Chapter IX
The Economic Function of the Family
We have seen to what a considerable extent economic forces contribute towards strengthening the bonds of family life; we have now to consider some of the ways in which the Family is itself an economic force, and as such reacts upon the wealth and welfare of the community.
In the first place, we may say that amongst those sections of society where a living is only to be obtained by working for it-that is, amongst almost the whole of society-it is the institution of the Family which is the principal motive to work. "We have never yet estimated from the point of view of political economy," writes Dr. Emanuel Hermann,1 "the motive power which love and the desire for marriage represent in the choice of a calling and the preparation for it, in the competition for places, in business undertakings. In itself, love is far from being an economic passion; it dashes forward unfettered as the waters of a mountain torrent. But when restrained and guided, love, like the torrent, may yield enormous economic results. How much of the toil in workshops and factories is undergone for the sake of making a home, and how much for the sake of the Family which follows. Enterprising journeys, daring speculations, as well as ceaseless industry, self-denial in consumption, economy, and the fruitful application of all the powers of mind and body, are due to this impulse, ennobled and purified in the Family, and so guided and stimulated to economic ends."
There are, of course, men and women who will satisfy their desires without undertaking the responsibilities of family life, and so avoid the need for strenuous work. There are others who find their chief delight in work for its own sake; and others, again, to whom the mere amassing of wealth is a sufficient stimulus to continued exertion. But all these are exceptions, and do not represent the normal average man. Nothing but the combined rights and responsibilities of family life will ever rouse the average man to his full degree of efficiency, and induce him to continue working after he has earned sufficient to meet his own personal needs. Moreover, it is, speaking generally, the only agency which will induce him to direct any considerable amount of his income from the gratification of his own personal needs to meet the needs of those who are unable to provide for their own. The Family, in short, is, from this point of view, the only known way of ensuring, with any approach to success, that one generation will exert itself in the interests and for the sake of another; and its effect upon the economic efficiency of both generations is in this respect alone of paramount importance. It may be roughly measured by the difference between the efficiency of the average artisan and that of the solitary frequenter of casual wards and common lodging-houses; or in a higher social circle between the economic exertions and sacrifices of the ordinary respectable father of a Family and the unmarried society man without a profession. "Ces pères de famille sont capables de tout"; and amongst the everything must be included an immense amount of hard work and devotion.
Nor is it only the fathers who are stimulated to strenuous work by family responsibilities. We have already noted to what a large extent economic cooperation exists between all the adult members of wage-earning Families. To complete the economic significance of this co-operation it must also be noted that in most cases it enables the Family not only to provide for the young, but also to make very effective provision against times of sickness or out of work, and very considerable savings. Hence the temporary disability of any one member of a Family becomes a matter of comparatively small importance, and there is a fund to draw upon, if needed, to start any of the younger ones in life. In short, the Family acts, from this point of view, as a mutual benefit society with extended functions.
To a very large extent also this co-operation amongst the efficient members of a Family provides for those who are past work. We know too little of our people to enable us to say with certainty how far this still remains true in face of the competition of Poor Law and the expectation of State pensions; but it is beyond doubt that the majority of the aged have their independence assured by membership of a family group. The same is true of innumerable cripples and invalids, and used to be so of many of the mentally afflicted who are now secluded in asylums.
It seems clear, then, that this grouping together of individuals into economic units comprising both strong and weak elements would be in itself, if it were nothing more, a most successful device for maximising the economic efficiency of a people. There are other conceivable methods of providing for the weaker members of a community, but none which call out the best qualities of the average man and woman to the same extent. It sometimes seems to us as if it would be cheaper and more effective to sort out all the old people on the one hand, and the children on the other, and have them managed by experts and paid for out of the taxes; and much of our modern philanthropy is engaged in perfecting methods in this direction. But what man would submit to be taxed to even half of what he is willing to spend on his family if it is left in his personal care? He might indeed have the fear of the tax-collector before his eyes, but as a motive that could never be an adequate substitute for the passions and affections which are the true incentive to enter upon and maintain family life. A passive resistance which took the form of economic inefficiency would be impossible to cope with, and a bankrupt State would ultimately have to return to its members their responsibilities in their more concrete and interesting form.
But not only does the Family influence the amount of work which men will do, it is also largely influential in determining the kind of work which they will do. The general economic proposition that wages and net advantages will determine the supply of labour in any particular trade is, of course, true; but when we come to examine how these determining conditions are brought to bear in any particular instance we shall find that it is nearly always through the medium of the Family. The lad who is making his choice of a profession knows little as yet of comparative wages, and still less of net advantages; now and again he may have a strong inclination in some particular direction, but, generally speaking, his choice will be determined by his parents. Their influence will work, no doubt, in various ways. A boy may be attracted to a trade or profession in which he sees his father contented and efficient, or repelled from one in which he sees him discontented and failing. But when any calculation of advantages and disadvantages is to be made, it will be made by the parents. When his trade is unsatisfactory or shows signs of failing the father will warn his boys off (see p. 216); but in the majority of cases he will hand on his trade to one or more of his sons.
Local opportunity, of course, is another factor in determining the choice of work; but here again it is generally the Family which is ultimately determining. It is the desire to retain the boy within the shelter of home life, when his parents cannot afford to pay for a substitute for that home life, which restricts his choice of occupation to a particular locality. On the other hand, his choice of occupations is restricted far more seriously where the home life fails. One of the chief difficulties which Poor Law Guardians have to contend with in selecting an occupation for the children passing out of their care is that they have no Family to live with during the early years of work; hence there is a tendency for a large proportion of the boys to be sent to the army or to sea, while nearly all the girls are sent to domestic service. (It is a curious meeting of extremes which makes army and navy the favoured professions in the highest rank on the one hand, and the lowest on the other.)
Within wider limits, again, the social position of the Family will determine the callings of the children almost absolutely; we can predict with much confidence of a Family in any particular walk in life whether its sons will be merely "gentlemen," or will enter a profession, or will work with head or with hands, for a wage or for a salary. And even in these days of changing views about women's education, it is still easy to foresee whether the daughters will be trained to useful work, or left to make a business out of pleasure, or even whether they will get the discipline and example which will make them efficient housewives and mothers. The influence of the Family is less absolute than it was; it is more possible for sons to raise themselves from a lower status to a higher one, for daughters to rebel against tradition and become economically efficient; but even these exceptions will depend largely upon whether the influence of the Family has been stimulating or enervating.
How great this general influence of the Family is in determining the occupations of the young may be illustrated by a difference which has often been noted between French and English families-a difference which is far-reaching in its economic and social effects. It would seem that in French families the dependence, both moral and economic, of the children is prolonged far beyond what it is in England; and according to French writers this prolonged dependence is largely responsible for a marked lack of initiative and enterprise on the part of the young people, leading them away from commerce and industry towards the ranks of small officialdom. "Ask a hundred young Frenchmen, just out of school, to what career they are inclined, three-quarters of them will answer you that they are candidates for Government offices. Independent callings, as a rule, only find their recruits amongst young men who have been unsuccessful in entering those careers."2 reason for this preference is described by the same author in the following vivid terms: "How do we prepare our children? What do we teach them? The We teach them that the ideal, the supreme wisdom in life, is to avoid as much as possible all its difficulties and uncertainties. We tell them, 'My dear child, first of all rely upon us. You see how we save money in order to be able at the time of your marriage to give you as large a portion as possible. We are too fond of you not to do our utmost to ease for you the difficulties of existence. Next, rely on our relations and friends, who will exert their influence to find you a cosy berth. You must rely on the Government, too, which disposes of an innumerable quantity of comfortable posts, perfectly safe, and salary paid regularly at the end of each month; advancement automatic through the mechanism of retirement and deaths, so that you shall be able to know in advance what your emoluments are at such and such an age. At such another age, too, you will retire and be entitled to a pension-a good little pension. So, after doing very little work during your administrative career, you will be able to do nothing at all at a time of life when a man is still capable of activity. But, my dear child, as these situations imply but indifferent pay (for we cannot get everything), you must reckon on what your wife may bring you. A moneyed wife must, therefore, be found; but do not be uneasy about this, we'll find you one. Such is, my boy, the advice which our love dictates.' The young man who hears such language daily at home, in society, in the very street, not unnaturally gets accustomed to the idea of relying on others more than on self; he is consequently dis posed to shun all careers requiring continuous exertion and mental activity; he would never dream of braving the uncertainties of agriculture, industry, or commerce, and simply prepares for a tranquil existence." 3
A more striking contrast could hardly be presented than this picture affords with the family atmosphere in which the normal British boy is brought up. He knows that he will get the education which is considered sufficient and customary in his father's social stratum, and perhaps enough capital to apprentice him to a trade, or to maintain him while learning a profession; beyond that he expects to rely upon himself, and himself alone. If his parents make special efforts and sacrifices on his behalf, it is only to enable him to make his start at a somewhat higher level than they did themselves. He sees his friends and brothers launched off into independence, and is only too eager for the time to come when he also will be permitted to try his strength in the arena of real life. As for marriage portions, any father not belonging to the plutocracy would laugh at the idea of portioning his son, though he might give him a trifle towards furnishing; and even the daughters amongst the great mass of the people do not look for a dowry. For good or for evil, I think again that the general feeling is on the whole against the man who makes too prudent a marriage, and that most Englishmen have a distaste for playing King Cophetua and the beggar maiden with the parts reversed. It is said that this difference of feeling about the wife's money greatly affects the position of women in the home and in society in the two countries; but that is another question. The point now before us is, that marked national characteristics, such as influence the policy and destinies of the French and English peoples, have their origin in different views of family life and its responsibilities.
The question of the marriage portion brings us to another way in which the Family affects the whole economic organisation of a community, and that is by determining the transmission of property from one generation to another. This may take place on the occasion of the founding of new Families, and in some countries does so to a large extent. Amongst wealthy Families in all countries the marriage of the children is the occasion of the transference of property. In countries such as France, where the custom of the marriage portion is found amongst all classes, this transference within the Family is continually taking place. In 1883 it averaged (in France) 2000 francs for every marriage.4 But in England for the main part it takes place, not when the new Families are founded, but when the old ones break up; that is, upon the death of the parents. Even where there is by law freedom of bequest, custom and public opinion combine with the natural influence of family affection to cause that the greater proportion of property passes along the lines of family relationship. In fact, the property is so far still regarded as belonging rather to the Family than to the individual, that it is considered unnatural to leave any considerable part of it away from the immediate relations. And where the law does attempt to control the transmission, it is always to support the claims of members of the Family, either of the one against the many, as in the German Anerbenrecht; or of the many against the one, as in the French law of division; or of the Family as against the outside world, as in the English law of intestacy. Even the succession duties, by which a portion of the property to be transmitted is appropriated by the State for its own use, favours its transmission to members of the Family by making the tax lighter in proportion as it is left to nearer relations.
It is difficult to estimate what would be the economic effect if this habit of transmitting the property through the Family should be abandoned. To judge from what happens now in the absence or repudiation of a natural heir, charitable and religious institutions would attract an increasingly large share of the wealth of the country; while the strange desire of man to keep his name and his property together after he himself ceases to be the link, would lead to the continual founding of new endowments. This would mean that every year would see more of the wealth of the country withdrawn from active enterprise and tied down to uses which every year would make more unsuited to its needs. On the other hand, it is likely that when no strong custom would be violated, and no justified expectations injured, the State would claim an increasingly large share in the form of succession duty, and utilise it either to the relief of the living taxpayer or to the extension of communistic enterprise. Whichever of these results we may consider most probable, or whatever combination of them, it would seem clear that the Family, by maintaining the transmission of property into the hands of individuals, is a powerful influence in support of one form of economic organisation against others.
Finally, we come to the most important of the economic functions of the Family, perhaps the most important purely economic function which exists at all, since it controls directly and finally the prosperity and the ruin of nations. In the Family, and in the Family alone, are combined the forces which determine the quantity of population with the forces which determine its quality; and without this combination the decay of a people is inevitable. No State is strong enough, no State ever has been or ever will be strong enough to guard by its own action against this possible deterioration of its people. It cannot even enforce a limitation of the numbers of its people, and, indeed, the problem is not one of limitation of quantity at all, but the much more delicate one of quality. Where the quality is right no necessary limit is at present within view; where the quality is wrong, each one is one too many. "What do we mean when we speak of a surplus population? It can only be in an economic sense that we venture to speak of any person or set of persons as surplus-from any other point of view it would be arrogance beyond measure; and from an economic point of view it must mean one of two things. In the first place, it might mean that the people in question were in excess of the actual amount of food, housing, etc., available for their support. But if this were all, there would be no reason for fixing upon any particular individuals or class as surplus more than any other; if there is one man too many in a boat, all are potentially that one, and the sacrifice of any one will get rid of the surplus. But the case is altered if there is one man only amongst them who cannot row, who is, therefore, a dead weight in the boat. His incapacity at once marks him out as the individual who is surplus, because he has no function to fulfil. So it is in society. When we speak of a surplus population we do not mean (merely) that numbers are so great as to exceed the means of subsistence; but we do mean that there is a particular section which is incapable of performing any useful function, and that therefore it is, from an economic point of view, surplus. There may, or may not, be other points of view from which its presence is desirable, and from which therefore it is not 'surplus.' The quantity of population then is excessive only when its quality is defective, and the problem thus becomes, not how to limit the population in number, but how to regulate it in respect of its quality. This can only be achieved when the will which determines the quantity of population is one with that which determines its quality. That is to say, in the Family."
Of the function of the Family as an educative influence, fitting its members to become citizens of a larger community, we shall consider more fully in subsequent chapters. But its importance is no less as a means of selecting and perpetuating those types of human beings who are most fitted to live in communities, who have "co-operative" qualities. "Broadly speaking, the co-operative individual, as demanded by civilised life, can only be produced in the family, and therefore by a stock capable of producing a true family; and the test and engine of his production is the peculiar form of moral responsibility, supported by law and covering both material and moral incidents, which the family implies. Its unique importance as an agent of selection arises, of course, from the fact that to the family is entrusted the multiplication of the species, and its automatic action as a selective agency depends on the recognition of the principle that this union should only be entered on where the conditions of success in the struggle for a distinctively human existence, including as throughout a proper rearing of offspring, may be reasonably anticipated. The question of population is not a mere numerical question; of some qualities of population it is impossible to have too much, for they are self-limiting, of others every individual is in excess. The main difference between these kinds of population depends on the material and moral responsibility for the family being left with those who have voluntarily formed it, and on every discouragement being thrown in the way of unions taking place where the true conditions of family life do not exist. I say, then, that the struggle to realise the conditions of true family life in its moral and material senses is the human 'struggle for existence' within the group, and that defeat in this struggle does largely entail, and ought so far as possible to entail, the extinction of the stock so failing."5
The belief that the prosperity of any community, whether Family or nation, can only be secured by limiting its numbers, is one which constantly recurs both in theory and practice; and it arises from regarding the available means of support as a fixed amount to be divided amongst all comers, so that the more applicants there are the less there will be for each. It ignores the possibility that each new-comer may contribute more than he consumes, in which case the more there are the greater will be the share for each. The difference of the two views and their actual effect upon family, social, and national life, can hardly be more strikingly illustrated than if we again compare the habits of typical French and English families.
No people, as we have already seen, are more solicitous about the welfare of their children than the French; and parents will practise any sacrifice to ensure that their children shall not fall below the social standard which is their ideal. But they regard this ideal as primarily dependent upon a given amount of material wealth-land or money-and treat the matter as a division sum. Hence the number of their children tends to be determined by the number of "portions" which they are able to provide; with the result that the native-born population of France is actually declining.
In support of this statement, which of course is not of universal application, I will quote again the picturesque language of M. Demolins: "Amongst us a numerous family is such an overwhelming burden that, do what they may, there is but one resource for the parents, and that is to elude the difficulty. They cannot rely for the settling of their children either on the family community, which is dissolved, or on the children's own initiative, which is smothered by their mode of education. The establishment of the children, therefore, remains in charge of the parents. A French father cannot get his children married except by giving each a portion; he is thus compelled to make as many fortunes as he has children, and this before the marriage of each, that is to say, within a period of eighteen to thirty years! You have just married. One year later you have a child. Is your vision that of a fair little head, a sweet smile? No: the vision is the surging ghost of a dowry, a portion which you will have to find. Eighteen months or two years later another child-that is another portion to constitute. Two portions in twenty-five years! You feel unequal to doing more, and in presence of a material impossibility you make up your mind to stop the expense.... Statistics fully establish the influence of the dowry system in promoting voluntary sterility; the wealthier, the more provident classes (those who have to raise the money wherewith to portion their children), are those that have the smaller families. The poorer and less provident (the working classes) have large families; they are the classes whose children are left to grow and start in life as best they can. Thus, in the industrial département of the Nord , where the working population is numerous, there is a considerable excess in the number of births as compared to deaths-51,197 against 35,089 deaths. On the contrary, in rich agricultural districts, the death-rate is higher. In the Eure , 6842 births and 8128 deaths; in the Oise, 8851 births and 9068 deaths; in the Orne, 6851 births and 8534 deaths, etc."6
The other point of view is illustrated, more or less unconsciously on their part, by the typical English Family. English parents, no less than French, desire that their children should not fall below the standard attained by themselves; perhaps even more than the French they are ambitious for them to rise above it. But they aim less at endowing them with material property than with the qualities which tend to the creation of property. The man who has given his sons a "good start"-that is, has sent them out well equipped mentally and physically to fight their own way-would be generally considered to have done well by them, better indeed than if he had merely saved a sum of money to be divided amongst them. And when the ideal of the Family (or of the State) is that each member shall be creative of his own fortune, then the necessity for limiting its numbers is diminished indefinitely, since each child that can be properly brought up is a source of added strength, not weakness.
One curious tendency of Family life in affecting both the quantity and quality of the people has been noted by German writers. I hardly know how far it could be substantiated, but there is sufficient probability about it to make it worth mentioning. I refer to the effect which the action of one generation has upon the next in influencing it to a contrary course of action. To take a simple instance, we are all familiar with the paradox that unselfish parents may make selfish children, and vice versa. Dr. Hermann considers that the rate of population is directly affected in this way: "When the number of children increases too fast, then the first-born must leave the home early; they see their portion diminished, and feel themselves deserted . . . When later they themselves marry they are careful to limit the number of their children, so that we frequently find generations with few children following generations with many, and vice versa." 7
Riehl notes a similar alternation in methods of education. Parents who have been sternly brought up desire a happier childhood for their own children ; while those who have been treated indulgently realise the ill-effects in themselves and are anxious to avoid a repetition of them. Hence the generations alternate between being "geschmeichelte" and " geprügelte."
I have said that our English Family is based upon the view that every child which can be properly brought up is a source of added strength, both to the Family itself and to the community. But what if the children cannot be properly brought up? If the mere task of bringing them properly equipped to the point from which they must start on their own account is beyond the powers of the parents, then has not the Family failed in this most important of all its functions, and must it not be superseded ?
That the Family sometimes fails is almost a matter of course. Every institution must fail of its purpose when the individuals to whom it is entrusted to carry it on prove inadequate to the task which they have undertaken; but it does not follow that the institution itself is at fault. With the Family especially it seems true that where it fails it is not through any inheritant defect, but that its efficiency has become impaired through very definite causes affecting its responsible members. Sometimes these causes are relatively inevitable; as when one or both of the parents has died or become physically incapable. Even then the Family does not always break down; there are innumerable cases in which an elder brother or sister, an uncle or aunt, takes up the burden of the Family and bears it to a successful issue. Where this does not happen, a substitute has to be provided by the community; and in England this substitute generally takes the form of schools or homes, where the children are maintained until they can be made independent.
But in many cases the efficiency of the Family has become impaired from causes which are much more subtle and complex than physical disability or death. And they are also far more threatening to the continuance of the Family as an institution. Death is normally no destroyer of the Family, which may shed as many members as a tree sheds leaves, and be none the weaker for the process. But there are hostile forces which attack the spirit which is the bond of family life, and when that decays the Family is really destroyed.
Many causes have been cited from time to time as tending to the disintegration of the Family. Perhaps the most formidable in appearance is the industrial change through which the Patriarchal Family has ceased to be an economic unit in a great part of the civilised world. With this change we have now dealt, and we have seen reason to think that great as it has been, it has not been destructive of the Family; that economic forces remain which are sufficient to make the Family both strong in itself and valuable to the community of which it is a part. But in order to estimate the real strength of the modern Family we must now examine it still more carefully in its nature and in its constituent parts.