The conditions of the modern family, in the northern countries particularly, have in reality become almost artificial; and it seems probable that, in the near future, the family will be completely disintegrated.

In France, especially amongst the bourgeoisie, the family appears to me likely to remain for a long time what it has been heretofore, because it constitutes an association the members of which, closely grouped, protect their common interests, whether commercial or industrial.

This family, representing a society in the possession of property, will exist as long as its members, in virtue of their fellowship, preserve intact their old social conditions, each of them continuing to have an interest in the success of their common enterprise.

In Spain, where the Moorish government has left so many traces of its primitive organisation, the family still continues in a state of slavery, a state wherein the woman glories.

But the question here is not of these two particular cases, where the maintaining of the family group serves the interests of the man, the head, the master; for the family differs according to different centres, countries, customs, and castes.

To come to more general statements, we must first go back to the fountain-head, and consider the family in its evolution through the course of civilisation.

The family, as it first appears in the history of humanity, was a patriarchal association formed of the father, mother and children. There was no binding marriage, but repeated unions. The conditions were such that the women were for all men indiscriminately, and the children knew no father in particular. This state of things in many cases continued so long that the Christian Church was obliged, at its birth, to wink at this communism. Herodotus tells us that the children of the Lycians bore the name of their mother; Varro assures us that it was the same in Athens, and that the woman, being the producer of wealth, was the only one to inherit.

When polygamy began, the woman was reduced to a state of seclusion and often of slavery. Her part consisted principally in bringing children into the world, and her care of them was more through instinct than love.

As for the man, he sought nothing, as regarded the woman, but his own gratification, and concerned himself not at all about fatherhood.

Later on, through the growth of civilisation, monogamy decided the limits of the family and formed class groups; but gradually, these groups becoming mixed and losing their old characteristic of brotherhood, the conditions of the family became much modified.

The causes of this slow process of breaking up accumulated, according to the particular centre and to social degrees. In one place primogenitureship began to take to itself privileges; in another the paternal power lessened the mother’s authority over her daughters; everywhere there was a tendency towards emancipation, and, finally, in our own day, at the two poles of society, family conditions have become almost artificial.

The home peace is troubled, and even where there is no rupture between the husband and wife, there is mental friction between parents and children, between brothers and sisters, through the clash of opinion, mutual intolerance, and the collision of personal interests; it is rarely that harmony prevails in the household.

It must be said that the reasons for marriage are not the same as they were in the old days, when the bond was indissoluble, based on the instinct of ownership, on the government of a community. Besides, the marriage for love, the only one worthy of respect, has destroyed the original idea of the association, and, unable to guarantee its own continuance, calls for an adjustment of responsibilities by means of the law, so that the man shall no longer be the brutal master, and the woman—though she be more moral, more virtuous, and more temperate than he—humiliated and degraded. It has been said that it is enough for a woman to be beautiful and to be a mother. That is altogether absurd nonsense. The woman has a right to the complete development of her faculties, a right to bring into play all the resources of her being. Noble women have proved that, quite apart from maternity, they are fit to walk in the immortal footsteps of heroes, artists and thinkers, and every day we see women

becoming, in talent, energy, and patient determination, rivals of scientists, poets, and all who devote themselves to enterprise in the world of mind.

But, it may be said, such claims are contrary to the idea of the family. Not at all. The family, essentially modified, each member subject to the determinism of thought and ensuring the observance of mutual rights and duties, will only become a more beautiful institution than before, its children born of sincere love and no longer the product of undesirable or questionable unions based upon the interests of the strongest.