Chapter IV

The Family in Relation to Property

According to some authorities the word Family itself means property. "The true meaning of familia is property; it designates the field, the house, the money, the slaves. As for οἶκος, it clearly presents to the mind no other idea than that of property or domicile.¹ " We find a similar identification of ideas in the English use of the term "House" to mean family-the "ruling house"; and the German Haus as meaning Stamm.

But this should not suggest the idea that the use of the word Family to include both living members and property implies that wife and children were the property of the man in the same sense as a house or garden are now private property. We have seen that in many stages of civilisation they actually are so regarded; but the typical patriarchal familia, while it included both material and human elements, and though the authority of the Paterfamilias was so great, nevertheless did not belong to him "to do what he liked with." It was only as representing the "familia" that he held his authority, and he had no power to alienate the property from the Family. The members of the Family and the property of the Family were indissolubly connected; and so far as there was any question of "belonging," all belonged alike to the domestic god, or to the Family in the extended sense which included all generations, past and future as well as present. In the succession of generation to generation "it is not the property which passes from one man to another, but the man who passes."² Even in our modern use of the possessive case with respect to the Family, it means no more than relationship, and conveys no idea of "possession" in the sense of being able to do what we like with it. A man speaks, no doubt, of "my children," or "my wife," but he speaks also of "my ancestors"; while wife and child themselves speak of "my husband" and "my father." The usage is parallel with our habit of taking as it were into our possession whatever we are habitually busied about or interested in, without any implication of real ownership. A housemaid will say "I have not swept my stairs yet"; a cook will talk of "my kitchen"; a doctor of "my patients"; a hypochondriac of "my indigestion"; while a man less interested in his ailments will be content to suffer indigestion without appropriating it.

Now this connection between a Family and its property, or rather this inclusion of property within the circle of the Family, is one of the most charac teristic features of family life at certain stages of its development; while it is in the varying relations of the different members of the Family to the property of the Family that we find the most striking divergencies in the modern forms of the Family.

It is, for instance, the relation of the Patriarchal Family to its property, quite as much as the authority of the Patriarch, which gives it such a concrete solidarity and strength. Here the power of the "dead hand" is no figure of speech or legal fiction; rather it is the living hand of the dead, maintaining its grip upon the family goods and stretching through the shadowy past to claim its share in the present.³ Even the unborn generations to come, by their indissoluble connection with the family property, anticipate their life, and are a living force amongst the living. And when ancestorworship ceases to be a religion, and the dead loosen their hold, when the property ceases to be consecrated to the divine, then its consecration to the human, to the service of those generations of the Family who still live and are to come, may preserve for it much of its steadying and ennobling power. It loses that power and becomes a source of discord and strife, only when the family spirit has vanished, and each member seeks in it his own lesser ends.

Those who have watched the breaking up of the Patriarchal Family as we still find it in certain parts of Europe, cite significant instances of the changes which accompany the dissolution of this relationship between the Family and its property. If we partly follow the terminology used by Le Play, we may describe the true Patriarchal Family as rigid; under the pressure of the changing conditions of modern life-as the process is described-this rigidity gives way, becomes pliable, and we get from it two new types of family life:-the stable Family, which succeeds in combining change and permanence; and the unstable, which fails to maintain its core of strength and permanence, and becomes a mere succession of disconnected individuals with no strength beyond what each possesses in himself. To illustrate this process of disintegration we may turn once more to the Patriarchal Family in Russia, where it is essentially in a transition stage. I will quote first from Le Play's account of the Family in Russia fifty years ago, and then from more recent accounts by Stepniak and Mackenzie Wallace. From Le Play, whose work is too little known, I quote at length, in order to indicate something of his characteristic (though sometimes misinterpreted) view of the influence of family life upon social well-being.

To the reader of this generation, accustomed to hear of nothing from Eastern Europe but "atrocities" and discontent, oppression and revolution, it seems strange to find Le Play exhibiting the inhabitants of Russia, Hungary, and Austria as models of contented prosperity to the restless West. But it must be remembered, in the first place, that he writes of dwellers in the country and not of dwellers in the towns; in the second place, that he writes of the people who work with their hands and not of the "intellectual" or of the ruling classes; and, finally, that he is writing before the emancipation of 1848 and 1856 had disturbed the relations subsisting between the people and the land on the one hand, and the people and their seigneurs on the other.

The causes of this state of contented prosperity he held to be three: (i.) a firm belief in the Divine origin of the moral law, i.e. the Decalogue; (ii.) the universally prevailing institution of the Patriarchal Family; and (iii.) an abundance of fertile soil.

It is the second of these causes which concerns us here, and in which indeed Le Play himself is most interested. "The old parents, finding ample means of subsistence in the nature of their locality, are able to gather round them four generations of their own blood. The father of the family, whose power is justified by his long experience, possesses the necessary ascendency to hold both youth and ripe age in submission to the Decalogue and to custom. Under this régime peace and stability extend from the family to the entire race."⁴ That is to say, this organisation of the Family with its submission to the authority of its chief, is reflected into the organisation of the State, and is the school in which submission to the ruler is learned.

"The Russian Family is organised upon bases quite different from those which prevail in the centre and west of Europe. Those who partake of the same blood continue to hold property and goods in common so long as the size of the house permits them to live together. A father generally retains with him several married sons, their wives and children. Even after the death of the father it will often happen that the brothers continue their life in common under the direction of the mother, or of that member of the family who is judged most capable of exercising the functions of chief (Starchi). This combination of three generations prevents the usage of the family name to designate individuals, hence from time immemorial it has been found necessary to call each individual both by his own baptismal name and by that of his father.

"The patriarchal organisation of the family, the security due to the protection of the seigneur, the ample means of subsistence of each family, impresses social relations with a propriety and dignity rarely found at the other extremity of Europe at the same level. Religious fêtes and family anniversaries bring relations and friends frequently together, and then the hospitality exercised is of the freest and most dignified. Several families are attaining by order and economy to a considerable fortune, but this interest never degenerates into sordid avarice nor leads to any neglect of the obligation which every head of a family must fulfil towards his children, his friends, and the community of which he forms part. All the families, with rare exceptions, show much attachment to established usages. They instinctively repel innovations, even those which would have the best influence upon the state of agriculture and the physical or moral condition of the population. This conservative spirit, as if to compensate its advantages, often degenerates into a blind and obstinate routine.

"So far as concerns the moral side of life, religion, the relations of kindred, solemnities, recreations, and even medical practices, the women show themselves as much attached to custom as the men. On the other hand, in all that concerns dress and food they show a considerable tendency to innovation, so much so that the Starchis consider it their duty to watch them closely in this respect"; one Starchi observed, "with much finesse and a profound knowledge of the human heart, that it is always the women who lead man to change the established order."

"The father or Starchi assigns the work and disposes of the produce, and the members of the family are to him as domestic workers. The children, in every house, brought up amongst many brothers and sisters, know nothing of the isolation which youth often experiences in the West. Their only instruction consists in a few religious ideas imparted by the priest, and they are left free to develop without rendering any services to the family beyond some amount of attention to the animals and the gathering of mushrooms and fruits. At the age of fourteen the boys work both for the family and for the seigneur, while the girls, before marriage, work only for the family."

"Institutions and manners generally encourage precocious marriage; that is for boys from seventeen to twenty years, for girls from eighteen to twenty-four years. Owing to the abundance of land at their disposal and the incessant growth of means of subsistence, parents have no anxiety as to the lot of the next generation. For the seigneur, as for every family of peasants, the increase of population is an assured means of prosperity. The interests of the individual are equally served by these youthful marriages. The young women find in their new state an independence and consideration which they lacked before. Under the régime of the numerous community to which they are admitted, they are assisted by the older parents in the cares demanded by the young children; thus they are less burdened by work than young mothers are in the system of isolation which is coming to prevail more and more in the Western organisation of the family. On his side, a young man of an age to marry occupies an unsatisfactory position in the community, in some respects unendurable; for instance, it is almost impossible for him to get suitable clothing. His sisters-in-law are naturally occupied in the first instance in looking after the linen and clothes of their husbands; the prime interest of his young unmarried sisters is the preparation of their trousseau; the old mother, when still living, is absorbed in superintending family affairs, or in the care of her husband and grandchildren; she can hardly attend to an adult unmarried son. Thus, even if he were not naturally drawn towards it, he must seek in marriage the way out of a false position, and thus lighten the charge he inflicts upon other members of the community.

"The comfort and well-being of the family depend essentially upon the ancient organisation by which three or four young households live in common; and this state of things itself can only be maintained in a society which confers absolute authority upon the chief of the family. Hence the keystone of the social system of Russia is patriarchal authority, which both customs and institutions tend to maintain.

"The patriarchal régime harmonises well in Russia with other influences; in a social order where school education contributes in no way to the precocious development of youth, where knowledge is acquired only by the practice of life and of social relations, the old men actually have an enormous superiority over the young. The latter are conscious of their inferiority, and when in Russia one asks a man of forty about some fact, he never fails to answer that such information can only be properly given by some one older. The régime is confirmed, moreover, by religious sentiment; thus it is almost unknown that a son should make up his mind to an act of formal disobedience, and so incur the paternal malediction. In the comparatively rare cases where the ascendency of the father is insufficient to maintain the harmony necessary to the common life, when more especially the dissensions arising amongst his daughters-in-law threaten to provoke the dispersion of the family, the father has recourse to the authority of the seigneur. In fact, the permission of the latter is necessary in principle when there is occasion to divide a family; it is equally necessary in practice in the sense that the construction of a new habitation can only take place by means of dispensations from work and allocations of material on the part of the seigneur. Such recourse to the seigneur is rare in the land of Tachli; but when it does occur, he himself appeals to an assembly composed of all the elders of the village to which the family belongs; experience has taught him that the most useful plan in such a case is to decide according to the opinion of this council.

"At the death of the father of the family his authority passes, the seigneur approving, to that one of his brothers or sons whom he has nominated or whom the family itself has chosen. This approval of the seigneur is no source of conflict, for the interest of the seigneur and that of the whole family coincide in assigning the authority to the member most capable of exercising it. The same influences and interests come into play when the growth of the family no longer admits of their living together, when it becomes necessary to create a new home, and to assign to the new branch a share in the animals, furniture, and goods in general acquired by the community.

"The social system of which we have here sketched the principal features consists then essentially in the triple subordination of the individual to the family, to the communal council, and to the seigneur. Eminent individuals, who in the social systems of the West work mainly for their own elevation, in the Russian system must devote themselves to the well-being of members of the family who are less happily endowed, to the prosperity of their commune, to the splendour of the seignorial house, finding in case of misfortune, or declining age, support and assistance in the three groups of collective interests which they have served since youth. Briefly, under this régime social forces contribute more to stability than to progress.

"The advantages of this system are more pronounced where individuals have little strength of their own. They will diminish, and those which are proper to the Western system will increase in proportion as the refinement of religious sentiment and the rational progress of the means of education assure to young people that power over themselves, that knowledge and power of initiative, which under the present régime can only be acquired by men of advanced age." ⁵

This, then, is a picture of the Patriarchal organisation at its best, as seen by a sympathiser and admirer. Stepniak in his book on the Russian Peasantry, writing a generation later, when the influences foreseen by Le Play have become increasingly prominent, throws a somewhat different light upon it. No doubt the autocratic power of the Patriarch might often degenerate into a tyranny which would be resented by the younger members of the Family, and would tend wherever these saw their way to independence to the breaking up of the system; and it is this side of the life which modern conditions tend to make increasingly prominent.

"Something harsh, cruel, cynically egotistical, is worming itself into the hearts of the Russian agricultural population, where formerly all was simplicity, peace and goodwill unto men. Thus the grey-bearded grandfathers are not alone in modern Russia in lamenting the good old times. Some of our young and popular writers are, strangely enough, striking the same wailing chords. It is evident that in the terrible straits through which our people are passing, not only their material condition, but their very souls have suffered grave injuries. Yet it is not all lamentation about the past in the tidings which reach us from our villages. The good produced by the progress of culture is, in spite of its drawbacks, according to our modest opinion, full compensation for the impairing of the almost unconscious virtues of the old patriarchal period. Freed from the yoke of serfdom, and put before the tribunals on an equal footing with other citizens, a new generation, which has not known slavery, has had time to grow up. Their aspiration after independence has not yet directed itself against political despotism, save in isolated cases; but in the meantime it has almost triumphed in the struggle against the more intimate and trying domestic despotism of the bolshak, the head of the household. A very important and thoroughgoing change has taken place in the family relations of the great Russian rural population. The children, as soon as they have grown up and have married, will no longer submit to the bolshak's whimsical rule. They rebel, and if imposed upon, separate and form new households, where they become masters of their own actions. These separations have grown so frequent that the number of independent households in the period from 1858-1881 increased from 32 per cent to 71 per cent of the whole provincial population. It is worthy of remark that the rebellion among the educated classes also first began in the circle of domestic life, before stepping into the larger arena of political action."

We may imagine that if Le Play had lived to read of this domestic rebellion he would hardly have failed to connect with it the "something harsh, cruel, and cynically egotistical" which Stepniak himself deprecates in the Russian peasantry of to-day.⁶ Nor would he have been slow to find one of its causes in the spread of education which he foresaw.

"Elementary education, however hampered and obstructed by the Government, is spreading amongst the rural classes. In 1868, of a hundred recruits of peasant origin there were only eight who could read and write. In 1882 the proportion of literate people among the same number was twenty. This is little compared with what might have been done, but it is a great success if we remember the hindrances the peasant has had to overcome. Reading, which a score of years ago was confined exclusively to the upper classes, is now spreading among the moujiks. Popular literature of all kinds has received an unprecedented development in the last ten or fifteen years. Popular books run through dozens of editions, and are selling by scores of thousands of copies." ⁷

Economic causes are fighting both for and against the maintenance of the family organisation in Russia. On the one hand, it is not only the growing desire for independence which tempts the adult worker to seek his fortunes apart from those of his Family; the pressure of taxation makes it absolutely necessary that some of the Family should become wage-earners in the towns or elsewhere, if enough of the produce of the homestead is to be preserved for the maintenance of the Family; and the wage-earner who has learned to live under his own guidance and to feel the means of independence within his hands, becomes more and more disinclined to submit himself again to the patriarchal rule, though he may continue for a time to contribute to the family income.

On the other hand, it is the large organised Families which can best withstand the pressure of increasing poverty: "Only very large families, which are becoming less common, are able to extricate themselves from the usurer's net in which they have been by dire misfortune entangled. When the liability is divided amongst twelve or more adults this may compensate for the absence of one or two of their number 'given in bondage' by increased diligence on the part of those that remain. But small families almost inevitably succumb."⁸

This function of the patriarchal organisation as a defence, both of the Families themselves in times of distress and weakness, and of the weaker members who are unfit to stand alone, was one to which Le Play attached great importance; and it seems likely that its dissolution will lead to a great increase of the numbers of those in the community who are permanently poverty-stricken. Nevertheless, Stepniak at least considers it to be doomed: "The vigour of the big patriarchal families is sapped by the lowest instincts as well as by the loftiest aspirations developed by modern times. They are incompatible with individual independence. Amongst the southern Russians, with whom the sentiment of individuality is much stronger than amongst the great Russians, these composite households are unknown. Their rapid dissolution among the Russians would have been an unmitigated good if it were not accompanied by the general relaxation of social ties between all the members of the village community."⁹

Mackenzie Wallace gives a similar account of the mingled good and evil attending the dissolution of the Patriarchal Family in his book on Russia: "Russian peasants are human beings like ourselves. And those of them who live in large families are subjected to a kind of probation which most of us have never dreamed of. The families comprising a large household not only live together, but have nearly all things in common. Each member works, not for himself, but for the household, and all that he earns is expected to go into the family treasury. The arrangement almost inevitably leads to one of two results-either there are continual dissensions, or order is preserved by a powerful domestic tyranny.¹⁰ It is quite natural, therefore, that when the authority of the landed proprietors was abolished in 1861, the large peasant families almost all crumbled to pieces. The arbitrary rule of the Khozaïn was based on, and maintained by, the arbitrary rule of the proprietor, and both naturally fell together. Households like that of our friend Ivan were preserved only in exceptional cases, when the Head of the House happened to possess an unusual amount of moral influence over the other members.

"The change has unquestionably had a prejudicial influence on the material welfare of the peasantry, but it must have added considerably to their domestic comfort, and may perhaps produce good moral results. For the present, however, the evil consequences are by far the most prominent. Every married peasant strives to have a house of his own, and many of them, in order to defray the necessary expenses, have been obliged to incur debts."¹¹

Again: "In the time of serfage the peasant families, as I have already remarked, were usually very large. They remained undivided, partly from the influence of patriarchal conceptions, but chiefly because the proprietors, recognising the advantage of large units, prevented them from breaking up. As soon as the proprietor's authority was removed, the process of disintegration began, and spread rapidly. Every one wished to be independent, and in a very short time nearly every able-bodied married peasant had a house of his own. The economic consequences were disastrous. A large amount of money had to be expended in constructing new houses and farm steadings; and the old habit of one male member remaining at home to cultivate the land allotment with the female members of the family, whilst the others went to earn wages elsewhere, had to be abandoned. Many large families, which had been prosperous and comfortable -rich according to peasant conceptions-dissolved into three or four small ones, all on the brink of pauperism."¹²

Even if it should prove that in Russia the Patriarchal Family is doomed by the restriction of the people's land and the weight of taxation, there are other countries where it still flourishes and preserves the ancient relation between the Family and its property. The following account of the Family community in Servia is quoted from the Report of the First International Co-operative Congress, 1895:--

"First comes our Zadrouga, or family community, which greatly resembles the Sociedade familias of Portugal, or the Compania gallegas of Spain. It is really that ancient type, the rural family founded upon relationship or adoption, and having for its aim a community of life and property. The zadrouga is a big family, whose members (brothers, cousins, or more distant relatives, with their wives and children) are united by bonds of relationship, marriage, and adoption. The management of the community is confided to the oldest member, who is considered the head of the family, and all the others owe him respect and obedience. His authority is extensive, but constitutional and fatherly. He derives his authority from the love springing from blood relationship, from gratitude for his fatherly care, and from the respect due to old age and experience. In exceptional cases, when the oldest member is a spendthrift, idle and incapable, so that he is ruining the community-a case which is of very rare occurrence the ancient customs are departed from, and all the members of the zadrouga together choose their head chief from among themselves.

"All the property of the zadrouga belongs in common to all its members of both sexes, so long as they remain in the community. The head cannot dispose of the patrimony of the community without the consent of its members. This state of things has been preserved also by the Servian civil code, compiled in 1844, which contains an interesting chapter upon zadrougas (v. articles 507 to 530).

"The zadrouga engages in all kinds of work-it is a sort of association for production and for distribution in one. Only those things are brought from outside which the community is unable to produce, such as iron implements, machines, certain utensils, and that is almost all. Everything else is produced by the community-provisions, clothing, boots and shoes, bedding, wooden utensils, outbuildings and dwellings, etc. Each member of the community has to perform the work appointed him. The whole community deliberates on its operations-all assembled together, men, women, and even the paid servants, if there are any.

"It is individual capacity, age and sex, which determine the work of each one. The children, or if there are none, the women (those who are not strong enough for heavy work) tend the flocks. Work in the fields and vineyards is executed by members of both sexes indifferently, but the men alone, as being the strongest, plough, dig, mow, and cut wood, whilst the women generally look after the house-work, the making of clothes, and other indoor work. The men also attend to the sale of produce.

"The head of the zadrouga represents the community in its relations with the state or the parish. The distribution of labour depends on the season, the amount of work to be done, and the number of workers. For it to be well arranged, good sense, honesty, and especially justice, suffice. In general, the part played by the head of the community is of less importance from an economic point of view than from that of his moral authority.

"The zadrouga had its origin in the most remote past of the Slav people. They lived grouped in families, which composed the villages, and collective property belonging to the whole group alone was known. They worked in common the soil which they owned in common.

"The common ownership of the zadrouga rests on the same principle as the ownership of parish property. In each family community the soil and all the movable things, consisting of instruments of labour, such as ploughs, cattle, carts, etc., belong to all in common. No member of the community can encumber the common property, and still less mortgage it or alienate it, or even his own share of it. If a member leaves the community he loses all his rights of co-proprietorship in it, and in order to re-acquire them he must re-enter the community. This provision is very logical, for a member who leaves a community to establish himself on his own account ceases from that moment to be productive for the community. The consent of all the members is required to encumber or alienate the property of the community, or dispose of it in any way. When a community becomes too numerous, or some other reason arises, it may be divided, subject to several conditions, the principal one being the consent of all those interested who are of full age, and then, but then only, each member becomes owner of the share falling to his due.

"All income and individual acquisitions are paid into the common fund, and all the members are coproprietors equally, and have the same rights of enjoyment. Each one has his share in the general income, and this share is allotted according to necessities, and not according to individual efforts. When a member marries, it is the community which bears all the wedding expenses.

"Should a community be divided, the landed property is shared amongst the men; the women do not share in the division. In the Servian rural family the female sex is subordinate to the male, a fact specially noticeable when a division takes place. When a young woman marries she only receives gifts and presents from the movable property. What she brings as a dowry is not considered common property; the idea of common property is opposed to it. Such is the organisation of the Servian Zadrouga, which had, and still has, great influence on the economic development of Servia."

It is interesting to note here that Stepniak considers that in Russia the Patriarchal Family as an industrial unit will be replaced by voluntary cooperation amongst adults for the purpose of carrying out any piece of work: "There exists no people who, as a body, are so well trained for collective labour as our moujiks are. Whenever a group or a crowd of them have some common economical interest to look after, or some common work to perform, they invariably form themselves into an artel, or kind of trades union, which is a free, purely economical mir, purged of the compulsory despotic elements of political authority. It is a free union of people who combine for the mutual advantages of co-operation in labour, or consumption, or of both. Its membership is voluntary, not imposed, and each member is free to withdraw at the close of the season, or upon the conclusion of the particular work for which the artel was formed, and to enter into a new artel. Quarrels between members, as well as offences against the artel, if not settled in an amicable manner, have to be brought before the common tribunals. The artel has no legal authority over its members. Expulsion from the artel is the only punishment, or rather the only protection, these associations possess against those who break their rules. Yet the artels do very well, and in permanent work often prove to be life-long partnerships. The principle of co-operation is applied as frequently and naturally to agricultural as to non-agricultural work. Of late years co-operation in agriculture has become even more varied and more extensive than ever before, partly because of the impoverishment of the people, and especially because of the wholesale breaking-down throughout Russia of the big patriarchal families. So long as they existed they formed compulsory co-operative associations, and were held together by family despotism. Now they are supplanted by free associations or self-electing artels." ¹³

It seems probable that Stepniak has here overrated the importance of the artel as a factor in Russian industry. According to later authorities,¹⁴ these associations are as yet of comparatively small importance, are formed only for temporary purposes, and are applicable only to agricultural operations of the simplest nature, such as tree-felling. But even if it were decisively shown that the Patriarchal Family could profitably be replaced by other organisations for the purpose of carrying on any given piece of work, there remains the further question as to the extent to which such organisations can provide for all members of the community, and as to the value of the type of human being actually produced by it. The long discipline and close co-operation essential to the common life in large family groups cannot fail to have a very marked effect upon the character of those who share that life; and this is a consideration at least as important as that of its relation to economic production. Indeed, the two questions are inextricably mixed up together, for economic production depends quite as much upon individual efficiency as upon organisation, and individual efficiency is almost entirely a question of individual training and character. There can be little doubt that the present capacity of the Russians to form themselves into bodies of co-operative producers is derived from their long discipline in family life; they and their ancestors from time immemorial have learned to subordinate their particular interests and to work together for the common good. But one point which strikes us at once is this: that whereas the family group, settled upon its own land which affords a variety of work suited to all capacities, includes weakly and inefficient members who yield what services they can, and are partly provided for by the strong, the new and voluntary industrial group will include none but the efficient and ablebodied, while the weakly will tend to fall out altogether.

It was more from this point of view of character and mutual support-what we may perhaps call the social point of view-that Le Play carried on his studies of family life in various parts of Europe and under various conditions. The main part of his writing centres round the middle of last century, though his observations had extended over many years previously. He was led to this particular branch of investigation by his keen desire to find some remedy for the distressed restlessness of the French people which he saw around him. To find a remedy he knew that one must seek a cause; and to him it was clear that the cause was only to be found by penetrating deeply into the lives of the people themselves. Hence his prolonged studies of typical Families in many widely separated districts of Europe, covering their social and physical surroundings, their degree of material prosperity, their way of work and life, and the customs or laws regulating family relations. His long years of labour left him firmly convinced that one essential factor in the prosperity and content of a people is a good organisation of the Family; and the greater part of his voluminous writings is devoted to recording observations as to the effect upon family life of such things as the laws of bequest and inheritance in France, the laws against early marriages in Germany, the Calvinistic religion in Geneva, the organisation of industry in England, and so on.

What is a good organisation of the Family? I have already mentioned the three types noted by Le Play, and illustrated by him in his monographs. There is first the Patriarchal Family which we have been considering; this is essentially Eastern in character, it is ruled by tradition and averse to all change. Next to this, and approximating to it in many of its characteristics, is the famille-souche, of which I shall speak next; the main characteristics of it are that it is attached to its home, but combines fidelity to tradition with a considerable capacity for change. In its typical form continuity is secured by one of the children becoming definitely heir to the father's possessions and authority, while the others leave home to seek their fortunes, provided with a dower. But the essential features are the authority and continuity which secure the welfare of all the members of the Family.

Finally, there is the unstable Family, of which the members care little for home, and are eager only for change. It is formed by the marriage of the parents, increased by the birth of the children, diminishes again as these leave home, and is finally dissolved by the death of the parents. There is no continuity or authority, and little, if any, assurance of the wellbeing of its various members. These unstable Families Le Play finds in all the poorest and most distressed regions which he visits; each generation as it reaches economic independence breaks away from the preceding one, and each member of a generation from its fellowmembers; the father has little or no authority, and the children drift out into the world undisciplined and untrained. Such Families neither secure the well-being of individuals nor contribute anything to the prosperity of the community. We are only too familiar with them to-day, and shall have more to say of them later on. They are indeed at the root of most of our social difficulties. They are like baskets with holes in them; they let the old people drop out at one end, and the children at the other, to be picked up by the State, or take their chance of passing charity. And not infrequently the basket falls to pieces altogether, and the whole Family has to be sorted out into workhouses, asylums, and prisons.

But the Families of various degrees of stability are still infinitely more numerous all over the world, and the nature and source of their strength must be studied, before we can properly understand the causes of their change and failure.

We have seen the admiration felt by Le Play for the Patriarchal Family of the East; much that he writes leads one to think that he considered the type of society founded upon it to be that which really conduced most to the happiness of the human race. But he recognised that without modification it was incompatible with the movement of the world which we know as progress; that it could neither stand before modern ideals of education and personal liberty, nor yet contribute its share towards the further subjugation of Nature in the interests of humanity; and he fixed upon the second form, that of the stable Family, or famille-souche, as combining the best features of the new and the old. The most characteristic form of this he finds amongst the French peasant proprietors of the older type. Here the family life centres round the homestead from generation to generation, carrying with it not only the authority of the head of the Family, but also the weighty responsibility of providing for the welfare of the other members. Children are numerous, and each generation consists of from eight to ten members; those who marry or leave the home to seek their fortunes elsewhere are provided with a "portion," those who prefer it stay on in the old home, partaking in the work of the farm, and sharing the family fortunes for good or for evil. In such a home may be found brothers and sisters of three generations, submitting themselves to the authority of the chief, and forming under his guidance an independent industrial community. The advantages of the system are enumerated by Le Play as follows. The children are brought up under the most favourable conditions, are carefully disciplined and educated, and are not expected to take any serious part in the work of the community until the age of fifteen. The family home secures a happy life to such of its members as from any physical or intellectual failing cannot prosper as heads of Families themselves; it is an asylum always open to those who fail in their enterprises, especially for the invalided soldier. It secures an honourable position for aged relatives and other infirm members of the communities. It is constantly sending out into the world offshoots trained to work and obedience, and provided with a small capital, from whom recruits can be drawn for industry, for the army and navy, and for the colonies. And finally, the elders of the Family, practised in the difficult art of ruling a small community, form the best possible material for the institutions of local government. Thus the Family presents itself as the medium by which public interest is combined with private welfare.

Without for the present expressing an opinion as to how far this famille-souche is indispensable to social welfare, it is interesting to note in passing how many of our "social problems" of to-day are obviated by it, in so far as Le Play's estimate is a correct one. Old age pensions are unnecessary where the stable Family combines young and old in one strong bond of mutual helpfulness. A proletariat residuum is impossible where all the young people who go out into the world are trained to habits of labour and obedience, as well as being strong and capable; the natural asylum of the home for the mentally and physically feeble is a far surer precaution against the marriage and propagation of the unfit than any recognised system of public control; while the firmly rooted belief that family life involves a home and property, however humble, prohibits the thriftless marriages which lead to pauperism.

If now we ask what factors are essential to an effective Family of this type, we find that is based, according to Le Play, upon two in particular-sufficient private property to ensure the occupation and maintenance of the Family, and the authority of the father, which enables him not only to handle the property so as to conduce to the best interests of the Family, but also to control and direct his children until they have learned to guide their own lives and are fitted to fulfil their duties. Now this authority, Le Play considers, can only be firmly established where the father has free control over the family property, not only during his lifetime, but at death also-where, that is, there is freedom of bequest. Only so can he ensure that the property will be maintained intact for the future support of the Family, and only so can he uphold his supremacy over his children through their fear of being disinherited.

In this relation of the Family to its property we come upon one of the most important influences determining family life, acting both through internal custom and through the external intervention of the State. There is no point at which the State has so persistently and so effectively, for good or for evil, intervened in family matters as on this question of the transmission of property. Time and again legislation has been passed, and annulled and repassed, in favour of equal partition, of freedom of bequest, of primogeniture, as one or the other system has been thought desirable, either in the interests of a particular class, or in the interests of the nation as a whole. And wherever legislation has been so far effective as to modify the custom of a people with respect to the inheritance of property, it has also left a deep and lasting mark upon the organisation and influence of the Family in other ways than that of inheritance itself.

Notes