But it is evident that the main reliance in combating the evils which have given rise to the present instability of our family life must be placed upon education rather than upon legislation. Legislation, we may here note, has many shortcomings as an instrument of social reconstruction or reform. Legislation is necessarily external and coercive. It fails oftentimes to change the habits of individuals, and very generally fails to change their opinion. Education, on the other hand, alters human nature directly, changing both the opinions and habits of the individual. Neither education nor legislation can be neglected in social reconstruction. Both are necessary, but supplement each other. But from the time of Plato down all social thinkers have perceived the fact that education is a surer and safer means of reorganizing society than legislation. While, therefore, I would not oppose education to legislation, I would say that emphasis in all social reform should be laid upon education rather than coercive legislative action, and especially in this case of relaying the foundations for a stable family life in our country. The main reliance, then, in this matter must be placed upon the education which the school, the church, and the home can give to the rising generation. Until children are taught to look upon the family as a socially necessary and therefore sacred institution, until they are taught to look upon marriage as something other than an act to suit their own convenience and pleasure, we must expect that our family life will be unstable. The reconstruction of our family life, indeed, practically involves the reconstruction of our whole social life. Things in industry, in business, in politics, in the conventions and ideals and general spirit of our people, that are opposed to stability in family relations, must be remedied before we can strike at the root of the evil. All of this may be taken for granted; but it would seem that the moral education of the young is the key to the situation in any event. The importance of a pure and wholesome family life in society should, therefore, be emphasized by our whole system of public education, while the responsibility which rests upon the church in this connection is especially obvious; but the home itself must, it may be admitted, be the chief means of inculcating in the young the sacredness of the family. Inasmuch as this cannot be done in homes that are already demoralized, the main hope must be that such education will be given to children in homes that are as yet relatively pure and stable. Movements toward such education already exist in society, and, as we have already said, there is no reason for pessimism, if we take a long view of the situation. But it is nevertheless evident that the instability of the family must be regarded as the greatest of our social problems to-day.
Summary Regarding the Influence of Industrial Conditions upon the Present Instability of the Family.—As we have already seen, the development of modern industry is one of the chief causes of the decay of modern family life. Certain aspects of our industrialism, such as the labor of women and children in factories, the growth of cities, and the loss of the home through the slum and the tenement, the higher standards of living and comfort, and the resulting higher age of marriage,—all of these have had, to a certain extent at least, a disastrous effect upon the family. Some of these things, like the growth of cities, seem inseparable from modern industrial development. The problem must be, therefore, how to overcome the evil effect of these tendencies in industry upon the home. There is no reason for believing that such evil effects cannot be overcome, although the problem is a difficult one. Our aim should be, not to stop industrial development, but to guide it and control it in the interest of the higher development of the family. That this is entirely feasible may already be seen from what has been accomplished in the way of regulating the labor of women and children and in the way of providing better conditions in the homes of the working population.
There is, however, nothing in evidence in the causes of increasing divorce in the United States which warrants the belief that American industrial development is alone responsible for the increasing instability of our family life. The industrial development of America is less peculiar in many ways than its political and social development. Divorce and instability of the family, as we have seen, characterize the American people more than any other civilized population. This fact, then, cannot be explained entirely in terms of American industrial development, but we must look also, as has already been emphasized, to certain peculiarities in American character, American institutions, and American ideas and ideals. The divorce movement in the United States affords no proof of the theory of economic determinism.
SELECT REFERENCES
For brief reading:
WILLCOX, The Divorce Problem: A Study in Statistics.
ADLER, Marriage and Divorce, Lecture II.
Special Report on Marriage and Divorce, 1867-1906, Bureau of the Census.
For more extended reading:
HOWARD, History of Matrimonial Institutions.
LICHTENBERGER, Divorce: A Study in Social Causation.
WOLSEY, Divorce and Divorce Legislation.
WRIGHT, First Special Report of United States Commissioner of Labor:
Marriage and Divorce, 1891.