Chapter X

The Psychology of Family Life

In speaking of the psychology of family life, I have in mind the development and play of those mental and moral qualities which members of a Family owe more especially to the fact that they are members of the Family, and which again lose a great part of their significance unless they are interpreted in their relation to family life. These qualities fall naturally into two groups. Perhaps the most striking are those characteristics which we speak of as family traits. Just as there are physical features, tendencies, habits, which reappear in generation after generation, or in one member after another of the same generation, and can only be explained by reference to the Family, so also there are qualities of the mind, the character, the disposition, which belong peculiarly to the Family, and can only be understood in reference to it. These form one of the principal groups of characteristics in question.

But before passing to consider these in detail, there is a second set of facts to be taken into consideration, which arise out of the constitution of a Family as such; out of the fact, that is, that it is a community made up of units dissimilar in age and sex, complementary in their nature and mutually responsible. As with all organic wholes, its parts are admirably fitted by nature to subserve each other's needs, and to supplement each other's efforts. The need of the weak for protection finds its correlative in the pride of the strong in protecting; the clinging appeal of the child for affection elicits a response which might otherwise remain dormant for ever. The authority which all adults like to exercise finds a beneficent outlet in guiding the action of immature wills; and children who weary when left to the caprices of their undisciplined natures, find strength and contentment in a rule which is autocratic without having the impersonal rigidity of external law. And the man, again, who would prefer solitude to the constant clashing at close quarters of his own will with that of another man, finds it completed instead of thwarted when its functions are supplemented by those of the woman.

It may be objected that in any community where strong and weak, old and young, male and female, are to be found there will be sufficient scope for the exercise of these various characteristics without the peculiar grouping into Families being involved. But the truth seems to be that in order to their perfection these qualities must be concentrated on a few definite objects, which again must not be arbitrarily given, but must form an integral part of life. The man who takes protection in the abstract for his function may form an admirable Don Quixote, but he achieves a higher quality who concentrates upon his wife and children, and does a better work in the world; while for the majority of men it is safe to say that in the absence of wife and children their protective instincts will either remain undeveloped or be turned upon themselves alone.

It is true, again, that the children with whom the world is overflowing may arouse a somewhat vague philanthropy in a considerable number of people, and we know to our cost what little good and what great harm may be wrought by this loose and aimless affection. It takes a particular child to elicit the tender wisdom and love which alone suffices to meet the needs of childhood, and in the great majority of people that peculiar tenderness is elicited (in its perfection) only by the child that is born of their own flesh and blood. There are many women, and still more men, in whom the children of other people raise at best a transitory interest and amusement, which easily changes into positive dislike if they are brought at too close quarters with them, or called upon to make any sacrifice of convenience for them. They may be induced to subscribe to an orphanage, but would repudiate with mingled disgust and terror the suggestion that they should take charge of a baby for the day, or make themselves responsible for personally bringing up a child to manhood or womanhood. But all the impossibility disappears and the sacrifice becomes a privilege when they find themselves the possessors of a child of their own. There is no pride in the world to equal that of parents over their first child, and nothing short of this pride is strong enough to break down the barriers in which some natures are entrenched, and leave the way free for the appeal of infancy to make itself felt.

It is this same relation of parent to child which in the vast majority of cases ensures that authority will be exercised without degenerating into tyranny. That it is not always so is obvious; and it is as easy as it is futile to point out instances where the Family has failed to achieve its full purpose. The Family affords scope for the qualities peculiar to the relations between strong and weak, old and young, male and female, and tends to deepen and accentuate them. Whether or not it exaggerates them will depend upon whether the spiritual forces in the Family have been well or ill balanced. The child who is never encouraged to develop his own initiative and assert his own individualities, the woman whose flexibility is subdued into feebleness, the man whose strength is perverted into tyranny, are all products of an ill-balanced family life. But where the spiritual forces are wellbalanced within the Family, then, out of all the stress and strain arise qualities of mutual respect, forbearance, and self-control which the solitary individual has but little chance of acquiring.

But, it may be asked, if all we get from family life is this peculiar intensification of feeling and these varieties of qualities, and if the world would otherwise carry on as well without it, why cultivate and protect it so sedulously? Why not rather sweep it away as a narrow-minded and exclusive organisation, and let every citizen know that his first and last allegiance is to the State?

The answer is, that even if the world could carry on without the Family, it could not afford to lose the qualities which would go with it. It is a sombre world as it is, and no shade or tone of feeling which makes for depth and variety and richness can be spared from it. To reject the source of so much warmth and beauty because it sometimes fails, would be like banishing the sun from the sky because it is sometimes covered with clouds.

Nor is it true that the world would carry on as well without it. Apart from the fact that no one has ever yet devised an adequate substitute for a parent,¹ the further fact remains that the Family, with its mingled diversity and identity of interests, is the best if not indeed the only-school for the life of the citizen. In a brilliant essay on the Institution of the Family, Mr. Chesterton writes of it: "The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. He knows much more of the fierce varieties and uncompromising divergencies of men. The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us. Thus in all extensive and highly-civilised societies groups come into existence founded upon what is called sympathy, and shut out the real world more sharply than the gates of a monastery. There is nothing really narrow about the clan, the thing which is really narrow is the clique. The men of the clan live together because they all wear the same tartan and are all descended from the same sacred cow; but in their souls, by the divine luck of things, there will always be more colours than in any tartan. But the men of the clique live together because they have the same kind of souls, and their narrowness is a narrowness of spiritual coherence and contentment, like that which exists in hell."

It is probably a mistake to suppose that cliques are ever based so deeply as to touch soul-depth at all; it is rather because of their superficiality that they are so fatal. But there is no doubt about the fact that the man who has learned how to lead both an individual and a peaceful life within a large Family will find it surprisingly easy to get on with his fellow citizens in the larger world, for he will have learned the difficult art of respecting the interests of others while maintaining his own.

If we pass now to the question of those characteristics which members of a Family possess because they are members of that Family, we are brought face to face with all the unsolved problems of heredity. It is not necessary for our purpose to discuss the various explanations of the mystery; we need only to assume, what I think no one will deny, that members of the same Family do tend to reproduce within themselves the same qualities to a greater extent than members of different Families. It does not follow that those peculiarly family characteristics always tend to the strengthening of family life; they may sometimes,even often, lead to the dispersion rather than the concentration of its members in continued proximity; but even then they constitute a sort of negative unity which is always longing back, and cannot find permanent satisfaction in dispersion.

When we are accustomed to see or deal with people in great numbers, it is difficult not to lose sight of the significance of this factor in human nature. And indeed, just in proportion as we attempt to handle people in masses it tends to lose its significance and its helpfulness as a means of education. A striking instance of this oversight is to be found in an otherwise excellent study of boy life in London, when the author writes of the Family as follows: "The Family circle is a world in miniature, with its own habits, its own interests, and its own ties, largely independent of the great world that lies outside. If we take to pieces this small world, we shall find that it is built out of certain elements, some apparently significant, others more imposing, but all alike contributing its share in the general effect. It is these elements which admit of preservation and destruction. So far as regards the boy-and with him alone am I directly concerned these factors of home life may be divided into six classes: the common dwelling, the common meals, the home training, his recreation (including domestic employment), his relations with the other members of the family, and, finally, the work for which he receives wages. Under one or other of these six classes all the activities of the family can be grouped. The Family sentiment is a product of these different factors, and varies as they vary, expanding or contracting with these contributing elements. Thus its present condition may be determined and its future predicted by an examination of these six more or less independent forces."

Even if the family sentiment were merely the product of such simple elements as these, capable of being taken to pieces and put together again like the bits of a dissecting puzzle, the writer need hardly have come to such a despondent conclusion as he does as to its power to maintain itself amidst the changing conditions of society. It is possible to describe the most beautiful music as merely the product of a particular combination of catgut and wood; but the music is more permanent than the mechanical means by which it is produced, and the family sentiment may outlive indefinitely the physical conditions in which it has originated. But important as the factors enumerated are, they are not all. If they were, it would be easy to make artificial Families out of any human material which came to hand, and all the great problems which centre round the question of heredity would be meaningless. For that question is just this-what is the nature of the mysterious link which binds together generation to generation, and individuals of the same generation in one indissoluble whole, and which no physiologist or psychologist has ever yet been able to explain? What is the nature of the sway which our ancestors exert over us, so that at times we seem utterly incapable of freeing ourselves from the passions and proclivities which, as it is said, we have "inherited from them"? It is an inheritance, moreover, which we cannot take or leave as we will, and one which would seem never to wear out. The mingling with other Families may modify the family characteristics, or substitute others for them, indefinitely, for generations, and then suddenly the original type reasserts itself in all its vigour, and it is as if some long dead ancestor had come to life again. Implicitly or explicitly, potentially or actually, the family characteristics are there in every member of the Family, capable of reasserting themselves in every new generation, and forming the material from which each one of us has to mould his life and character. How is it possible that such a force as this, little as it may be realised or understood, should not be the main factor influencing family life? both the bond which holds its members together, whether they like it or not, and their chief source of spiritual strength. The family type is the theme, of which the individual members are the variations—variations sometimes so changed and complex that only the trained ear can grasp the fundamental theme, and sometimes so broadly simple that every passing listener is caught and smiles to hear the same old tune repeating itself. And however strange and subtle the variations, members of the Family themselves always recognise the theme running below; they are never wholly strange to one another; the chords respond, or echo, or clash, as the case may be.

It does not follow that these fundamental identities always lead to superficial harmony. A plain person finds no attraction in a mirror; and a person sensitive to his own defects of character may be inexpressibly jarred by seeing them reflected in another. I have known mothers whose irritation at the faults of their children was greatly enhanced by the fact that they recognised them as merely the faults of their own childhood recurring once again. And we fear no critic as we do the critic of our own Family, for has he not the key to all our weaknesses within himself? The stranger may be hostile and severe, but we can always console ourselves with the thought—which in nine cases out of ten will be perfectly true—that he does not really understand us. It is not being misunderstood which hurts most; it is being understood at our weakest, just as what helps the most is being understood at our best. And the member of our Family understands us literally "down to the ground," for it is the same ground upon which he himself stands.

Here, too, we may perhaps find an explanation of the strange bitterness which so often seems to attach to differences of opinion between members of the same Family. When an outsider differs from us we can accept it as something to be explained away by differences of experience, of surroundings, of education, above all of inherited temperament and disposition; in a sense it is possible to think of each being so far right that his opinion is the natural outcome of the sort of person he is. But when our brother differs from us there is no such escape from discord; this, we feel uneasily, is the same sort of person as ourselves, his opinion proceeds from the same nature as our own, and we cannot see any reason for the conflict. It is as if one's own judgment were divided against itself.

We find the same bitterness attaching to "family quarrels," especially amongst people of strong and undisciplined feelings. A slight or an injury from some one within the circle may wound and rankle far more than from some one without, just because we think that there we ought to be safe. To the outside world we can wear the armour of reserve, but this avails us nothing where all that is covered by the armour is already known, and every weak point lies open. And the plea which may be accepted from the stranger, "I did not know that it would hurt you so," only deepens the wound when it comes from the brother who surely should have known. "Have you ever noticed," writes a friend who has great opportunities of observing life amongst the less educated working classes, "how implacable the people down here are with each other. For some slight cause offence is taken, and ever after they live apart. A Mrs. M. had a very favourite son-'far more handy and better to his mother than any of his sisters.' When the son became a young man he came in one day and found his mother paying his insurance, which he did not know had been taken out. He was vexed about it, and said in future he would pay it himself, and took the papers belonging to it. Then, with no further cause of ill- will, he took lodgings elsewhere, and cut his mother and sisters in the street. They often meet him on Sundays when they are coming home from chapel. They are 'dressy' girls, and his mother says he would like to know them now; but his sisters disdain him and 'look through him.' We find many similar cases. Often one member of the family succeeds in life, and the other members are too proud to go where they are not wanted. They seem to have the old-fashioned primitive feelings of 'envy, malice, and all uncharitableness' very badly."

If we turn again for a moment to Mr. Chesterton's essay, we find him defending the Family on this very ground of its discords: "The modern writers who have suggested, in a more or less open manner, that the family is a bad institution, have generally confined themselves to suggesting, with much sharpness, bitterness, or pathos, that perhaps the family is not always very congenial. Of course the family is a good institution because it is uncongenial. It is wholesome precisely because it contains so many divergencies and varieties. It is, as the sentimentalists say, like a little kingdom, and, like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a state of something resembling anarchy. It is exactly because our brother George is not interested in our religious difficulties, but is interested in the Trocadero Restaurant, that the family has something of the bracing qualities of the commonwealth. It is precisely because our Uncle Henry does not approve of the theatrical ambitions of our sister Sarah that the family is like humanity. The men and women who, for good reasons and bad, revolt against the family, are, for good reasons and bad, simply revolting against mankind."

Now I venture to think that the author has overlooked the real reason why these divergencies and varieties may be so great a source of irritation within the Family. It is not mainly because we are forced into close contact with people who differ from ourselves: Uncle Henry probably sees very little of our sister Sarah. It is not even that we disapprove of there being people who differ from ourselves : Uncle Henry probably has no foolish prejudices against actresses in general. It is something much more subtle, much more difficult to see clearly and overcome. It is the perplexing anomaly that these relations of ours, whom we know to be fundamentally akin to ourselves, should develop varieties of tastes and capacities which we have not developed; still more that they should have failed to develop tastes which we have developed, and which seems so natural and inevitable to us. We feel as if there must be something queer either about them or about us; as if they had disappointed our well-justified expectations, or were making claims upon our sympathies which must be unjustifiable, since we do not feel able to meet them. So that even these occasional discords are in themselves a proof of the unity which they violate. Their very intensity bears witness to the strength of the feeling against which they have to struggle, and which generally prevails in the long run.

And where, as so often happens, such discord either never arises or is effectually resolved, there we have in the family life the fruits of the spirit in all their perfection. When children have learned in the nursery the lesson of mutual forbearance, and are neither exacting nor selfish, then free scope is allowed for the fundamental unity, the "family theme," to make itself felt in and through all its diverse variations. Within such a Family intercourse is on a different basis, is of another quality from what it is between members of different Families; the very language used takes on a shape of its own which may be hardly intelligible outside. Partly, no doubt, its mystery consists in allusions to experiences shared in common, and needing the merest hint to call them to mind, which are a sealed book to the outsider; but partly also it is the outcome of the fact that certain quaintnesses of expression and turns of thought appeal to, or represent, certain fundamental characteristics shared in by all members of the Family. To the outsider these expressions and turns of thought seem meaningless or silly; and it is for this reason that the family slang or patois, which I believe nearly every family possesses, is so sedulously concealed from the world at large.

But whether it finds expression in peculiarities of language or not, few will question the fact of the greater ease of intercourse between members of the same Family. Perhaps we realise it most strongly on the frequent occasions when what seems to us quite a simple straightforward expression of feeling or statement of fact is met by the blankness of incomprehension on the part of our acquaintance, and all the embarrassments and difficulties of explanation have to be faced. Within the Family none of these are needed; thought leaps to meet thought, half a sentence is enough to indicate what we are feeling or thinking; at times indeed we feel ruefully the actual impossibility of concealing our thoughts or feelings. Exaggerations, again, can be indulged in freely, for they will unfailingly be discounted at their true value, or something less; expressions of momentary irritation will not be mistaken for expressions of deep-seated resentment; and a glance of the eye or movement of the hand is enough to guard against misinterpretation.

In addition to this quickness of comprehension, which implies more or less of an intellectual unity, there is an even stronger unity of feeling or emotion. It is generally quite unnecessary for one member of the Family to tell another what he thinks or feels in the way of approval or disapproval, to "give him a piece of his mind" is to give him what he has already got; even the child has no need of outward signs to tell him when he is " in disgrace," and the wise mother refrains from reproach when she is angered, knowing that to express her feeling in language is more likely to weaken than to strengthen her child's perception of it.

It is this unity of feeling again, which gives the dominant tone to a family life. Its members respond to the same appeals, their sympathies are aroused by the same causes. They are philanthropic, or intellectual, or religious, or artistic, or social; if any member fails to share in the family interests, he is noted at once as an exception, and in the long run the family feeling is generally too much for him, and he develops philanthropy or religion in his old age with a sense of the inevitable upon him.

How real and strong a thing this unity of feeling is may be seen when some joy or sorrow falls upon some one member of a Family. We say it falls upon him, but it cannot fall upon him alone; what hurts one, hurts all, though sometimes in less degree, and any joy which comes to one touches all, it may be with a delight which is purer than that of the direct recipient. For him it is probably true that the new happiness brings with it new responsibilities and difficulties and complications, but to his Family it comes unshadowed by these, a joy in which they can participate with unalloyed content. And never perhaps is the unity of feeling more strongly felt than when through the fortunes of some one member the Family rises or falls in the estimation of the outside world. As it is with happiness, so too with honours. To the man who earns them they may bring a heavy burden, which the Family participating escapes entirely. But the Family knows well enough that it is by virtue of its strength, the nature which it has imparted to its members, that success has been achieved; and it can rightly share in the honour, while ignoring the cost to the individual which such a realisation of its nature involves.

Disgrace also it must share. In vain may one who has brought disgrace upon the name he bears protest that it concerns himself alone; he knows at heart that it is no mere convention which makes his Family suffer for his fault. That a member of the Family, sharing in its common nature, partaking in its impulses, instincts, sentiments, and education, can have done this thing—it is that which wounds deeper than all the scorn or pity from outside, for it reveals possibilities unrealised before. There is a sort of justice in the fact that the Family should fall in public estimation, since the family nature has shown itself capable of falling; and the culprit must add to his responsibilities the fact that he has shaken that self-esteem of the Family which may have done much to make its members strong.

There may be cases where this diminution of selfesteem is to some extent a gain. The criticism that "they think too much of themselves" is not unfrequently justified by a Family with a keen sense of its virtues; and more may be gained than lost by a shock which reveals to it its hidden weaknesses. But this trust in the nature which we share with our brothers is a very strong element in the bond which holds the members of the Family together, and may not be lightly sinned against. The deeds which we think impossible to us, we never dream of imputing to our brother; where we feel no temptation ourselves, no suspicion arises with reference to him; it is our own weaknesses which we expect him to share, and even here we generally expect him to be stronger to resist than we are ourselves. And out of this mutual trust in important matters, though it may never find expression in words, springs a strength of attachment which is hardly realised in normal daily intercourse, but proves itself on the occasions when life touches its heights or depths.

But in every Family there are two members who have not started from this common ground of the Family nature. Husband and wife must win their way by conscious steps to the unity from which brother and sister start unconsciously; and just for this reason it is when won so much richer, so much more vividly and intensely realised. They meet as strangers, each attracted by the mystery of a nature as yet unknown, but promising in some rare and wonderful way to be not the repetition but the completion of his own. And when the promise is fulfilled, then through the whole tale of married life may run the golden interest of exploring new depths of character, of the revelation of new treasures, of the discovery of new strength to uphold the other's weakness; while at every step of mutual discovery the bond becomes stronger, the two themes blend more completely, discords find their end in harmonies, and two become one beyond the possibility of dissolution. With others of our friends we seldom pass beyond the threshold; we know that there are treasures within, but we have not the key which will unlock the treasure-house; we cannot enter, they cannot let us in. We respect their achievements, sympathise with their fortunes, share their interests; but these things, vital as they are, yield us nothing like the unity of Family life unless we can penetrate to the nature from which they spring.

There is, I think, no doubt, that when for any reason the Family is dissolved while its members are still young, when the children are brought up apart from each other and amongst strangers, these family characteristics tend to be diminished. The common nature may assert itself if they meet in later life; but it develops most freely in the daily intercourse of characters which are in the process of forming. The question thus arises whether it may not be an advantage for children to be removed from the narrow circle within which all their peculiarities of temperament and disposition are daily reinforced, and brought into contact with other natures where they may "rub their edges off" before the process becomes quite so painful as in after-life. The answer seems to be that for the community, at any rate, it cannot be an advantage, so long as individuality and variety of character remain of value. The strength of a nation does not lie, like that of an army, in the uniformity of its members, but in the variety and strength of the different characters which can be brought to work harmoniously within it; and it is in the Family that this variety and strength of character is nourished.

Notes