hAppiESt FamiLY

Ellen Key and Her Gospel

Indeed, the high priestess of the gospel
of freedom from legal bondage in sex-relation, Ellen Key, declares
that "a higher culture in love can be attained only by correlating
self-control with love and parental responsibility," a correlation she
believes would "follow as a consequence when love and parental
responsibility were made the sole conditions of sex-relations." She
also says that "in all cases where there is an affinity of souls and
the sympathy of friendship, love is what it always was and always will
be, the coöperation of the father with the mother in the education of
the children as well as the coöperation of the mother with the father
in all great social works." She thus links her ideal of true freedom
for the choices of love with social obligations and hence again with
what is best in inherited family life.

In addition, however, to the claim that love should be freed from
legal restraints in the interest of self-expression and
self-development (whether or not from Ellen Key's high standpoint of
parental responsibility) we have another attack upon the legal
autonomy of the family, as we know it, in the demand of some radical
feminists that "illegitimacy should be abolished."

Modern Ideals in Sex-relationship

To so separate mating and
parenthood as to make it the business of no one but the two chiefly
concerned when or how often such mating became a personal experience,
and to make it a matter of social indifference whether one or two
parents contracted with society for the right upbringing of the child
or children involved (with no troublesome questions asked about either
parent not in evidence in the contract), would certainly blur the
social outline of the family, as we know it, to the point of legal
nullification. There might, indeed, grow up in such an imagined
condition a form of contract between two persons mating, as well as
one between parents and state, in respect to parenthood's social
responsibilities, and where such personal contract was broken redress
from the courts might be sought and obtained. The effect, however, of
such a plan as that proposed would inevitably be to leave the nobler,
the more loving and less selfish of the men and women involved, more
surely even than is now the case, the victims of the weaker, the more
grasping, and the more selfish of the twain.

What Is the Modern Ideal in Child-care?

What is the ideal of those
most advanced in knowledge of childhood's needs and most sincere in
devotion to the welfare and happiness of the young? It is certainly
not one which ignores or minimizes the influence of the private home
or one which includes the belief that one parent, however wise or
good, can do as much for a child as two parents working in harmony
over a long period of years can accomplish.

Nor can the influence of such a proposed separation of mating and
parenthood upon the sex-relationship itself be ignored in any proposed
new ways of living together. Some of the critics of the family, as we
know it, may put "duty" in quotation marks when dealing with
sex-relationship in the effort to put "love" on the throne, but
experience shows that in all the intimate relationships of life some
stay from without the individual desire is needed to restrain from
impulsive change and lessen frictional expression of temperamental
weakness. On reason and a sense of obligation are based all successful
human arrangements, and these need social support.

Mating and Parenthood

This latter view is stated definitely by one
writer who believes that a new morality will "separate entirely,
mating from parenthood" in the interest of a more effective social
arrangement--"mating," or the free union of a man and a woman in
sex-relationship, to be in that case "solely a private matter with
which no one but the parties involved have any concern." "Parenthood,"
on the other hand, having relation, as it must, to society, requires,
so this writer declares, from either the father or the mother, as
inclination and capacity indicate, or from both parents if such should
be the wish of both, a "contract with the state" binding to an
upbringing of the child in accordance with accepted standards of
physical, mental, moral, and vocational demands. Such a contract with
the state in respect to child-care and the training of youth might
give far better results, be it confessed, than follow the utterly
ignorant and careless breeding of the young of the human race by those
on lowest levels of thought and action. Few, however, think such a
contract would meet all essentials of child-development.

Is It Possible to Democratize the Family?

The witty writer who
declares that "the democratization of the family is impossible, since
the family is by nature an autocracy and ruled by the worst
disposition in it," is not without endorsers. There are also those,
more serious in intent, who claim that the family as an inherited
institution is by virtue of its inmost quality inimical to the
personal freedom of its members, and hence that the state, which is
now standardizing child-care, must undertake the practical duties
involved and leave both parents free to change marital relationship at
will before or after the birth of children and maintain their separate
bachelor or spinster freedom.

The Headship of the Father

During the middle ages of our
civilization and for centuries of our later past the headship of the
family rested securely in the father. Now the ideal of "Two heads in
council; Two beside the hearth; Two in the tangled business of the
world" is working toward democratization of the family. This leads
toward a legal status and an economic adjustment in which the relation
of husband and wife may be equalized toward each other and toward
their children. In this new process, which is a part of the general
movement we call democracy, there are special difficulties of
modification peculiar to the family relation. The monogamic ideal and
practice demands permanency, solidarity of interest and unity of
control both within and without the family circle, at least until all
the children of a marriage have reached maturity. The ideal of the
rightful individuation of women, and even of minor children, works
against that legal solidarity and obvious unity. The old way of
obtaining these elements of family stability, a method still in vogue
in many places and still defended by some persons, was to place all
power of control in the hands of the husband and father, and thus make
the wife a perpetual minor and leave the children wholly under
patriarchal bondage. The modern ideal of women as entitled to
self-ownership and self-control even when married, and the social
need, just beginning to be understood, for women as for men to fully
develop their powers and capacities militates against the legal
headship of the father. To-day there is a demand, growing in
insistency, that we accept the right of each member of the family
circle to individual development and work toward its realization.
There is also the demand that we retain inviolate the social means for
successful family life. Some do not hesitate to say that to fulfil
both these demands is not within human power.

The Headship of the Father

During the middle ages of our
civilization and for centuries of our later past the headship of the
family rested securely in the father. Now the ideal of "Two heads in
council; Two beside the hearth; Two in the tangled business of the
world" is working toward democratization of the family. This leads
toward a legal status and an economic adjustment in which the relation
of husband and wife may be equalized toward each other and toward
their children. In this new process, which is a part of the general
movement we call democracy, there are special difficulties of
modification peculiar to the family relation. The monogamic ideal and
practice demands permanency, solidarity of interest and unity of
control both within and without the family circle, at least until all
the children of a marriage have reached maturity. The ideal of the
rightful individuation of women, and even of minor children, works
against that legal solidarity and obvious unity. The old way of
obtaining these elements of family stability, a method still in vogue
in many places and still defended by some persons, was to place all
power of control in the hands of the husband and father, and thus make
the wife a perpetual minor and leave the children wholly under
patriarchal bondage. The modern ideal of women as entitled to
self-ownership and self-control even when married, and the social
need, just beginning to be understood, for women as for men to fully
develop their powers and capacities militates against the legal
headship of the father. To-day there is a demand, growing in
insistency, that we accept the right of each member of the family
circle to individual development and work toward its realization.
There is also the demand that we retain inviolate the social means for
successful family life. Some do not hesitate to say that to fulfil
both these demands is not within human power.

New Ideals Affecting the Family

To-day the ideal of equality of rights for men and women, and the ideal of ministration to childhood's needs, are stronger than the ideal of family control. The social demand is, therefore, for standardization of family life and of
child-care on a high plane of physical, mental, and moral development
of each individual life rather than for an autocratic representation
of the power of what Professor James called "the collectivity that
owns us." Hence certain problems which have never before been clear in
social consciousness are now arising to enter all debates on family
stability and family success.

The Experience of the Past

By many experiments, over many differing "folk-ways," the modern family has arrived. We name it now "monogamic," and mean by the name the union of one man and one woman,
in aim at least for life, and their children. Whereas once it was the
rule of a tribe or clan which determined every detail of
sex-relationship, a rule represented either by the mother or the
father, it is now an individualistic choice of two adult persons only,
socially legalized by a required certificate and ceremony. Whereas
once it was the basis of all social order and mutual aid, it is now
one of several institutions inherited from the past, and is itself
subject to the state, which is the chief heir to our social
inheritance. The family, however, is now, as it has always been, the
interior, vital, and so far indispensable social relationship,
beginning, as it does, at first hand the training of each individual
toward membership in society-at-large. In the past, under the
mother-rule, the social elements of the family were emphasized, since
her power was one delegated by the group of which she and her children
were a part and closely related to peaceful ways and to primitive
industrial arts. Under the father-rule, the political and legal
elements of the family were emphasized, since his was an autocratic
and personal control of wife and children, even of adult sons, and in
many cases of his own mother, and marked the beginning and worked
toward the power of the modern state. In all cases, however, it was as
a representative of the group-ideal and the group-control that the
parents held sway over the family; and if the family is to persist in
the future as an institution it will hold its authority over
individual lives as trustee of society-at-large. Name, line of
inheritance, rights and duties of one member toward other members and
to the family group as a whole, must all be determined in the last
analysis by the "mores" of the people and the time concerned

THE CHILDREN THAT NEVER GROW UP

"It was perhaps an idle thought
But I imagined that if day by day
I watched him and seldom went away,
And studied all the beatings of his heart
With zeal (as men study some stubborn art
For their own good) and could by patience find
An entrance to the caverns of his mind--
I might reclaim him from his dark estate."
--SHELLEY.

"One man, at least, I know,
Who might wear the crest of Bayard
Or Sidney's plume of snow.
Behold him,
The Cadmus of the blind,
Giving the dumb lips language,
The idiot clay a mind.
Wherever outraged Nature
Asks word or action brave,
Wherever struggles labor,
Wherever groans a slave,--
Wherever rise the peoples,
Wherever sinks a throne,
The throbbing heart of Freedom finds
An answer in his own.
Knight of a better era,
Without reproach or fear!
Said I not well that Bayards
And Sidneys still are here?"
--WHITTIER'S tribute to Dr. Howe.

THE FLOWER OF THE FAMILY


"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in
faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in
action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the
beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!"

"Sure, He that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused."
--SHAKESPEARE.

"The apostolic of every age are ever calling for a higher
righteousness, a better development of the human race, a more
earnest effort to equalize the condition of men."--LUCRETIA MOTT.

"To every period its leaders: and the rise of every leader is
according to his watching for opportunity; and the chief quality
of leadership is the jewel of equity, by which alone the obedience
of men is justified."--ARAB SAYING.

"He presses on before the race,
And sings out of a silent place.
Like faint notes of a forest bird
On heights afar that voice is heard;
And the dim path he breaks to-day
Will some time be a trodden way.
But when the race comes toiling on
That voice of wonder will be gone--
Be heard on higher peaks afar,
Moved upward with the morning star.
O men of earth, that wandering voice
Still goes the upward way: rejoice!"
--EDWIN MARKHAM.

THE CHILDREN OF THE FAMILY


The human being arrives:

"Immense have been the preparations for me,
Faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me;
Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen;
For room to me the stars kept aside in their own rings,
They sent influences to look after what was to hold me;
Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me,
And forces have been steadily employed to complete and delight me;
Now, on this spot I stand with my robust soul."
--WALT WHITMAN.

"The child grows up in a setting of social functions of a type
higher always than that of his private accomplishment. He must grow
by gradual absorption of copies, patterns and examples."--BALDWIN.

"He is happy who comes with healthy body into the world; much more
he who goes with healthy spirit out of it. Nature has implanted
within us the seeds of learning, of virtue, and of piety; to bring
these to maturity is the object of education. All men require
education, and God has made children unfit for other employments
in order that they may have leisure to learn."--COMENIUS.

"The most critical interval of human nature is that between the
hour of birth and twelve years of age; this is the time when vice
and error may take root without our being possessed of any
instrument to destroy them; the first art of education, then,
consists neither in teaching virtue nor truth but in guarding the
heart from evil and the mind from error."--ROUSSEAU.

"A ladder leading to heaven is let down to every child, but he
must be taught to climb it. Education should decide for every
child not only what is to be made of its life, but should seek an
answer to the question, what was it intended that child should
become?"--PESTALOZZI.

"An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy."--OLD PROVERB.

"Come, let us live with our children!"--FROEBEL.

HUSBANDS AND WIVES

"First, the love of wedded souls; next, neighbor loves and civic,
All reddened, sweetened from the central heart."
--E.B. BROWNING.

"Two shall be born the whole wide world apart
And speak in different tongues, and have no thought
Each of the other's being and no heed;
And those o'er unknown seas to unknown lands
Shall come, escaping wreck, defying death,
And all unconsciously shape every act
And bend each wandering step to this one end--That
one day, out of darkness, they shall stand
And read life's meaning in each other's eyes."
--SUSAN MARR SPAULDING.

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light."
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
--ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

"A home is not an accidental or natural coming together of human
souls under the same roof in certain definite relationships; it is
a work of art, to be builded upon fixed principles of life and
action."--HENRY WARE, in _Home Life_.

"True love is but a humble, low-born thing,
And hath its food served up in earthenware;
It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand,
Through the every-dayness of this work-day world,
Baring its tender feet to every roughness,
Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray
From Beauty's law of plainness and content;
A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet smile
Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a home."
--LOWELL.

FRIENDS AND THE CHOSEN ONE

"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 Spring
Moved 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.

"Your love, vouchsafe it royal-hearted Few
And 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 grow
Less 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.

BROTHERS, SISTERS, AND NEXT OF KIN

"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, in _The 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, in _The 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 time
When our two loves grew like two buds;
School parted us; we never found again
That childish world where our two spirits mingled
Like scents from varying roses that remain one sweetness.
Yet the twin habit of that earlier time
Lingered for long about the heart and tongue.
We had been natives of one happy clime
And its dear accent to our utterance clung.
And were another childhood world my share,
I would be born a little sister there."
--GEORGE ELIOT, in _Brother and Sister_.

"When love is strong it never tarries to take heed
Or know if its return exceed
Its gift; in its sweet haste no greed,
No strife belong.
It hardly asks if it be loved at all, to take
So barren seems, when it can make
Such bliss, for the beloved's sake,
Of bitter tasks."--H.H.

THE GRANDPARENTS

"From my grandfather I learned good morals and the government of
temper. From my great-grandfather to know that on education one
should spend liberally. From the reputation and remembrance of my
father, modesty and a manly character. From my mother, piety and
beneficence, and abstinence not only from evil deeds but from evil
thoughts; and, further, simplicity in way of living. To the gods I
am indebted for having good grandparents, good parents, a good
sister, good teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and
friends."--MARCUS AURELIUS.

"Honorable age is not that which standeth in length of years, nor
that is measured by number of years; but wisdom is the grey hair
unto men and an unspotted life is old age. The multitude of the
wise is the welfare of the world; and the righteous live
forevermore."--THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON.

"Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind. It is not a
matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a temper
of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the
emotions; it is the freshness of the springs of life.

"Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over
timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. We
grow old only by deserting our ideals. In every heart there is a
wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope,
cheer, courage and power from other men and women, and from the
Infinite, so long is every one young."--SAMUEL ULMAN.

"Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made."
--BROWNING.

THE FATHER

"Who plants his soul in stalwart sons and daughters keeps on giving
His life and vision to his fellow men;
His power grows like leaven.

"His children strive to take his spirit up and keep it living;
They share with all the love he gave his own, as he had shared,
And lives, his love has served, all call him father."

From the Tribute, _To My Father_,
by HORNELL HART.

"To dwell in the wide house of the world; to stand in true
attitude therein; in success to share one's principles with the
people; in failure to live them out alone; to be incorruptible by
riches or honor; unchangeable by poverty; unmoved by perils or
power--these I call the qualities of a great man."--MENCIUS.

"For the man who is such as no longer to delay being among the
number of the best is like a priest and minister of the gods,
using the deity that is planted within him, that which makes a man
uncontaminated by any pleasure, unharmed by any pain, untouched by
any insult, feeling no wrong, a fighter in the noblest fight, who
cannot be overpowered by passion, one dyed deep with justice,
understanding that only what belongs to himself is matter for his
activity, yet remembering also that every human being is his
kinsman, and that to care for all men is according to mans
nature."--MARCUS AURELIUS.

"'Tis not in battles that from youth we train
The governor who must be wise and good.
Wisdom doth live with children round her knees;
Books, leisure, perfect freedom, and the talk
Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk
Of the mind's business; this is the stalk
True power doth grow on."--WORDSWORTH.

THE MOTHER

"Strength and dignity are her clothing;
She openeth her mouth with wisdom;
And the law of kindness is on her tongue.
She looketh well to the ways of her household,
And eateth not the bread of idleness.
The heart of her husband trusteth in her;
Her children rise up and call her blessed;
Give her of the fruit of her hands;
And let her works praise her in the gates."
--PROVERBS.

"A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller betwixt life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly plann'd,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still and bright,
With something of an angel light."
--WORDSWORTH.

"Yet in herself she dwelleth not,
Although no home were half so fair;
No simplest duty is forgot;
Life hath no dim and lowly spot
That doth not in her sunshine share."
--LOWELL.

"I loved the woman; there was one through whom I loved her, one
Not learned, save in gracious household ways,
Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants,
No angel, but a dearer being, interpreter between the gods and men.

"Happy he with such a mother! Faith in womankind
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high
Comes easy to him, and though he trip and fall,
He shall not blind his soul with clay."
--TENNYSON.

THE FAMILY

"The family is the heart's fatherland; the fatherland is the
cradle of humanity."--MAZZINI.

"The family has two functions; as a smaller group it affords
opportunity for eliciting qualities of affection and character
which cannot be displayed in a larger group; and in the second
place it is a training for future members of the larger group in
the qualities of disposition and character which are essential to
citizenship. Marriage converts an attachment between man and woman
into a deliberate, permanent, responsible, intimate union for a
common end of mutual good. Modern society requires that the
husband and wife contemplate lifelong companionship, and the
affection between husband and wife is enriched by the relation of
parents to the children which are their care. The end of the
family is not economic profit but mutual aid and the continuance
and progress of the race."--PROFESSOR TUFTS, in _Ethics_, by Dewey
and Tufts.

=Social Work and Family Conservation.=--"By whatever name they may
be called, the most essential elements of social work are those
which seek to conserve the family life; to strengthen or
supplement the home; to give children in foster homes or elsewhere
the care of which tragic misfortune has deprived them in their
natural homes; to provide income necessary in the proper care of
their children; to restore broken homes; to discover and, if
possible, remove destructive influences which interfere with
normal home life and the reasonable discharge of conjugal and
parental obligations. The institutions which exist for the benefit
of those individuals who have no home or who need care of a kind
that cannot well be supplied in the home, only emphasize the
importance of conserving family life when its essential elements
are present."--EDWARD T. DEVINE.

"Human nature has achieved the consciousness that existence has an
aim. Human life, therefore, is a mission; the mission of reaching
that aim, by incessant activity upon the path toward it and
perpetual warfare against the obstacles opposed to it."--MAZZINI.

The Home:

"For something that abode endued
With temple-like repose; an air
Of life's kind purposes pursued
With ordered freedom, sweet and fair;
A tent, pitched in a world not right,
It seemed, whose inmates, every one,
On tranquil faces bore the light
Of duties beautifully done."
--COVENTRY PATMORE