Both the school and the home are responsible for the preparation of these future parents. They must apply to this vocational problem all their knowledge of psychology and pedagogy. Right habits of regularity, responsibility, self-control, must be carefully trained in those babyhood and early childhood stages; the manual phases of household work are to be taught in the manual stage before the teens; boys and girls are to be imbued with a wholesome, responsible spirit toward motherhood and fatherhood and the home which they are taught to look forward to as the goal for themselves; girls in their teens are to have companionship and experience with little children, learning the essential details and the significant guiding principles of their high calling in a practical, human, motherly way, under wise and sympathetic teachers. Girls, and boys likewise, will be encouraged to foresee the significance and values and responsibility of home and family, and to conduct themselves worthily of such a mission.
Secondary and elementary schools are beginning to give school credit for assistance at home. Domestic science and art are now taught in hundreds of schools. Their field as yet is narrowly restricted to the mechanics of the household, usually taught in an academic way. This, however, is an entering wedge for more practical, comprehensive, and human phases of home-making education whenever school administrators, teachers, and parents shall see that vision. The day seems not distant when colleges generally will give credit for all home-making branches, as a few do now for some phases. We may even yet see universities granting M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in mothercraft and fathercraft, as well as in philology, astronomy, history, or other more consequential branches of learning. College alumnæ themselves are making earnest appeals to their Alma Maters to prepare their students for home-making responsibilities. It is not unthinkable that the colleges, before many decades, might even include the preparatory work in these subjects among their entrance requirements, as they now do algebra and Latin. In that day “applied science” will be esteemed more worthy than “pure science”, and ability to utilize more honorable than ability to memorize. By the next century, a mothercraft course may become as conventional a part of the curriculum of a finishing school as French or vocal training or æsthetic dancing; and its rudiments as requisite as a certificate of age for working papers; and preparedness in fathercraft as stringent a requirement for a marriage license as a medical certificate. Why not?
CHAPTER II
ESTABLISHING THE HOME
The Purpose of the Home. The cause, historically, and the reason, socially, for the home is the child and the family. Home is the great training school of life for parents as well as for children. It is not merely a place to eat and sleep; any boarding-house can provide that. The ideal home is a community of congenial spirits, a place of inspiration, comfort, rest of spirit as well as of body. Here dwell together two who have chosen each other as comrades in the complex problem of living, to share their fare, their mirth, their troubles, to give cheer in distress, encouragement in struggle, ambition for achievement, sympathy in trial and happiness, friendly criticism to refine; and to coöperate in their mutual desire, responsibility, joys, and trials of rearing a family.
As young men and women face squarely the possibilities in a home, as they perceive the causes of discord in family life, and study the basis of family stability and happiness, as they take the time before marriage to compare sincerely their ideals, tastes, standards, expectations, they will minimize the possibilities of later discord—even tragedy. If they cannot agree sincerely and heartily on economic, social, physiological, and psychological adjustments before the wedding ceremony, when each has the altruism of romance and the spur of the game, how can they expect to adjust themselves amicably afterwards, in the severe test of everyday needs and situations?
Marriage is the concern of the individual, because his happiness and his activity are involved. It is also the concern of the State, because property rights, social harmony, and future citizenship are involved. A brief study of the historical and social development of the home and family relations will give a surer basis for the rational discussion of this problem than would a theoretical discussion based merely on prejudices of individualism or altruism.
Evolution of Marriage. In the human species, infancy is prolonged over several years. From this mutual care by the mother and the father in primitive society, there evolved the mutual love for the little child and later for each other; and with this the permanent relationship which alone could produce the organization of the family. The beginnings of morality likewise developed from this sense of a community interest which called for a subordination of selfish desires.
For ages mankind has experimented with different forms of family relation and home organization, trying to discover which serve best to foster the child, conserve the State, and satisfy the men and women who form the family. Under different social and economic conditions, polygamy and polyandry (more than one wife or husband), promiscuity (several temporal husbands or wives) and monogamy (one husband or wife) have been tried.
Polygamy, in primitive society, developed where women were in excess, or their labor increased family income, or where a man’s fortune enabled him to support more than one wife and her children. The polygamous nature of man was accepted by Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Mohammedan religions, and its practice permitted by their statutes. The Jewish nation early evolved from polygamy to monogamy, and incorporated the latter into its religion and customs. Anglo-Saxon ideals were of monogamy. The teachings of Christ emphasized monogamy. The early Christian teachers even carried this, as other ideals, to its farthest extreme, and preached the ideal of celibacy. It remained for Mormonism to sanctify polygamy and make it a duty. But polygamy, which was flatly opposed by the general sentiment of the United States, was short-lived in the territory of the Mormon Church. The local feeling on this issue at present may be summarized in the following sentiment, expressed by a distinguished citizen of Utah:
“Our citizenship must be world citizenship. It is a matter of common knowledge and comment that that citizen is most valuable to his town who can see the town’s needs in relation to those of his county; that he is of most value to his county who sees that county as a constituent part of the state and consents to nothing for his county that would hurt the state; that a state’s most valuable and serviceable citizen is the man who has the power in his thinking, reasoning, and acting to rise above sectionalism and act as a citizen of the nation. This is the test to which our citizenship must submit—the standard up to which it must measure.”