The Family

Helen Dendy Bosanquet

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The Family

By Helen Bosanquet

New York

The Macmillan Company

1926

First Edition 1906

Reprinted 1915

American Printing 1923

All rights reserved

Ferris Printing Company

New York City

Preface

The intention of this book is to bring together the materials for an estimate of the meaning and importance of the Family as an institution in human society. In order to understand its structure and influence as we now know it, and to judge whether it is an essential or merely temporary form of organisation, it seemed to be necessary to understand also something of its development and function in the past. Hence the first part consists of an attempt to explain some of the leading theories and facts of the history of the past, and to show their bearing upon the modern Family; while the second part is devoted to an analysis and description of this modern Family, and a consideration of its influence in social life. It is quite remarkable how seldom the present student or reformer of society shows any recognition of the importance of the Family as compared with other and more artificial institutions. Indeed, the very word institution means in popular usage an asylum or a hospital or a reformatory; something with plenty of bricks and mortar and a large staff of officials. If we find a reference in a newspaper to some "excellent institution," it may prove to be an orphanage or a soup-kitchen; it certainly will not be a Family. An institution which needs no subscription list for its support, no committee for its management, which is both self-contained and self-propagating, seems so independent of our conscious efforts that we are apt to forget how large a part of human life is devoted to its maintenance, and how large a part of human life depends upon it for physical and moral existence. From time to time, it is true, statesmen and economists have recognised its deep significance for political and social movements; and I offer the book partly from this point of view, but partly also as a tribute to a most "excellent institution."

Helen Bosanquet

OXSHOTT, 4th September 1906.

Contents

Part I: The Family History

1. The Patriarchal Family
2. The Pre-Historic Family
3. The Family in Relation to Industry
4. The Family in Relation to Property
5. The Family and the State
6. The Family and the State in England
7. On Younger Brothers

Part II: The Modern Family

1. The Basis of the Modern Family
2. The Economic Function of the Family
3. The Psychology of Family Life
4. The Constituent Parts of the Family: The Man in the Family
5. The Constituent Parts of the Family: The Woman in the Family
6. The Constituent Parts of the Family: The Child in the Family
7. The Name and the House
8. Conclusion