Introductory

What is a Family, and what is its purpose? No one will feel himself at a loss in answering the question; man, woman, and child, the "practical syllogism," two premisses and their conclusion, these in their combination form the Family, and the purpose of the combination is the mutual convenience and protection of all the members belonging to it

This is the Family as we know it and see it amongst us, without pausing to reflect upon it. Nevertheless in its past history, its present significance, and its importance for the future, it involves a whole heaven and earth beside

Even as we conceive it in this simplest form there is ambiguity and doubt involved. Must the union which constitutes a Family be permanent and exclusive in its nature, or may the individual members under given conditions break away and form fresh families with other individuals? It is a question which the law of the land decides one way, but which the Church would fain decide the other. Is the relation between parents and children one of mutual responsibility, or is it binding upon one side alone? There have been times when the rights of parents and the duties of children were almost exclusively predominant; but to-day more would be found to emphasise the rights of children and duties of parents, while not a few treat the relationship of duty or responsibility between parents and children at all as obsolete.

But apart from these ambiguities, in our simplest conception of the Family, we find it susceptible of the widest divergences of interpretation. In extent it has varied, and still varies, from signifying just one pair and their offspring to including all the generations which have sprung from any one known or reputed ancestor. In practice almost any degree between these two extremes may be found as constituting the accepted Family. It is a matter of very differing custom, even in different parts of the same country, how nearly related a cousin must be in order to be accounted of the same Family; while probably as individuals we should assume a different attitude according as his claim was to be entered on the pedigree, or admitted into the family circle. And how largely this question of the extent of the family relationship is one of human convention we learn still more emphatically from history, when we find that there have been times when only those descending through males were accounted of the Family, while yet again there have been other times when only those descending from the females were recognised.

The purpose of the Family, as conceived by those who have reflected upon it, has varied even more than its extent. Some find in it mainly an institution for the care of the children, whose state of helplessness is prolonged so far beyond that of the offspring of other animals; and there has probably never been a time, when in a greater or less degree, and more or less consciously, the Family has not achieved this object.¹ Others, again, say that its original purpose was for the sake of the parents and ancestors, that their cult might be preserved; and there have certainly been long periods of time amongst great peoples when this motive seems to have been the predominant one. Others, again, maintain that it had its origin in private property and was organised for purposes of inheritance; while others yet again find in it only a device whereby the man is enabled to turn the labour of wife and child to his own account. To some it is the expression of a religion, indeed one of the most primitive and ultimate of all religions; to others a merely material phenomenon, explicable entirely on economic grounds. The origin of justice, the source of law, the fountain of morality, the necessary prelude to the State, the most formidable rival to the State, a merely passing phase in the development of civilisation, an essential condition in all stages of human progress; all these the Family has been held to be, and for nearly all views some justification may be found in past or present.

It does not, of course, follow that these aspects and objects of the Family were consciously present in the minds of the individuals who found themselves grouped in families. Many of the great processes of social life develop themselves through generations of unconscious instruments; individuals, that is, who are of course keenly conscious of their own lives and purposes, but realise only partially, or not at all, how these form part in some far wider scheme. It is only when reflection comes, and when the advance of history and science enables man to take wider views backwards and forwards along the stream of human life, that he begins to be aware of the wider purposes which include his own, and to accept them consciously as his.

Towards this widening of our outlook what fact can have contributed more potently than the fact of the Family itself in its binding together of the generations? It was interest in what our fathers have done in this world which gave the first impulse to history; it was wonder as to what they were doing after they were lost to this world which was the root of religious speculation; and it is the thought of our children's lives which has always been the strongest link with the future which is so mysteriously hidden from ourselves.

It is true that when we try to read the development of the Family in this way we find ourselves moving with much uncertainty and even bewilderment. We find ourselves driven to realise that the Family as we know it most intimately is only one stage in a long process of change, and that to argue from its present constitution to what it has been in its p will be in its future is full of danger. It is true, of course, that its present form is the outcome and contains the essential spirit of all that has gone before; and equally true that if it has a future, if the present is not, as some say, a final stage of decay, then that future also must in germ be there. But in order to interpret the facts before us, we need much more material in the way of studied observation and history than is available.

It is mainly in recent years that the Family as an institution has attracted the attention of the thinker and historian. It is so intimate a part of life, so inseparable from existence in all normal communities, that, like the air we breathe, it eludes observation, and we only notice it when something goes wrong. And so it happens that far less is known about it than about analogous institutions such as states, and churches, and cities. But without some attempt to realise the past development, if only in its broader outlines, it will be impossible to appreciate even the present significance of the Family in all its fulness. As we get glimpse after glimpse of first one aspect and then another predominating in the past, our conception of it gains in richness and completeness, and we first begin to realise the importance of the part it has played in the history of humanity. But so far much of our reading of the past is little more than a very tentative construction out of materials which are hard to collect and still harder to interpret. There is a large and growing literature gathering round the subject, but it can hardly be said that there is as yet any generally accepted doctrine of the history of the Family. At best our investigators can point to the certainty that certain phases have existed in its development, and to the probability that these phases have succeeded each other in a certain order; and on both points much difference of opinion exists. In the summary I shall attempt to give of the results so far attained, I shall mainly follow the line taken by Professor Howard in his admirable work on Matrimonial Institutions.

Notes