friends. The way in which mechanical invention gives unexampled speed in opposite directions to the young and the old alike intensifies the segregation of each group and minimizes the influence of the family bond. The fact, perhaps of all most significant, that every form of art, from the lowest to the highest, is changing before our eyes into something newand strange tends toward the unconscious absorption by youth of new ideals of what is desirable in life. These things all conspire to make youth impatient of age.
The Revolt of Youth.—Many of the boys who went to torture and cripplement in the war have returned to declare that the old life is gone, and if there can be no better one devised and realized then the old world should go too. Many of the girls who went overseas to a vivid excitement and a stimulus of unwonted comradeship with men feel that they have so much more insight into real things than do their mothers that they know not only what is best for themselves but what is best for all youth. Many women, for the first time earning independent livelihood during the war-struggle, feel that now, at last, they have arrived; and what have they to do with old-fashioned behavior? More than all else, the modern economic independence of women of good breeding and assured position, in social classes which used to consider that only women in direst need could properly earn money, gives a wholly different aspect to many social questions. The tendency to individualism, so often seen in the modern woman, unbalanced by study of the past or its lessons or by any real grappling with present problems as they relate to possible future adjustments, now begins its strongest revolt at the fireside and makes the daughter often a stranger to her mother.
Only the older woman who has kept in touch not only with young life outside her own family but with the problems that modern changes in education, in industry, in art and literature, press upon the mind, can understand why so many young people to-day distrust everything that is old and welcome everything that seems new, however ancient it may actually be. Many of the newest things proclaimed are old mistakes of human nature revamped for a masquerade. A little study, for example, would show many young people who think they are responding to fresh revelation of the right relation of the sexes that they are really coming under the spell of some ancient and discarded plan of getting all satisfaction out of a relationship without assuming any obligation in return.
The Wisdom of the Ages Must be the Guide of Youth.—There is no chance of putting youth back into tutelage to age inany personal relation and in the old sense. Wise older people do not wish that. What is happening, and will be accelerated in action when the first flush of youthful consciousness of power is a bit balanced by knowledge of life's difficulties, is this; the wisdom of the ages, not the wisdom of their own parents and family alone, will be available to youth and used by youth in ever-increasing reverence. Not that some one who has lived longer shall of right determine a young life, but that young life shall learn more than in any past time it could do what the experience of the race has to teach. Happy the child whose parent can interpret this wisdom of life and happy the parent whose child can even now see that there is wisdom from the past to interpret.
Meanwhile, the fact that so many people marry and so many marriages turn out happily speaks well for the wisdom of youth or else gives testimony of the kindness of the fate that watches over lovers. We are told that at the ages of twenty to twenty-five half of the women and one-fourth of the men in the United States are married, and at the period of life between thirty-five and forty-five years only seventeen per cent. of the men are single and only eleven per cent. of the women; while at sixty-five years and over only six per cent. of either sex are listed as having never married. If out of this large proportion who dare matrimony on their own motion, and often without even the parental approbation, only one marriage out of ten to twelve turns out so badly that the parties ask to be released from their marriage vows, surely it argues well for independence in choosing one's partner for one's self even if there are mishaps and disasters for the few.
Personal Choice in Marriage Has Now the Widest Range.—One fact which many overlook when making estimates of the mistakes in marriage (and drawing therefrom dire prognostication for the future of the family in our country) is that personal choice among a circle of friends was not only never so free for young people but also never able to cover so wide a range of divergent national and racial backgrounds as in the United States. Marriages in this country often bridge or try to bridge a chasm between centuries of social development and continents of educational influence. It is estimated that of the 3,424 languages anddialects spoken in the world, about one-third, or 1,624, are spoken in some part of the American continent. The English language is spoken by more people than use either the German, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese, but the 150,000,000 who thus preserve the "mother-tongue" of the early American settlers have to come into intimate contact with those of far different lingual background. This difference in language, which is found so often a barrier to unity between the respective parents of the young people who choose each other in marriage, is but a sign and symbol of deep-seated and ineradicable divergence in family tradition, in fashion of customary ways of living, in scale of moral values and in personal habits. It is rather a matter for astonishment that so many "mixed marriages" turn out well than that a minority prove disastrous. Mixed marriages will continue and with wider range of alignment in the future than in the past. That is inevitable with our increased complexity of life, which brings together in school and in labor, in social gatherings and in political association, all sorts and conditions of men, and women. Love not only laughs at prison bars, love scoffs at parental differences as well as at parental control. Yet is it true that wide divergence in family background is accountable for many of the tragedies of broken families after love has cooled and the facts of sober obligations incurred have become obvious.
The great social need in the United States is for means of acquaintance and friendship for the young in lines of association in which a safe and helpful marriage choice may be made. William Penn said, "Never marry but for love, but see that thou lovest what is lovely." The effort of all social arrangements for the young in families where the elders do not try to reinstate parental control but rather to give a chance for safeguarded independence of choice is to bring together young people who should find, each one of them in that group, a chosen one of the right sort. Financial capacity, mutually congenial relatives, suitable age and similar tastes, after acquaintance giving reasonable basis for hope for permanent agreement in essentials, might insure suitable marriages. The many advantages of close friendships within a group bound together by similar culture and outlook is the real reason for "society." Often foolish in its ways and defeating its ownhigher ends, it is yet a real effort to give a new and more democratic guidance through favorable circumstances, rather than through personal will or family rule, to the marriage choice of youth.
The reason why one is chosen and another not is never clear to any but the ones who make the choice. To them, indeed, it may be a mystery, but one they are sure must have its source in the necessity of things. To others it is often a puzzle past understanding because so many of the friends of each of the twain "would have chosen so differently, you know."
Something of racial need both for mixture and for persistency of type, something of hidden demand of temperament for a complementary personality, something of easy awakening of passion and easy holding of attention, something of requirement for a larger sympathy than most friends can give and the favored one seems able to supply—all these enter into the selection of the chosen one from all the rest of one's friends. The need is for as wide a range of personalities and for as large a chance to make friends with the suitable and truly congenial as can be given to youth in order that the choice may be really free and the result happy.
The Value of the Church in Social Life.—In our day the best opportunities for such a choice within social ranges most likely to offer the right choice is found in the churches. Whatever they may lack in power of leadership, the churches have a social activity to-day which gives the very best opportunity to youth in its quest for the perfect other half. It is not necessary or best to do as the Friends have done, turn out of the communion those who "marry out of meeting." It is not a wholesome sign when religion puts bars before the marriage altar, for one's true mate may be found in another temple than that in which one was consecrated in infancy. It is often the very difference in family faith that unites two people whose religious inheritance has slipped away from bondage and gives only a reminiscent glow. It is, however, true that like beliefs, like forms of worship, like use of the same tabernacle, Sunday after Sunday, which bring parents and elders of families together, give chances for the young to form wide and strong attachments of friendship within a circle of like quality and tastes. In spite of the fact that many people bridge vast social chasms with high success in a marriage venture, the majority ofhappy marriages are of those who do not have to engage an outside interpreter in order to understand each other in reaction to social habit, ethics, and culture.
It is often made a reproach to the modern church that it is so much a supplement of the home, so largely a social opportunity rather than a controlling moral force. In some sense the reproach may be a just one, but in a very real meaning of human service, the church that aids young people to find themselves and each other in a friendly circle of the like-minded, like-mannered, and like-spirited, within the circle of whom a really good marriage choice may be made, can claim recognition as of those functionaries that meet a need not met so well by any other social agency. The straining of this point by advertised "courting parlors" for the friendless and homeless may not be the right thing, but what is needed is an opportunity providing the right atmosphere and chaperonage for easier acquaintance among young people away from home.
The sad fact that so many young men and young women never meet the right mates in youth and marry perforce, if at all, any one that "comes along," makes any organization that naturally and simply enables those who need it to make acquaintance with those among whom a congenial mate may easily be found socially useful.
Either as substitute for home surroundings or as supplement to unhappy or inadequate family life, the church home may be a benefactor in this direction of enabling young people to find what all need, friends and possible chosen ones among those friends.
The prophetic mission of the church, laments an earnest reformer, is now too much in eclipse. Perhaps so, but it may be truer to say that the prophetic mission has now escaped all walls, even of grandest cathedrals, and is now busy at organizing that mission into specialties of social reform and social progress. However that may be, the church as a home-extension meeting-place of the higher, broader, and finer friendly association, in which all ages can come together, in a friendly spirit and for worship of all that is lovely and of good report;—the church as such a home-extension service has a noble place to fill in modern life.
Easy Divorce Does Not Lessen Marriage Responsibility.—At any rate, by whatever means of help, or however left to struggle alone with its problems, the youth of to-day has taken all life's choices in its own hands, especially the choice that puts one friend above all others and takes the first step in the founding of a home. If any one thinks that it is so slight a thing to do this now, since if one is not satisfied one can get a divorce, he or she is not giving the choice a fair chance. It must be held within the heart and purpose as a permanent bond or the marriage will not be likely to realize its own possibilities.
The real lover is sure that he will love forever the same. It is that feeling that consecrates the marriage and gives most assurance of its success. If we could get rid of romantic love we should have no good start toward married happiness. If we got rid of the ideal of life-long devotion we should not build the home on sure foundations. The psychology of permanence is an essential of true marriage.
On the other hand, if we tried to put the family back into the bondage of the old time, when youth was subject and could never exercise its own power of choice, we should lose the one precious gift of freedom to love, the power to find and keep one's own. If we fear the future of the family because now the spiritual essence of marriage is demanded, even if the form of its first enclosure prove too strait for its growth, we cannot turn back to the harsh practice and coarse ideals that once made all unions seem right that preserved a legal bond and all men and women wrong-doers who sought freedom from intolerable ills.
New and Finer Marriage Unions.—There is a way of life, full of difficulties and not yet clear, a way of life that leads to such a noble comradeship and such a type of loving union as the world could rarely see in the older days.
Our children and our children's children will know how to use freedom for service, and service for mutual growth, and mutual growth for community betterment, in those "world's great bridals, chaste and calm," which the future shall make the common glory of the home.