Sociology and Modern Social Problems

by Charles A. Ellwood

(4) Under monogamy, moreover, all family relationships are more definite and strong, and thus family bonds, and ultimately social bonds, are stronger. In the polygynous household the children of the different wives are half brothers and half sisters, hence family affection has little chance to develop among them, and as a matter of fact between children of different wives there is constant pulling and hauling. Moreover, because the children in a polygynous family are only half brothers this immensely complicates relationships, and even the line of ancestors. Legal relations and all blood relationships are, therefore, more entangled. It is no inconsiderable social merit of monogamy that it makes blood relationships simple and usually perfectly definite. All of this has an effect upon society at large, because the cohesive power of blood relationship, even in modern societies, is something still worth taking into account. But of course the main influence of all this is to be found in the family group itself, because it is only under such simple and definite relations as we find in the monogamous family that there is ample stimulus to develop the higher family affections.

(5) From all this it follows that monogamy favors the development of high types of religion and morals, family affection being an indispensable root of any high type of ethical religion. That form of the family which favors the development of the highest type of this affection will, therefore, favor the development of the highest type of religion. We see this even more plainly, perhaps, in ancient times than in the present time, because it was monogamy that favored the development of ancestor worship through making the line of ancestors clear and definite, and thus monogamy helped to develop this type of religion, which became the basis of still higher types.

(6) Monogamy not only favors the preservation of the lives of the children, but also favors the preservation of the lives of the parents, because it is only under monogamy that we find aged parents cared for by their children to any extent. Under polygyny the wife who has grown old is discarded for a young wife, and usually ends her days in bitterness. The father, too, under polygyny is rarely cared for by the children, because the polygynous household has never given the opportunity for close affections between parents and children. That monogamy, therefore, helps to lengthen life through favoring care of parents by children in old age is an element in its favor, for it adds not a little to the happiness of life, and so to the strength of social bonds, that people do not have to look forward to a cheerless and friendless old age.

In brief, the monogamic family presents such superior unity and harmony from every point of view that it is much more fitted to produce a higher type of culture. From whatever point of view we may look at it, therefore, there are many reasons why civilized societies cannot afford to sanction any other form of the family than that of monogamy.

The Relation of the Form of the Family to the Form of Industry.—As we have already seen, the form of the family is undoubtedly greatly influenced by the form of industry. This is so markedly the case that some sociologists and economists have claimed that the form of the family life is but a reflection of the form of the industrial life; that the family in its changes and variations slavishly follows the changes in economic conditions. That such an extreme view as this is a mistake can readily be seen from a brief review of the causes which have produced certain types of family life in certain periods. Thus, the maternal type of the family cannot be said by any means to have been determined by economic conditions. On the contrary, primarily the maternal family, as we have seen, was determined by certain intellectual conceptions, namely, the absence of knowledge of the physiological connection between father and child, though the economic conditions of primitive life tended powerfully to continue the maternal family long after intellectual conditions had changed. Again, it has been said that the patriarchal family owed its existence entirely to a form of industry, namely, pastoral industry, but, as we have seen, other factors also operated to produce the patriarchal type of the family, such as war, religion, and perhaps man's inherent desire to dominate. Moreover, religion continued the patriarchal family in many cases long after pastoral industry had ceased to be the chief economic form.

So too with the forms of marriage. While polygyny has been claimed to be due entirely to economic causes, we have seen that these so-called economic causes have only been the opportunities for the polygynous instincts of man to assert themselves. These polygynous instincts of man have asserted themselves more or less under all conditions of society, but under certain conditions, when there was an accumulation of wealth, and especially with the institution of slavery, they had greater opportunity to assert themselves than elsewhere. Thus the basic cause of polygyny is not economic, but psychological; and given certain moral and economic conditions of society, these polygynous tendencies assert themselves. Monogamy, on the other hand, has in no sense been determined by economic conditions but is fundamentally determined by the biological fact of the numerical equality of the sexes. This is doubtless the main reason why monogamy has been the prevalent form of the family everywhere. Certain moral and psychological factors which go along with the development of higher types of culture have, however, powerfully reenforced monogamy. It is doubtful if economic conditions can to any extent be shown to have equally reenforced the monogamic life.

Our conclusion must be, then, that while the form of the family and the form of industry are closely related, so closely that the form of industry continually affects more or less the family life, yet there is no reason for concluding that the form of the family is wholly or even chiefly determined by the form of industry.

SELECT REFERENCES

For brief reading:

WESTERMARCK, History of Human Marriage, Chaps. XX-XXII.