Most conclusively^ however^ is the connexion shown on grouping the facts antithetically thus:— On the one hand^ savage tribes in general, chronically militant^ have^ in common with the predominantly militant great nations of antiquiiy^ the trait that a &ther has life and death power over his children. On the other hand^ the few uncivilized tribes which are peaceful and industrial, have^ in common with the most advanced civilized nations, the trait that children's lives are sacred and that large measures of freedom are accorded to both boys and girls.
CHAPTER XIL DOMESTIC RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT.
§ 336. Induction has greatly predominated over dedactioD thronglioat^be foregoing chapters; and readers who have borne in mind that Part II. closes with a proposal to inter- pret social phenomena deductively^ may infer either tbt this intention has been lost sight of or that it has proved impracticable to deal with the facts of domestic life other- wise than by empirical generalization. On gathering to- gether the threads of the argument, however, we shall find that the chief conclusions forced on us by the evidence are those which Evolution implies.
We have first the fact that, little as it might have been expected, the genesis of the family fulfils the law of Evolution under its leading aspects. In the rudest social groups nothing to be called marriage exists: the unions of the. sexes are extremely incoherent. Family groups, con- sisting of mothers and such few children as can. be reared without permanent paternal assistance, are necessanlj small and soon dissolve: integration is slight. Within each group the relationships are less definite; since the children are mostly half-brothers or half-sisters, and the paternity is often uncertain. From such primitive families, thus small, incoherent, and indefinite, there arise, in conformity with the law of Evolution, divergent and re- divergent types of families — some characterized by a mixed polyandry and polygny; some tliat are polyandrous, dif- ferentiating into the fraternal and non-fraternal; some tliat are polygynous^ differentiating into those composed of wives and those composed of a legitimate wife and concnbines; some that are monogamoos, among which^ besides the ordi- nary form^ there is the aberrant form distinguished by a wife married only for a part of each week. Of these genera and species of families^ those varieties which are found in ad- vanced societies are the most coherent^ most definite^ most complex. Not to dwell on intermediate types^ we see on con- trasting with the primitive kind of family group that highest kind of family group which civilized peoples present^ how re- latively high is its degree of evolution. The marital relation has become perfectly definite; it has become extremely coherent — commonly lasting for life; in its initial form of parents and children it has grown larger — the number of children reared by savages being comparatively small; in its derived form^ comprehending grand-children, great grand- children^ etc., all so connected as to form a definable cluster, it has grown relatively large; and this large cluster consists of members whose relationships are very heterogeneous.
Again, the developing human family fulfils, in increasing degrees, those traits which we saw at the outset are traits of the successively-higher forms of reproductive arrangements throughout the animal kingdom. Maintenance of species being the end to which maintenance of individual lives is necessarily subordinated, we find, as we ascend in the scale of being, a diminishing sacrifice of individual lives in the achievement of this end; and as we ascend through the successive grades of societies with their successive grades of family, we find a further progress in the same direction. Human races of the lower types as compared with those of the higher, show us a greater sacrifice of the adult individual to the species; alike in the brevity of that stage which preceded reproduction, in the relatively-heavy tax entailed by the rearing of children under the conditions of savage 782 THl DOKESnC BILAIIOHB.
life^ and in the abridgment of the period that fdlows: women especially, early bearings children and exfaanabBd bj the toils of maternity, haying a premature old age soon cot short. In superior family-types there is also less sacrifice of juYonile life: -infimticidet, which in the poYerfy-atridkeo gronpB of primitiTe men is dictated bj the necessities of social self-preservation, becomes rarer; and jorenile mat- tality otherwise caused decreases at the same time. Fortber, along with the diminishing sacrifice of adult life there goes an increasing compensation for the sacrifice that has to be made: more prolonged and higher pleasures axe taken in rearing progeny. Instead of states in which childies are early left to provide for themselves, or in whicfa^ as among Bushmen, fathers and sons quarrelling try to kill one another, or in which, as Burton says of the Essfe Africans, *^ when childhood is past, the father and s<m become natural enemies, after the manner of wild beasts;' there comes a state in which keen interest in the welfare of children extends throughout parental life. And then to this pleasurable care of o&pring, increasing in duration as the family develops, has to be added an entirely new &ctor — ^the reciprocal pleasurable care of parents by offspring: a factor which, feeble where the &mily»i8 rudimentary am gaining strength as the family develops, serves in another way to lessen the sacrifice of the individual to the mam- tenance of the species, and begins, contrariwise, to xnak^ the maintenance of the species condnoe to the more pro- longed life, as well as to the higher life, of the individual- A fact not yet named remains. Evolution of the high^^ iypes of family, like evolution of the higher typos of society, has gone hand in hand with evolution of haxDan intelligence and feeling. The general truth that there exists a necessary oonnexion between the nature of i^ social unit and the nature of the social aggregate^ s^^ that each continually moulds and is moulded by, the others is a truth which holds of domestic organization as well as oi if 9> JXiiassnc nxsosFicr afd fbospect. 783 political orgaxuzaiion. The ideas and sentiments wliick make possible any more adranced pbase of associated life, whether in the Family or in the State, imply a pre- ceding phase by the experiences and discipline of which they were acquired; and these^ ftgaiuy a next preceding phase; and so from the beginning. On taming to the last part of the Principles of Psychology (edition of 1872), containing chapters on ''Development of Conceptions,' '' Sociality and Sympathy/' '' Ego- Altroistic Sentiments^ ''Altruistic Sentiments/' the reader will find it shown how the higher forms alike of intellect and feeling, made possible only by the social environment, evolve as this envi* ronment evolves-— each increment of advance in the one being followed by on increment of advance in the other. And carrying out this doctrine he will see that since altroison plnys an important part in developed family life, the higher domestic relations have become possible only as th& adi^ta^ tion of man to the social state has progressed.* f 337. In considering deductively the connexions be- tween the forms of domestic life and the forms of social life; and in showing how these are in each type of society related to one another becanse jointly related to the same type of individual character; it will be convenient to deal simultaneously with the marital arrangement, the family structure, the stains of women, and the status of children.
Primitive life, cultivating antagonism to prey and ene- mies, brute or human — daily yielding the egoistic satis- faction of conquest over alien beings which prove to be weaker— daily gaining pleasure from acts which entail pain; maintains a type of nature which generates coercive nde, social and domestic Brute strength glorying in the * As included in the general theory of the aduptation of organic bdnga to their cnrcamstanoea^ tins doctrine that the human mind, especially in its monl traits, is moulded by the social state, perrades Social St*iiie9; and is espedally insisted opon in the chapter entitled ** General Connideratioua."
78-i THX DOMBSnC RKLAnOBS.
predominanoe whicli brings hononr, and iincliedced hj re- gard for other's wel&re, seizes wbaterer womai fftncr prompts: adding to them and changing^ them at wOL And children^ at the mercy of this ntter selfishness, are preserved only when, and as fiir as, the instinct of parait- hood predominates, dearly^ then, weakness of the maritil relation, indefinite incoherent forms of family, harsh treat- ment of women^ and infanticide, are inevitable ooncomitaots of militancy in its extreme form.
The advance from these lowest social groape, hardly to be called societi^, to gronps that are larger^ or have more stmctare, or both, implies increased co-operation. This co- operation may be compnlsory or volontaiy, or it maj b^ and nsnally is, partly the one and partly the other. We have seen that great militancy implies predominance d compnlsory co-operation, and that great indosfcriahiess iin- plies predominance of Yolnntary co-operation. Here ve have to observe that it is deductively manifest, as we have fonnd it inductively trae, that the accompanying domestic relations are in each case congruous with the necessitated social relations. The individual nature which, exercising that despotic control, and submitting to that • extreme subjection, implied by pronounced militancy ^ developing societies, no less than the fostering of egoism and repression of sympathy by a life devoted to war, in- evitably determine the arrangements within the household as they do the arrangements without it. Hence the dis- regard of women's claims shown in stealing and baying them; hence the inequality of status between the sexes entailed by polygyny; hence the use of women as laboariBg slaves; hence the life and death power over wife and chUd; and hence that constitution of the family which subjects all its members to the eldest male. Conversely, tto type of individual nature developed by voluntary co-opera- tion in societies that are predominantly industrial, whet&er they be peaceful, simple tribes^ or nations that have ^ DOMESTIC BISTROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 785 great measure outgrown militancy^ is a relatively-altruistic nature. The daily habit of exchanging services^ or giving products representing work done for money represent- ing work done, is a habit of seeking such egoistic satis- faction as allows like egoistic satisfactions to those dealt Avith. There is an enforced respect for others' claims; there is an accompanying mental representation of their claims, implying, in so far, fellow-feeling 3 and there is an absence of those repressions of fellow-feeling involved by coercion. Necessarily, the type of character thus culti- vated, while it modifies social actions and arrangements^ modifies also domestic actions and arrangements. The discipline which brings greater recognition of the claims of fellow-men, brings greater recognition of the claims of women and children. The practice of consulting the wills of those with whom there is co-operation outside the household, brings with it the practice of consulting the wills of those with whom there is co-operation inside the household. The marital relation becomes changed from one of master and subject into one of approximately-equal partnership; while the bond becomes less that of legal authority and more that of affection. The parental and filial relation ceases to be a tyranny which sacrifices child to parent, and becomes one in which, rather, the will of tlio parent subordinates itself to the welfare of the child.
Thus the results deducible from the natures of militancy and industrialness, correspond with those which wo have found are, as a matter of fact, exhibited. And, as implying the directness of the alleged connexions, I may here add an instance showing that in the same society the domestic re- lations in the militant part retain the militant character, while the domestic relations in the industrial part are be- ginning to assume the industrial character. Commenting on the laws of inheritance in ancient France, as affecting children of different sexes and different ages, Eoenigswarter remarks that ^' it is always the feudal and noble families IKE 786 THE DOMXffnC B1L4LTI0NS.
which cling to the principle of ineqnalitj, while the of equality penetrate ererywhere into the roturiires and bourgeai»es{amiheH." Similarly Thierry, speaking of a new law of the thirteenth century, equalizing rights of property between the sexes and among children, says: — ^^ This law of the bourgeaislef opposed to that of the nobles, was dis- tinguished from it by its yery essence. It had for its basis natural equity/^ § 338. And now we come to the interesting question— what may be inferred respecting the future of the domestic relations? We have seen how the law of evolution in general, has been thus far fulfilled in the genesis of the family. We have also seen how, during civilization, there has been carried still further that conciliation of the in* terests of the species, of the parents, and of the offspring, which has been going on throughout organic evolution at large. Further we have noted that these higher traits in the relations of the sexes to one another and to children^ which have accompanied social evolution, have been made possible by those higher traits of intelligence and feeling produced by the experiences and disciplines of progressing social states. And we have lastly observed the connexions between special traits so acquired and special types of social structure and activity. Assuming, then, that evolution will continue along the same lines, let us consider what further changes may be anticipated.
It is first inferable that throughout times to come, the domestic relations of different peoples inhabiting different parts of the Earth, will continue to be unlike. We must beware of supposing that developed societies will become^ universal. As with organic evolution, so with super-organic evolution, the production of higher forms does not involve extinction of all lower forms. As superior species of animals, while displacing certain inferior species that com- pete with them, leave many other inferior species in pos- DOMESTIC BETBOSFSCT AND PSOSPECT. 78?
session of inf^^rior liabitats; so the superior types of socie- ties^ while displacing those inferior types occupyiiKg localities they can utilize^ will not displace inferior types inhabiting barren or inclement localities. Civilized peoples ore unlikely to expel the Esquimaux. The Fuegiana will probably survive^ because their island cannot support a civilized population. It is questionable whether the groups ' of wandering Semites who have for these thousands of years occupied Eastern deserts, will be extruded by societies of higher kinds. And perhaps many steaming malarious re* gions in the Tropics will remain unavailable by races capable of much culture. Hence the domestic, as well as the social, relations proper to the lower varieties of man, are not likely. to become extinct. Polyandry may survive in Thibet; polygyny may prevail throughout the future in parts of Africa; and among the remotest groups of Hyperboreans, mixed and irregular relations of the sexes will probably continue.
It is possible, too, that in certain regions militanqr may persist; and that along with the political relations natural to it there may survive the domestic relations natural to it. Wide tracts, such as those of North-Eastem Asia, unable to support populations dense enough to form industrial so- cieties of advanced types, will perhaps remain the habitats of societies having those imperfect forms of State and Family which go along with offensive and defensive activities.
QmittxDg such surviving inferior types, we may here limit ourselves to types carrying further the evolution which civilized nations now show us. Assuming that among these industrialism will increase and militancy decrease, we have to ask what are the domestic relations likely to co-exist with complete indostmlism* § 339. The monogamic form of the sexual relation is manifestly the ultimate form; and any changes to be antici- pated must be in the direction of completion and extension of it. By observing what possibilities there are of greater divergence from the arrangements and habits of the pasti we shall see what modifications are probable.
Many acts that are normal with the nncivilized, are, \n& the civilized^ transgressions and crimes. Promiiscmtyi once unchecked, has been more and more reprobated as societi^ have progressed; abduction of women, originally honourable, is now criminal; the marrying of two or more wives, al- lowable and creditable in inferior societies, has become in superior societies felonious. Hence, future evolution aloog lines thus far followed, may bo expected to extend the monogamic relation by extingaishing promiscuity, and by suppressing such crimes as bigamy and adultery. Dying' out of the mercantile element in marriage may also be inferred. After wife-stealing came wife-purchase; and tbei followed the usages which made, and continue to make, considerations of property predominate over consideratiois of personal preference. Clearly, wife-purchase and hus- band-purchase (which exists in some semi-civilized societies), though they have lost their original g^ss forms, persist in disguised forms. Already some disapproval of those who marry for money or position is expressed; and this, growing stronger, may be expected to purify the mono- gamic union by making it in all cases real instead of being in some cases nominal.
As monogamy is likely to be raised in character by a public sentiment requiring that the legal bond shall not b^ entered into unless it represents the natural bond; so, per- haps, it may be that maintenance of the legal bond will come to be held improper if the natural bond ceases- Already increased facilities for obtaining divorce point to the probability that whereas, in those early stages daring which permanent monogamy was being evolved, the union by law (originally the act of purchase) was regarded as the essential part of marriage and the union by affection as non-essential; and whereas at present the union by law is IX)KE8T[C BETROSPECT AND FBOSPECT. 789 thonght the more impoi*tant and the union by affection the less important; there will come a time when the union by affection will be held of primary moment and the union by law as of secondary moment: whence reprobation of marital relations in which the nnion by affection has dis* solved. That this conclusion will seem unacceptable to most is probable — ^I may say, certain. In passing judg- ment on any modified arrangement suggested as likely to arise hereafter, nearly all err by considering what would bo likely to i-esult from the supposed change, all other things remaining unchanged. But other things must be assumed to have changed pari passu. Those higher, sentiments accompanying union of the sexes, which do not exist among primitive men, and were less developed in early European times than now (as is shown in the contrast between ancient and modern literatures), may be expected to develop still more as decline of militancy and increase of industrialness foster altruism; for sympathy, which is the root of altruism, is a chief element in these sentiments. Moreover, with an increase of altruism must go a decrease of domestic dis- sension. Whence, simultaneously, a strengthening of the moral bond and a weakening of the forces tending to destroy it. So that the changes which may further &cilitate divorce under certain conditions, are changes which will make those conditions more and more rare.
There may, too, be anticipated a strengthening of that ancillary bond constituted by joint interest in children. In all societies this is an important factor, and has sometimes great effect among even rude peoples. Valkner remarks that although the Patagonian marriages ^' are at will, yet when once the parties are ag^ed, and have children, they seldom forsake each other, even in extreme old age.'' And this factor must become more efficient in proportion as the solicitude for children becomes greater and more pro- longed, as we have seen that it does with progressing civilization, and must continue to do.
790 THE DOMESTIC BEIATIOKS.
Bat leaving open the qaestion wliat modifications of monogamy conducing to increase of real cohesion rath^ Aan nominal cohesion^ are likely to arise^ there is one coo- dnsion we may draw wifch certainty. Recurring to the three ends to be subaerred in the order of their imporfeanc? — welfare of species, welfare of offspring, welfare of parents; and seeing that in the stages now reached by ciyilized peoples^ welfare of species is effectnally secured in so fcr as maintenance of numbers is concerned; the inaplication is that welfare of offspring must hereafter determine tbe course of domestic evolution. Societies which from gene- ration to generation produce in due abundance individuals who, relatively to tho requirements, are the best physicaJly, morally, and intellectually, must become the predominani societies; and must tend through the quiet process of industrial competition to replace other societies. Conse- quently, marital relations which fovour this result in the greatest degree, must spread; while the prevailing senti- ments and ideas must become so moulded into harmony with them that other relations will be condemned as im- moral.
§ 340. If, still guiding ourselves by observing the course of past evolution, we ask what changes in the status of women may be anticipated, the answer must be tha^ ^ further approach towards equality of position between the sexes will take place. With decline of militancy and rfeo of industrialness — with decrease of compulsory co-opera- tion and increase of voluntary co-operation — ^with strength- ening sense of personal rights and accompanying sympa- thetic regard for the personal rights of others; must go ft diminution of the political and domestic disabilities of women, until there remain such only as differences of con- stitution entail.
; To draw inferences more specific is somewhat hazardous: probabilities and possibilities only can be indicated. While DOMESTIC BBTSOSFECT AND FSOSl'KCT. 791 in some directions the emancipatioii of women has to be carried farther, we may snspect that in other directions their chums have already been pashed beyond the normal limits. If from that stage of primitive degradation in which they 'were habitually stolen, bought and sold, made beasts of burden, inherited as property, and killed at will, we pass to the stage America shows us, in which a lady wanting a seat stares at a gentleman occupying one until he surrenders it, and then takes it without thanking him; we may infer that the rhythm traceable throughout all changes has carried this to an extreme from which there will be a recoil. The like may be said of some other cases: what were originally concessions have come to be claimed as rights, and in gaining the character of assumed rights, have lost much of the grace they had as concessions. Doubtless, however, there will remain in the social relations of men and women, not only observances of a kind called forth by sympathy of the strong for the weak irrespective of sex, and still more called forth by sympathy of the stronger sex for the weaker sex; but also observances which originate in the wish, not consciously formulated but felt, to compensate women for certain disadvantages entailed by their constitutions, and so to equalize the lives of the sexes as far as possible.
In respect of domestic power, the relative position of wo- men will doubtless rise; but it seems improbable that abso- lute equality with men will be reached. Legal decisions from time to time demanded by marital differences, involving the question which shall yield, are not likely to reverse all past decisions. Evenly though law may balance claims, it will, as the least evil, continue to give, in case of need, supremacy to the husband, as being the more judicially-minded. And, fdmilarly, in the moxal relations of married life, the pre- ponderance of power, resulting from greater massivenass of nature, must, however unobtrusive it may become, con- tinue with the man.
792 THB DOnSTlC RELATIONS.
When we remember that np from the 'lowest savagery civilusatioii has^ among other resnlts^ brought about an increasing exemption of women from bread-winning labour^ and that in the highest societies they have become most restricted to domestic duties and the rearing of children; we may be struck by the anomaly that at the present time restriction to indoor occupations has come to be regarded as a grievanoey and a claim is made to free competition with men in all outdoor occupations. This anomaly is traceable in part to the abnormal excess of women; and obviously a state of things which excludes many women from those natural careers in which they are dependent on men for subsistencey justifies the demand for freedom to pursue independent careers. That any hindrances sti^nding in their way should be, and will be, abolished must be ad- mitted. At the same time it must be contended tliat no considerable alteration in the careers of women in general, can he, or should be, so produced; and further, that any extensive change in the education of women, made with the view of fitting them for businesses and professions, would be mischievous. If women comprehended all that is con- tained in the domestic sphere, they would ask no other. If