CHANGES IN THE FAMILY
Causes of Changes in the Family.—The family at the present time is in a transition era. Its machinery is not working smoothly. Its environment is undergoing transformation. A hundred years ago the family was strictly rural; not more than three per cent of the people lived in large communities. Now nearly one-half are classified as urban by the United States census of 1910, and those who remain rural feel the influences of the town. There is far less economic independence on the farm than formerly, and in the towns and cities the home is little more than a place in which to sleep and eat for an increasing number of workers, both men and women. The family on the farm is no longer a perfectly representative type of the family in the more populous centres.These changes are due mainly to the requirements of industry, but partly at least to the desire of all members of the family to share in urban life. The increasing ease of communication and travel extends the mutual acquaintance of city and country people and, as the city is brought nearer, its pull upon the young people of the community strengthens. There is also an increasing tendency of the women folk to enter the various departments of industry outside of the home. It is increasingly difficult for one person to satisfy the needs of a large family. This tends to send the family to the city, where there are wider opportunities, and to drive women and children into socialized industry; at the same time, it tends to restrict the number of children in families that have high ideals for women and children. Family life everywhere is becoming increasingly difficult, and at the same time every member of the family is growing more independent in temper. The result is the breaking up of a large number of homes, because of the departure of the children, the separation of husband and wife, the desertion of parents, or the legal divorce of married persons. The maintenance of the family as a social institution is seriously threatened.
Static vs. Dynamic Factors.—There are factors entering into family life that act as bonds to cement the individual members together. Such are the material goods that they enjoy in common, like the home with its comforts and the means of support upon which they all rely. In addition to these there are psychical elements that enter into their relations and strengthen these bonds. The inheritance of the peculiar traits, manners, and customs that differentiate one family from another; the reputation of the family name and pride in its influence; an affection, understanding, and sympathy that come from the intimacy of the home life and the appreciation of one another's best qualities are ties that do not easily rend or loosen.
On the other hand, there are centrifugal forces that are pushing the members of the family apart. At the bottom is selfish desire, which frets at restriction, and which is stimulated by the current emphasis upon personal pleasure and individual independence. The family solidarity which made the sons Democrats because their father voted that party ticket, or the daughters Methodists because their mother's religious preferences were for that denomination, has ceased to be effective. Every member of the family has his daily occupations in diverse localities. The head of the household may find his business duties in the city twenty miles away, or on the road that leads him far afield across the continent. For long hours the children are in school. The housewife is the only member of the family who remains at home and her outside interests and occupations have multiplied so rapidly as to make her, too, a comparative stranger to the home life. Modern industrialism has laid its hand upon the women and children, and thousands of them know the home only at morning and night.
The Strain on the Urban Family.—The rapid growth of cities, with the increase of buildings for the joint occupancy of a number of families, tends to disunity in each particular family and to a reduction in the size of families. The privacy and sense of intimate seclusion of the detached home is violated. The modern apartment-house has a common hall and stairway for a dozen families and a common dining-room and kitchen on the model of a hotel. The tenements are human incubators from which children overflow upon the streets, boarders invade the privacy of the family bedroom, and even sanitary conveniences are public. Home life is violated in the tenement by the pressure of an unfavorable environment; it perishes on the avenue because of a compelling desire to gain as much freedom as possible from household care.
The care of a modern household grows in difficulty. Although the housekeeper has been relieved of performing certain economic functions that added to the burden of her grandmother, her responsibilities have been complicated by a number of conditions that are peculiar to the modern life of the town. Social custom demands of the upper classes a far more careful observance of fashion in dress and household furnishings, and in the exchange of social courtesies. The increasing cost of living due to these circumstances, and to a constantly rising standard of living, reacts upon the mind and nerves of the housewife with accelerating force. And not the least of her difficulties is the growing seriousness of the servant problem. Custom, social obligations, and nervous strain combine to make essential the help of a servant in the home. But the American maid is too independent and high-minded to make a household servant, and the American matron in the main has not learned how to be a just and considerate mistress. The result has been an influx of immigrant labor by servants who are untrained and inefficient, yet soon learn to make successful demands upon the employer for larger wages and more privileges because they are so essential to the comfort and even the existence of the family. Family life is increasingly at the mercy of the household employee. It is not strange that many women prefer the comfort and relief of an apartment or hotel, that many more hesitate to assume the responsibility of marriage and children, preferring to undertake their own self-support, and that not a few seek divorce.
Family Desertion.—While the burden of housekeeping rests upon the wife, there are corresponding weights and annoyances that fall upon the man. Business pressure and professional responsibility are wearying; he, too, feels the strain upon his nerves. When he returns home at evening he is easily disturbed by a worried wife, tired and fretful children, and the unmistakable atmosphere of gloom and friction that permeates many homes. He contrasts his unenviable position with the freedom and good-fellowship of the club, and chafes under the family bonds. In many cases he breaks them and sets himself free by way of the divorce court. The course of men of the upper class is paralleled by that of the working man or idler who meets similar conditions in a home where the servant does not enter, but where there is a surplus of children. He finds frequent relief in the saloon, and eventually escapes by deserting his family altogether, instead of having recourse to the law. This practice of desertion, which is the poor man's method of divorce, is one of the continual perplexities of organized charity, and constitutes one of the serious problems of family life. There are gradations in the practice of desertion, and it is not confined to men. The social butterfly who neglects her children to flutter here and there is a temporary deserter, little less culpable than the lazy husband who has an attack of wanderlust before the birth of each child, and who returns to enjoy the comforts of home as soon as his wife is again able to assume the function of bread-winner for the growing family. From these it is but a step to the mutual desertion of a man and a woman, who from incompatibility of temper find it advisable to separate and go their own selfish ways, to wait until the law allows a final severance of the marriage bond.
It is indisputable that this breaking up of the home is reacting seriously upon the moral character of the present generation; there is a carelessness in assuming the responsibility of marriage, and too much shirking of responsibility when the burden weighs heavily. There is a weakening of real affection and a consequent lack of mutual forbearance; there is an increasing feeling that marriage is a lottery and not worth while unless it promises increased satisfaction of sexual, economic, or social desires and ambitions.
Feminism.—There can be no question that the growing independence of woman has complicated the family situation. In reaction against the long subjection that has fallen to her lot, the modern woman in many cases rebels against the control of custom and the expectations of society, refuses to regard herself as strictly a home-keeper, and in some cases is unwilling to become a mother. She seeks wider associations and a larger range of activities outside of the home, she demands the same rights and privileges that belong to man, and she dreams of the day when her power as well as her influence will help to mould social institutions. The feminist movement is in the large a wholesome reaction against an undeserved subserviency to the masculine will. Undoubtedly it contains great social potencies. It deserves kindly reception in the struggle to reform and reconstruct society where society is weak.
The present situation deserves not abuse, but the most careful consideration from every man. In countless cases woman has not only been repressed from activities outside of the family group, but has been oppressed in her own home also. America prides itself on its consideration for woman in comparison with the general European attitude toward her, but too often chivalry is not exercised in the home. Often the wife has been a slave in the household where she should have been queen. She has been subject to the passion of an hour and the whim of a moment. She has been servant rather than helpmeet. Upon her have fallen the reproaches of the unbridled temper of other members of the family; upon her have rested the burdens that others have shirked. Husband and children have been free to find diversion elsewhere; family responsibilities or broken health have confined her at home. Her husband might even find sex satisfaction away from home, but public opinion would be more lenient with him than with her if she offended. The time has come when it is right that these inequalities and injustices should cease. Society owes to woman not only her right to her own person and property, but the right to bear, also, her fair share of social responsibility in this modern world.
Yet in the process of coming to her own, there is danger that the wife will forget that marriage is the most precious of human relations; that the home has the first claim upon her; that motherhood is the greatest privilege to which any woman, however socially gifted, can aspire; and that social institutions of tried worth are not lightly to be cast upon the rubbish heap. It is by no means certain that society can afford or that women ought to demand individualistic rights that will put in jeopardy the welfare of the remainder of the family. The average woman has not the strength to carry properly the burden of home cares plus large political and social responsibilities, nor has she the money to employ in the home all the modern improvements of labor-saving devices and skilled service that might in a measure take her place. Nor is it at all certain that the granting of individual rights to women would tend to purify sex relations, but it is quite conceivable that the old moral and religious sanctions of marriage may disappear and the State assume the task of caring for all children. It is clear that the rights and duties of women constitute a very serious part of the problem of family life.
Individual Rights vs. Social Duties.—The greatest weakness to be found in twentieth-century society is the disposition on the part of almost all individuals to place personal rights ahead of social duties. The modern spirit of individualism has grown strong since the Renaissance and the Reformation. It has forced political changes until absolutism has been yielding everywhere to democracy. It has extended social privileges until it has become possible for any one with push and ability to make his way to the top rung of the ladder of social prestige. It has permitted freedom to profess and practise any religion, and to advocate the most bizarre ideas in ethics and philosophy. It has brought human individuals to the place where they feel that nothing may be permitted to stand between them and the satisfaction of personal desire. The disciples of Nietzsche do not hesitate to stand boldly for the principle that might makes right, that he who can crush his competitors in the race for pleasure and profit has an indisputable claim on whatever he can grasp, and that the principle of mutual consideration is antiquated and ridiculous. Such principles and privileges may comport with the elemental instincts and interests of unrestrained, primitive creatures, but they do not harmonize with requirements of social solidarity and efficiency. Social evolution in the past has come only as the struggle for individual existence was modified by consideration for the needs of another, and social welfare in the future can be realized only as men and women both are willing to sacrifice age-long prejudice or momentary pleasure and profit to the permanent good of the larger group.
READING REFERENCES
Cooley: Social Organization, pages 356-371.
Brandt and Baldwin: Family Desertion.
Dealey: The Family in Its Sociological Aspects, pages 85-95, 109-118.
Goodsell: The Family as a Social and Educational Institution, pages 456-477.
Howard: History of Matrimonial Institutions, III, pages 239-250.