FOOTNOTES:
[61] Jordan, The Voice of the Scholar, pp. 173-4.
[62] Paulsen, German Universities, Character and Historical Development, pp. 21-22.
[63] Jordan, The Voice of the Scholar, pp. 115-6.
[64] Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, p. 375.
[65] Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, pp. 375-6.
[66] Outlook, Vol. 88, pp. 481, 515.
CHAPTER VII
The Effects of Industrial Changes Upon Marriage
The effect of industrial changes upon marriage among primitive peoples has been discussed at some length by students of primitive conditions. So closely do the industrial habits of mankind affect the social that one is forced to concede an important place to the economic in the evolution of the race. The preëminence of the struggle for subsistence in the history of civilization shows how reckless it is to make historical interpretations while neglecting the industrial side of society.
The industrial habits of primitive peoples were intimately related to the physical environment. There had to be game before man could live by hunting; a body of water to fish in before there could be fishermen; grass to feed the herds before herding could be the chief occupation of a people; and tillable soil before there could arise an agricultural stage in the history of the race. Favorable conditions had to exist before men could establish even a temporary dwelling place, not to mention a permanent one. Conditions determined the occupations of men, and in turn these occupations made possible a type of social life compatible with the environment. The social life was not a preconceived scheme so much as a development spontaneously arising out of existing conditions. The type of the family was no exception to this rule.
Herman Grosse has a unique place as an exponent of the theory that economic occupations have always been the determining influence in the establishment of the form of marriage and the status of women. “Restricting his examination to the conditions which lie within actual historical or ‘ethnological experience’ he seeks to demonstrate that the ‘various forms of the family correspond to the various forms of economy (Wirthschaft)’; that ‘in its essential features the character of each particular form of the family may be explained by the form of economy in which it is rooted.’”[67]
Grosse’s point of view is recognized by many writers who have given thought to the subject. Howard says, “It seems certain that the whole truth regarding the problem of kinship, as well as regarding the rise and sequence of the forms of the family, can be reached only through historical investigation of the industrial habits of mankind.”[68]
Ward gives expression to the same idea when he says, “marriage is from the beginning an association dictated by economic needs.”[69]
No evidence existed bearing out the theory of the early prevalence of promiscuity in sexual relations other than a recognized looseness of sexual relations outside the marriage bond; or a marriage of such short duration as to warrant the appellation of temporary pairing. Where the latter custom prevails, it is the outcome of certain social conditions existing in a tribe, and not representative of a certain stage of culture.
Even in our advanced western civilization there exist small communities of peoples who stand for certain moral principles developed to such extreme forms as to shock people generally. These principles often have their basis in sexual relations and are conspicuous by virtue of their contrast to general practices. They in nowise warrant the importance given them, representing as they do a mental excrescence and not a healthy social development. The same may apply equally to primitive societies. Only where certain causes have repeatedly brought about certain results are we justified in the conclusion that certain practices were common in a stage of which we have no direct knowledge.
Speaking of promiscuity, Morgan thinks it “was limited to the period when mankind were frugivorous and within their primitive habitat, since its continuance would have been improbable after they had become fishermen and commenced their spread over the earth in dependence upon food artificially acquired. Consanguine groups would then form, with intermarriage within the group as a necessity, resulting in the formation of the consanguine family. At all events, the oldest form of society which meets us in the past through deductions from systems of consanguinity is this family. It would be in the nature of a compact on the part of several males for the joint subsistence of the group, and for the defence of their common wives against the violence of society.”[70]
Hobhouse says, “Sheer promiscuity is probably to be regarded rather as the extreme of looseness in the sexual relation than as a positive institution supported by social sanction.”[71]
Grosse finds in the different stages of industrial occupations which he designates as “lower” and “higher hunters” “pastoral peoples” “lower and higher cultivators of the soil,” prevalent forms of marriage corresponding to the occupations pursued by the men.
The Bushmen and the Esquimaux of the present time are the best representatives of the lower hunters among whom monogamy is the form of marriage. Whether the Bushmen or the Esquimaux represent a primitive type of the culture arising out of a lower stage of culture, or a degeneration from a higher type, the author does not know. But he tells us hunger plays a large part in their lives; and the lack of foresight or sense of accumulation accounts for the little advantage the few have over the many.[72]
Hobhouse says, “the strict monogamy and well-united family life of the Veddahs is partly explained by the fact that they live in great measure in isolation. In the dry season they pass their time on their hunting ground; in the wet season small groups of families will resort to some hillock which is the center of two or three hunting grounds and sometimes two or three families will reside together for a time in one cave.”[73]
Among the higher hunters, according to Grosse, monogamy is the prevalent form of marriage but polygamy is sanctioned, and practiced by the wealthy.[74]
The conditions of the herders are better known than that of the hunters. The individual family may rest upon monogamy or polygamy depending upon the wealth of the nomad. In Central Asia the price of the wife is often very high, and the father considers his daughters as a means of increasing his wealth. The price a well-to-do Kalmuck asks for his daughter is fifteen horses, fifteen cows, three camel, and twenty sheep. He gives in return as a dowry, one camel, one horse, four sewed garments, eight unmade garments, and tools depending upon his wealth.[75]
The great family (sippe) whether on the father’s or mother’s side developed a social organization having its basis in agriculture. Starke says, “An agricultural community lays much more claim to the capacity of each individual for labour than is the case with a community which is wholly or chiefly occupied with the rearing of cattle. In the former case the diminution of the number of the household is a loss which is difficult to supply, and they are chiefly concerned in keeping up their numbers, that is, in retaining their hold on the individual. But in a cattle-breeding community men make it their first object to increase the number of stock. In the former community the head of the family opposes the departure of his daughter, and seeks to induce her wooer to become one of the household; but in the latter he sells her early, and for as high a price as possible.”[76]
While Grosse emphasizes the fact that the different forms of economy influence the prevalent form of marriage, it is apparent that polygamy exists in a marked degree where women are not valued for their labor, and where there has developed a stage of economy admitting of inequalities in wealth. It is when woman’s work has real economic value that she obtains rights of her own. Agriculture as a means of subsistence is pursued to a marked degree only where there is a measure of security against enemies: where there is strength by virtue of numbers. Under these circumstances warfare is not so common, and there is a tendency for the numbers of the sexes to remain comparatively equal.
“The circumstances attending marriage by service, especially when we compare it with marriage by purchase or capture, have shown us how much the relations of husband and wife are determined by what in the modern world is called the economic factor. The savage woman’s price—if we mean by price the difficulty of approaching her—may be high or low. Where it is always possible to organize a raid and carry her off it is decidedly low, and she becomes the captor’s property. When this is not countenanced, it is possible to buy her from her guardian, and then presumably her price like that of other things, is a matter of supply and demand.”[77]
In all civilizations inequalities of wealth arise, and make possible social privileges differing from the common practices of the general population. Under such circumstances we always find social types at variance with established conceptions of right, and human nature showing itself in many cases unspeakably repulsive when free from any economic restraint. This is perhaps, the effect of a freedom from restraint which is made possible by great wealth. The only restraint then is public opinion or religious precepts; the former is easily swayed by the powerful and wealthy, and the latter often admits of a tolerance not shown to the masses of the people.
In industrial communities where no great inequalities of wealth exist, the marriage relation tends toward monogamy. Even where western civilization has made little impression on social institutions, great and conscious inequalities do not often exist between the sexes, and woman’s position is not a degraded one. All the important factors entering into economic life, tending to create serious distinctions—social, political and industrial—between men and men, between the rich and the poor, tend to differentiate status between men and women. Women are most degraded in the marriage relations where they are economically the weakest; where they personally control the least wealth. The few who are more fortunately situated are not sufficiently numerous to make any impressive protest even if they desired to do so.
In a society where the few dictate to the many because of their financial strength, in a society marked by inequalities originating in predatory exploitation, we find in a greater or less degree moral discrepancies with the prevailing conception of right and wrong. Normal industrial life tends to promote a normal moral life, and to develop ideals most conducive to a steady progress.
When the family represented an exclusive economic unit with little dependence upon the outside world, it was of economic importance to both men and women to marry, and thus lay the foundation for household prosperity. Wife and children were never a luxury to the poor man, but of real economic value. This fact is apparent in new countries where the form of industry must be necessarily domestic. Women have been shipped in large numbers to new colonies to marry the settlers. In practically all cases the women went voluntarily for they too appreciated the importance of obtaining for themselves a place in homes where so much of the social and economic life of the time centered. These unions, primarily economic resulted often in family groups containing much of the ideal.
In the early colonial days of America “every farmer and his sons raised wool and flax; his wife and daughters spun them into thread and yarn, knit these into stockings and mittens, or wove them into linen and cloth, and then made them into clothing. Even in large cities nearly all women spun yarn and thread, all could knit, and many had hand-looms to weave cloth at home.... All persons who were not employed in other ways, as single women, girls, and boys, were required to spin. Each family must contain one spinner.... There were no drones in this hive. Neither the wealth nor high station of parents excused children from this work. Thus all were leveled to one kind of labor, and by this leveling all were elevated to independence.”[78]
In all rural communities of modern Europe much of women’s work is of considerable importance from an economic point of view, and there is little incentive for a man to remain single from economic prudence. Instead of an economic burden the wife is more often a helpmeet who even offers her services for pay outside the home. She works in the fields like a man and is an important factor when estimating the value of labor on the farm.
Letourneau says, “At Paris, where the struggle for existence is more severe, and where the care for money is more predominant, late marriages abound, and it is only above the age of forty for men and thirty-five for women that the marriage rate equals and even exceeds, that of the whole of France.”[79]
The constant drifting of country population into large cities where employment can be found is affecting markedly the life of the rural community, and tending to postpone the formation of family ties until an economic foothold is secured.[80]
There has been a slight diminution of the marriage rate since the middle of the nineteenth century, but so many forces have come into play that one is hardly justified in the conclusion that this decrease is due entirely to economic causes.
Number of Marriages Per 1000 Population.[81]
| 1876-80. | 1881-85. | 1886-90. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hungary | 9.6 | 10.3 | 8.9 |
| Prussia | 8.0 | 8.0 | 8.1 |
| Germany | 7.8 | 7.7 | 7.9 |
| Austria | 7.8 | 7.9 | 7.7 |
| Italy | 7.5 | 8.0 | 7.8 |
| France | 7.6 | 7.5 | 7.2 |
| Belgium | 6.9 | 6.8 | 7.1 |
| Great Britain | 7.1 | 7.1 | 6.9 |
| Switzerland | 7.4 | 6.8 | 7.0 |
| Denmark | 7.8 | 7.7 | 7.0 |
| Norway | 7.2 | 6.6 | 6.3 |
| Sweden | 6.6 | 6.5 | 6.1 |
Some statisticians see co-relation between the price of food and the marriage rate.[82]
Food, clothing, and shelter are the essential needs of man. When the price of food, shelter, and clothing increases and wages remain the same, the money income of the family is relatively less. If the price of food remains the same and wages are lowered because of an oversupply of labor to meet the demand, or for other causes, the effect is practically the same. When marriage means an increase of the financial burden, and foresight comes into play there will naturally follow a postponement of marriage. Letourneau says, the “principal causes which influence matrimony are the greater or less existence, and the extreme importance attached to money. As a general rule, life and death tend to balance each other, and the populations whose mortality is great have, as compensation, a rich birth-rate. We invariably see the number of marriages and births increasing after a series of prosperous years, and vice versa. General causes have naturally a greater influence on the population living from hand to mouth. The well-to-do classes escape this, and we find that the chances of marriage for the rich increase during years of high prices.”[83]
Economic conditions will not prevent people from marrying when it is understood the wife will continue her work in the factory as is true in many manufacturing towns, especially in Europe. Under such conditions marriage does not signify an immediate increase of the financial burden of the husband. In fact, if marriage meant that the entire burden of support was to fall upon the man alone, it would be a serious matter when under the existing conditions husband and wife together can scarcely make a living.[84]
European countries are cited as admirable examples of advanced legislation for the protection of the home. Farsightedness and a love of domesticity are not so much responsible for the protection of women in industry as the fact that they have become a well established factor in industrial life, such as they have not yet reached in the United States.
When legislation provides women with a longer noon hour than men, it is an acknowledgment of the fact that many women, so many as to make legislation in their behalf a crying need, are employed outside of the home and at the same time carrying the burden of maintaining a household after working hours. The extra half hour at noon allowed married women is time in which to prepare the noonday meal for the members of the family. Beneficent as legislation is in behalf of married women looking toward the welfare of the race, it is significant of the fact that women are being forced out of the home into the industrial field and compelled to assume heavier burdens than the men. To restrict fecundity under such circumstances, or to refuse to be mothers at all, is hardly a reproach to the women who are thus forced to toil, but rather a reproach to civilization imposing home-making, motherhood, and breadwinning upon the supposed weaker sex.
In communities where women take their places with their husbands in the factory or work-shop, industrial changes do not affect the marriage rate. It is where women are not expected to contribute to the family income, and where men’s wages are at first by no means adequate to meet the expenses of a household, that the marriage rate is affected.
Nevertheless even under these circumstances, where there is no outlook but one of poverty for the future, marriages are often formed.
The decrease of the marriage rate among people who live close to the margin of subsistence is not as apparent as among people whose income warrants a scale of living which gratifies the higher social wants. What is often attributed to the selfishness of men is a growing consciousness of the responsibility which marriage involves as well as an increase in the responsibility itself. There is a greater need of money outlay than ever before, and with the decreasing importance of women’s labor in the home, the financial strain is so great as to prompt men to postpone marriage until they are able to support a family in comfort, comfort meaning not merely sufficient food and clothing for physical well being but a scale of expenditure characteristic of one’s class.
The increasing independence of women is an effect of the postponement of marriage on the part of men rather than a cause. When men no longer assume family responsibilities as soon as they become voters, or shortly thereafter, women are forced into avenues of employment for a livelihood. The lengthening period which a man dedicates to preparing himself for his life work makes it just that much more difficult for the women of his class to marry early.
When once established in the industrial field and confirmed in certain habits of life associated with a higher plane of consumption than they can hope for in a home of their own, women are not so eager to give up the luxuries and opportunities for personal expression which their work may afford, for matrimony. This is especially true at an age when marriage has lost much of the romance youth endows it with. When life is comparatively easy, and the romantic period of youth is passed, the economic factor assumes greater importance in matrimonial alliances. To lower one’s economic and social status, even when prompted to do so by high ideals and motives, receives little commendation from an enlightened community and its “How could she?” savors more of contempt than admiration.
Among the higher social classes—although the same tendency is showing itself in all classes—there is a growing consciousness of the individual’s importance as a social unit, rather than his importance as a part of the family unit. His ties to society are growing at the expense of family ties. This changed attitude does not arise from selfishness for never in history have men shown greater ability and willingness to sacrifice personal interests to the interests of society. There is a rapidly growing sentiment on the part of each that he is indeed his brother’s keeper, and he is responsible for evil industrial and social conditions. The time favors, not the family as opposed to the community, but the family as a part of the community.
Says Howard, “More threatening to the solidarity of the family is believed to be the individualistic tendencies arising in existing urban and economic life. With the rise of corporate and associated industry comes a weakening of the intimacy of home ties. Through the division of labor the ‘family hearth-stone’ is fast becoming a mere temporary meeting-place of individual wage-earners.”[85]
Thus we are rapidly approaching the time when men can no longer consider marriage an economy. A wife tends to become a luxury to the average man in so far as she adds nothing to the income of the family and increases its expenses.
It is true many married women among the professional classes work outside the home, but the practice is not sufficiently widespread to meet with the general approval of a conservative society. When this practice becomes common, provided there is no corresponding decrease in the salaries of men and the increase of the income of the family is marked, marriage will become more attractive to men.
Women, too, consider the economic side of marriage. They are just as unwilling to lower their plane of living as the men. To the average woman to marry a poor man means drudgery, for although her economic importance as a bread winner has decreased, her domestic duties have not grown correspondingly less.
Women’s class status shifts more easily than that of men. With the latter it is personal success while with the former it is the matrimonial relation that determines one’s social sphere. For this reason women consciously or unconsciously are guided in their choice of a husband by economic considerations. With the decrease of their productive capacity in the home there is a greater need on their part to consider the pecuniary side.
The marriage-rate among the rich and the very poor is little affected by economic changes. The one feels no need to curtail expenses to meet the needs of a family; the other is so hopelessly poor, especially in many of the European countries, so starved in mind and body as to be irresponsive to any but the primary animal instincts. It is the large middle classes that reflect social and economic changes and determine the type of future social institutions.