FOOTNOTES:
[153] The Poet. Emerson.
[154] See the article by R. L. O’Brien in the Atlantic Monthly, Oct., 1904.
[155] Inaccurately, because the full development of the individual requires organization
[156] Jane Addams.
CHAPTER XXXI
DISORGANIZATION: THE FAMILY
Old and New Régimes in the Family—The Declining Birth-Rate—“Spoiled” Children—The Opening of New Careers to Women—European and American Points of View—Personal Factors in Divorce—Institutional Factors—Conclusion.
The mediæval family, like other mediæval institutions, was dominated by comparatively settled traditions which reflected the needs of the general system of society. Marriage was thought of chiefly as an alliance of interests, and was arranged by the ruling members of the families concerned on grounds of convenance, the personal congeniality of the parties being little considered.
We know that this view of marriage has still considerable force among the more conservative classes of European society, and that royalty or nobility, on the one hand, and the peasantry, on the other, adhere to the idea that it is a family rather than a personal function, which should be arranged on grounds of rank and wealth. In France it is hardly respectable to make a romantic marriage, and Mr. Hamerton tells of a young woman who was indignant at a rumor that she had been wedded for love, insisting that it had been strictly a matter of convenance. He also mentions a young man who was compelled to ask his mother which of two sisters he had just met was to be his wife.[157]
Along with this subordination of choice in contracting marriage generally went an autocratic family discipline. Legally the wife and children had no separate rights, their personality being merged in that of the husband and father, while socially the latter was rather their master than their companion. His rule, however—though it was no doubt harsh and often brutal, judged by our notions—was possibly not so arbitrary and whimsical as would be the exercise of similar authority in our day; since he was himself subordinate not only to social superiors, but still more to traditional ideas, defining his own duties and those of his household, which he felt bound to carry out. The whole system was authoritative, admitting little play of personal choice.