The Family and its Members Part 2

QUESTIONS ON THE FAMILY

1. What has been the general trend of development in Matrimonial Inst.i.tutions?

2. Has the monogamic family, as now outlined and legalized, any elements inherently inimical to a democratic order of society?

If so, what are those elements? If not, what stand should be taken in regard to proposals for fundamental changes in the inherited family system?

3. If the inherited family system should be preserved and maintained, what, if any, changes in form, or practical adjustments to the new freedom of woman and new ideals of education of youth, are demanded for its present stability and future success?

4. In _Taboo and Genetics: A Study of the Biological, Sociological, and Psychological Foundation of the Family_, by M.M. Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Blanchard, it is claimed that "The chief interest of society should be in the eugenic value of the children born into it." Is that true, and if so, how can this social interest be best excited and maintained?

5. Dr. Edward T. Devine advocates social insurance for sickness and widowhood, but not out-door relief or widow's pensions; also advocates physical investigation and home visiting for school children, but not school lunches, eye-gla.s.ses or clothing as a free gift. His conclusion is that "the state should enforce a minimum standard of child-care, but the expense of providing it should fall on parents or on some insurance fund to which parents have contributed." Is this sound American doctrine? If so, should proposed legislation be gauged by it?

6. Read chapter, "The Family," in _A Social Theory of Religious Education_, by G.A. Coe. Is the emphasis laid upon equality in this statement justified?

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See _Children Born Out of Wedlock_, by George B. Mangold, Ph.D., University of Missouri, 1921.

[2] See Chapter V, "The Home," in _The Normal Life_, by Edward T.

Devine.

CHAPTER II

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, n.o.bly 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 G.o.ds 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.

=Antiquity of the Mother-instinct.=--The mother-instinct of protection of offspring, of care of weakness and of sacrifice for the young, came to high power before the human was reached in the scale of beings. It must never be forgotten that humbler sisters set the fashion of motherhood's devotion too long ago to reckon the time and in types of organism too remote to be always recognized as kin to the human beings we know to-day. This is the greatest and most racially useful of all the biological a.s.sets stored up for us in the prehuman struggle toward what we now call civilization. Nor should we fail to give full value to the testimony of primitive human life that the mother and child formed the first social group within the loose a.s.sociation of the herd. It was the first group to develop, by virtue of its conscious relationship, the sense of trust and the habit of service of the stronger to the weaker, thus leading toward mutual aid within an area of affection and good-will. These facts give basic a.s.surance that mother-love will last, no matter what changes in form of its expression may be called for by changes in social order.

The reason why the relationship of mother and child was able thus to lead the way toward social organization for the common good is obvious. The intimate physical tie, the easily understood claim of the child upon its mother, the prolongation of human infancy inst.i.tuting a habit of continuous service of the young and hence a tendency toward a settled home and peaceful industries, all made it easy for woman to become care-taker of children. These also made it easy for the early social order to hold mothers to the task and, in growing measure, protect them in it. What have been the recognized essentials in that care-taking of motherhood? What are the permanent elements in the mother's devotion to offspring which persist under all changes in social conditions?

=The Recognized Essentials in Child-care.=--The more important items in a program of child-care may be summed up as follows:

First--Protection of infancy and childhood from threatening dangers.

Second--Providing food, clothing, and shelter for the young.

Third--Drilling children in physical habits and manner of personal behavior demanded by the family rule of time and place of birth.

Fourth--Teaching the child to talk, to walk, to obey, to imitate.

Fifth--Interpreting to each newcomer the group morals which govern the family and the educational process in the period and locality into which he is born.

Sixth--For ages untold, the more formal education of all girls and of all little boys in the folk-lore, the vocational skill, the ways of living together and the methods of social arrangement both within and without the tribe or state or nation into which they were born.

Are any of these essential elements of motherhood's ancient devotion to child-life lifted wholly from her obligation? Careful study of the family needs and conditions, and the effect upon them of modern social control and social organization, indicates that not one of these ancient obligations is taken bodily from the modern mother's service.

=The Protective Function.=--The protective function has indeed been considered for many centuries peculiarly the father's duty. Ever since man was bound to family obligations he has been charged with repelling enemy attacks upon the group of which his own family was a part and with the task of standing guard over wife and child as against all physical dangers. Man has developed under this social pressure a sense of chivalry and a tendency to "save women and children first" which give n.o.ble examples of courage and self-sacrifice to fire the imagination of each new generation. Has the father-office developed such many-sided and adequate protective service to childhood that mothers have been able to "lay down their arms" and rest content in the knowledge that their children are shielded from every danger? It seems not. In the days when women were ignorant of all outside their homes they may have felt so secure because not understanding the cause of many family tragedies. In the days when they had no power to change conditions affecting the home from without they may have felt excused from the protective function of early motherhood, since men had taken over physical defense and economic support and the relationship of the family group to the social whole. No open-eyed woman in a country giving women social, economic, and political power can so think to-day.

It is a far cry from the savage mother, beating back some beast of the jungle or the plain, to the modern mother whose physical protection and that of her children is amply provided not alone by the husband and father concerned but by organized society with its police power, its courts and laws. The dangers that threaten child-life to-day in the more civilized communities are not the same that threatened the young of the herd-pack or the early lives of primitive men and women.

Then the mother had sometimes to defend her child against its own father, especially her girl-babies against the social fiat of death executed by the father's will. Ancient folk-lore and myth show us many a struggle, intense and cruel, between mother-love and this group-sentence of death upon some of its young. In case of war also the ancient mother had to protect her virgin daughters against outrage and capture, albeit so feebly and to so disastrous an end. And war, since it is always and by its nature must be a return to savage conditions, now leads to the sacrifice of women and children in much the ancient manner; and faced by its horrors at close touch, the mother-instinct essays the old task to the same bitter defeat.

In peaceful periods, however, in the long ages when the father-rule was a despotism tempered only by natural affection and the skill of women in securing advantages while simulating submission, mothers had large use of their protective function in easing family discipline and in gaining relief from harsh conditions affecting childhood. Theirs was then no open fight for the well-being of their offspring, and often not a wise effort to that end, but ancient song and story all show that childhood and youth depended upon the mother-love in crises of family experience and that without such refuge many young lives would have been utterly sacrificed.

=Social Elements in Modern Protection of Children.=--To-day the dangers to which babies and children are exposed are more subtle in form and more complex in action. They are less within than without the average home. They are those that give the high death-rate of infants, the crippled limbs of children, the weakness of body and defectiveness of mind and feebleness or perversion of moral nature that make so many human beings unequal to life's demands. They are the dangers, personal and social, summed up in the ant.i.theses of "health" and "disease," of "normal" and "abnormal." Not that the dangers so indicated are new but rather that we are newly aware of them. Not that savage or early civilized life had conditions more favorable to health and normality but that the easier modern conditions save alive many who in harsher times would have died in babyhood. Moreover, we are beginning at last to set a standard, in ever-clearer outline, of what is health and of what is normality in physical, mental, and moral human life. Moreover, we are seeing as never before that the dangers that beset the child to-day are not those from which the mother alone, or the individual father and mother working together, can adequately protect. They are dangers that only society can prevent and that society alone can abolish.

=Women's Leadership in Social Protection.=--Why, then, do we say that the protective function of individual motherhood is still demanded and still a large part of the modern mother's obligation? Because she is to-day the one most clearly required, in our own country at least, to summon the social forces to lessen or abolish those dangers to which children are exposed. The action of the solitary, primitive mother fighting off the despoiler of her child does not much resemble the banding together of modern women by the hundreds and by the thousands to abolish typhoid fever in some city in which it has become endemic through the greed of manufacturers who pollute the water supply. It is, however, the same spirit in both; and in the modern instance it wakes, first, the fathers to their protective duty, and then the guardians of the public health, and then educates the public mind, and at last accomplishes the desired result through appropriate laws, well enforced. It is a long step from the indirect "influence," the often deceitful cunning, the appeal to s.e.x-attraction and the pleading of weakness by which for ages women sought to protect their children against harsh punishments, their daughters against marriage to those whom they loathed, and their sons to apprenticeship to work they could not choose, to the openly exercised power of the modern mother. In the days when wives and mothers had no legal rights which society was bound to respect, appeal was woman's only weapon; now the modern mother has command of her protective function and exercises it fearlessly. The same spirit is in all the long process of change, however, and women to-day banding openly together and joining also with men on equal terms, to secure laws protecting children from cruelty even against their own parents; to raise the "age of consent"

in order to prevent the unwitting moral suicide of little girls; to sweep the streets free from vicious allurements that young boys may be preserved from debauchery and disease; to place trustees of society's power of public protection as chaperones in every place of moral danger; these modern women are near of kin to all motherhood of any past. So also are those of the same spirit as the ancient mother who band themselves together, again with men on equal terms, but oftenest, perhaps, with men whom their own social interest has summoned to the task, for the establishment of "Health Centres", of adequate and efficient clinics and dispensaries; for securing necessary education and care of mothers before the birth of their children, and for mothers and babies alike needing good, fresh air, rest and comfort after birth; for the raising of standards of physical well-being all along the line of life from youth to age. The ancient mother was too ignorant and had too little power to save her children and family from physical ills, but she did her best. The modern mother is able to learn about requirements and to act with power for the better health and better training of every child. Is she always ready for and equal to the task?

At least we can claim this for the mother devotion in modern times, that it shows, and in exact proportion of its increasing social power, an alertness and a moral earnestness in all that concerns the welfare of children that have perpetuated and extended the protective functions of society as no other agency has done. Much of the modern legislation and social work directed toward the physical and moral safeguarding of the young has been inst.i.tuted and is carried out in detail largely by women. The pa.s.sage of the so-called Maternity Bill by our National Congress, at the recognized instigation of women of the United States, and the call it makes for a large staff of women workers to carry out its provisions, is a case in point. This protective work for mothers and babies is not always done by women who are themselves mothers. Perhaps too often its details are in charge of those lacking deep experience of life, and hence not able to interpret new laws of social control to parents of ancient ideals and backward social culture. But women in any case are called for in large numbers to translate the ancient personal duty of protective care of the young in terms of social obligations.

=The Provision of Food, Clothing, and Shelter.=--The second recognized ancient duty of mothers is in respect to the provision of food, clothing, and shelter for the young. This duty has undergone great changes of method during the last century, and in the large centres of population has altered almost past recognition. These changes seem to many to minimize the individual mother's responsibility in these matters to the vanishing point.

It is indeed an almost immeasurable distance from the primitive mother scratching the soil with her sharpened stick, her baby bound to her bended back, in order to plant a few seeds for a tiny harvest to save the life of her child when the hunt should be poor, to the modern mother whose food supply for her family comes to the table from all parts of the earth at the call of her telephone. Is the modern mother, then, released from all obligations as to that food supply? It is a long step also from the primitive mother making slowly with her thorn needle the only garment her child may wear, and even a long step from the home spinning, weaving and dyeing of later handicraft, to the modern use of the "ready-made" shop and the division of all garment-making into innumerable specialties of labor. Is the modern mother thereby released from care concerning the family clothing?

For the modern housing of families do we not all have to depend upon the architect, the builder, the real estate broker, the speculator in land, the laws concerning boundaries, taxes and t.i.tle deeds, rent and landlords' powers, and press all one upon another for a chance for a home when we elect to live where many other people want also to live?

Is, then, the shelter of the family no longer the mother's care?

=The Woman in Rural Life.=--The country-woman, dealing at first hand with rural conditions, has many of the same problems of personal devotion in the provision of food, clothing, and shelter with which her ancient ancestor struggled. She has, it is true, "scientific farming" of men to raise the harvests that ancestor's heroic but feeble efforts could not secure. She has mechanical and commercial aids as housemother such as the primitive woman never imagined. She has been released from much of the drudgery which burdened her grandmother in the domestic stage of industry. She is under social protection such as no previous woman enjoyed in the solitary household of the past. And in the United States the Federal Government is offering her aids.[3] It is, however, true that the housemother in rural communities still feels many of the obligations of the ancient woman. The three-meal-a-day routine, the actual preparation of raw material of food for the table, the personal offices of housework, washing, ironing, mending, making, sweeping, dusting, cleaning, in all their varied details, keep her in active sympathy with the past. This fact furnishes the main reason why "Women's Columns" and "Magazines for Women" reach such large circulation in rural districts, where they help toward lessening the domestic burden by showing how to carry it more easily.

The farm woman, however, is moving, many thousand strong, with men as many, to mitigate the isolation of the solitary household, to bring the home nearer to the neighbors, the school, the church and the store, by ma.s.sing rural homes in villages and forming the habits of the men-folk to go further afield for their own work. This movement, which is of all social reforms most needed because affecting larger cla.s.ses than any other and also because affecting the basic industry of all countries, that of agriculture, is working toward making farm-life once more attractive to young men and capable of winning young women to the life of the farmer's wife.

Meanwhile, the higher forms of social organization possible in cities and in closely settled towns and villages are working to lessen house-keeping burdens to an unprecedented degree. It is noticeable that all schemes for so specializing woman's work and so easing the domestic burden as to make, as one writer puts it, "the home a rest place for women as for men," have their imaginary seat in great cities or closely built suburbs. The farm-women we know can combine and cooperate to a greater extent than they now do and the town and city women may take far better advantage of the agencies of household a.s.sistance now at their doors. How far this movement to relieve the home of household work may go we do not know.

=Modern Demand for Standardization.=--Is there any plan yet proposed, however, which can relieve the mother of her primary and ancient obligation to see that her family is well nourished, suitably clothed and healthfully sheltered? Some one must attend to the needs of each family in these vital particulars which underlie all problems of public and private health. Shall the state do it? So far the experience of state inst.i.tutions and even of private "homes" do not encourage hope along that line. So far the physical and affectional needs of children and youth, and of husbands and wives, and of fathers and mothers have not been met by any subst.i.tute for the private home.

And in the private home, under any plan, there must go on certain processes which have to cost some one member of the family a great deal of thought, much personal effort and constant attention. For most families in average condition that person is naturally the housemother. If the husband and father is the chief or only wage-earner in "gainful occupations," then his health and strength are of primary concern to all the family and must be secured by adequate and healthful provision of food and clothing, and the home must give him what he vitally needs for maintaining power of economic service to his family. If the mother, also, is a wage-or salary-earner we have the dictum of economists that her inherited and usual place in the family machinery must be filled, if at all successfully, by trained and congenial helpers at a cost in present conditions prohibitive for the average family income. The estimate of Mr. Taber, in his excellent book, _The Business of the Household_, is that unless for causes of illness or special emergency "no family having an income of less than three thousand dollars has any right to maintain a maid." This estimate seems not only economically correct but shows why so few families have incomes that can release the housemother from housework.

It also shows why only the exceptionally trained and competent vocational worker, if a married woman and mother of young children, can earn enough to release herself from the miscellaneous tasks of the private household without loss to the family treasury. The easing of the burden of housework, almost unbearable as it has been and responsible, as we have good reason to believe, for much ill-health of women and much unhappiness in marriage, is coming fast and from quite other directions than is often perceived. The commercial aids of wholesale preparation of food and clothing, and the new fashions in house-building and household management are alike working toward such a reduction of private household service as may enable the average woman to meet the family needs, even where there are several young children, if she is strong in body and trained in efficient ways of working, and yet have considerable time left for other activities.