Social Functions of the Family

a) The Family and the Home

The family (father, mother, child or children) living together under one roof, make of their dwelling-place a shrine of the social virtues; they turn a house into a home. This is no matter of cheap sentiment, calling for tearful songs. It is a great and glorious fact, and upon its truly factual character rests, as upon the only adequate foundation, the structure of civilization and decent social life. It is only when the family forms a home that its indispensable social functions may be properly discharged. At the very beginning of this study we may remark that to the phrase which describes a home, viz., “the family living together under one roof,” we might properly add, “and within their own four walls.” It is possible, indeed, to find a true home in an apartment-house, or a flat, or a duplex, or a “double house,” or other structure meant to save ground and expense at the cost of human deprivation. But such a home is a hampered home. There is something in the human heart that calls for, if it does not absolutely require, a home-dwelling rooted like a living thing in the soil, with light and air about its corners, and walls like sturdy ramparts around the sacred shrine of domestic privacy. Nothing that mechanical and architectural genius has devised will quite do as an adequate substitute for this human need. There is something far more spiritually satisfying in the plainest family cottage than in the most expensively and elaborately appointed suite of rooms. No quantity of mere conveniences, no number of electrical devices for refrigeration, or sweeping, or washing, or controlling temperature, or boiling eggs, will make up to the family the lack of that elemental blessing—a house of their own, standing in its own grounds. And for the fulness of this blessing, the house and grounds must really be their own. The springing vine may mount high upon the wall that shelters many strangers; but deep roots of fruitful life are found only in the fragrant earth. When the home is the family’s own; when it stands upon its own bit of land; only then can the family find its true identity, strike its roots deeply, give to its members a sense of security and peace, and to society and the State the assurance of that stability and permanence which they require. Sociologists and economists have always to deal with the problem of “housing.” But, no matter what influences are working towards the establishment of more and more apartmentudwellings, and no matter what arguments are proffered to justify them, or explanations given to show that they are inevitable, the social desideratum is still summed up in the phrase, “Every family in its own house on its own grounds.” Only when the family is so situated, may the home function perfectly as the most essential of purely human social institutions. Within the home itself, the interaction of the members of the family constitutes a basic social function; for, while the family is the “social cell,” it is also a society in itself. The first social function of the family is that of protecting its members and of affording them the normal human requirements. We shall briefly consider this function of the family with reference to its several members.—(cr) The child has a claim to a normal home. It is to find its support, protection, and training at the hands of father and mother. And the child can find these requisites perfectly only in a monogamous home, where the parents are united in exclusive, permanent, and faithful wedlock. Homes broken by divorce or desertion; homes stained by infidelity of spouses; homes spoiled by the nauseating contagion of Birth Control, do incalculable damage to the child. For, while grace and individual free-will can conquer all disadvantages, it is still true that, in general, the failure of the home means the failure of the child. Thus the sociologist perceives that those who preach the lawfulness of divorce with remarriage, and those who favor Birth Control, sin gravely against the sacred interests of the child. Without a normal home a child is almost sure to lack the equipment necessary to make him a valuable member of society; and, while the child does not exist for society, it has a place in society and a stern duty to fill that place properly. If civilization is to endure and to improve, if human well-being is to be served, the claims and rights and interests of the child must be regarded as of paramount social importance; and to meet these claims and rights, and to serve these interests, a normal and enduring home is requisite. The sociologist has, therefore, the duty of bending his efforts towards the conserving and upbuilding of normal home life. But no merely secular plan or program will be of very great service in this matter; the direct aid of religion must be engaged to make the home what it should be, so that the child may be what he should be. The Catholic Church stands before the world as the grandest of social agencies, the best of social servants. For the Church with her divinely established Sacrament of Matrimony; her unswerving requirement of unity, indissolubility, and fidelity in marriage; her incessant preaching of the duties of parents in pulpit and confessional, is the champion and savior of homes, and the indispensable guardian of childhood. Is it any wonder that we call the Church by the affectionate title of “Our Holy Mother”?—(&) The mother finds in the family and the home her glory, her kingdom, and her bulwark of safety and protection. There is little of the panoply of medieval chivalry about the modern home; little display of its sacred affections before the eyes of the world. And yet the essential chivalry is there. The lady has her knight, her sworn lover and protector. For her he labors; her safety is his dear concern; her fidelity, his joy to serve and his recognized duty to cherish and defend. The true home is a haven of safety to the wife and mother. In this day of loose morals and lost ideals, when so many women have damaged their sweet gentleness and cast away their ennobling dignity, one may expect but scoffing laughter at the mention of “the weaker sex.” But, despite co-education and its illegitimate offspring, the athletic woman, it remains true that woman is normally physically weaker than man. And in the play of passion, she is the prey and man the attacker. She is, therefore, at a disadvantage and requires defence. And in the home she has her defender. Woman is, in a spiritual way, a tower of mighty strength; but she is a strong citadel to be defended, even while her strength and her power are the inspiration of those who ward off her enemies. The permanent home, the product of monogamous marriage with all its attributes, is a real necessity for the wife and mother. Without mothers, the race would perish. Therefore, what serves to cherish and protect motherhood renders an essential social service. And such service is not rendered by temporary marriages, or marriages to be broken by divorce, or marriages to be stained and rendered loveless by Birth Control. Only true marriage— monogamous, exclusive, permanent, faithful—can establish a socially valuable family. Only such a marriage can protect and defend the mother and render her the normal human requirements. And, therefore, in such a marriage we discern a social institution that is absolutely requisite.—(c) The father finds in the family the steadying and stabilizing influence which ennobles his manhood, makes him a responsible man and citizen, and turns the tendencies of his nature from what is low and gross. The true, monogamous family safeguards the dignity of the father. It affords him inspiration and incentive for activity valuable to himself, his wife, his children, and the community at large. Such a family makes, through its influence upon the father, for a worthy and healthy propagation of the human race. It wards off from mankind the evils of illegitimacy, widespread prostitution, resultant disease, and the debasing of human character. Thus we see that the social function of the family, directly with reference to its own members, and, through them, to society at large, is a most potent function, and, at the same time, one of incalculable importance. Sane sociology must look, first and foremost, towards the establishment of normal family life in normal homes. For if this be lacking, or impossible of achievement, the effort of sociology is doomed to failure at the outset, and all “science of human social welfare” becomes illusory and the baseless figment of a dream. The family conducts the business of living, according to standards of decency, effectiveness, love, and interest, in a manner impossible to any other institution. It is a veritable school for life, and so it is the training-ground for the members of society and for society itself. Where, but in the life of home and family, with its loving yet authoritative and most effective government, could children learn justice, generosity, forbearance, unselfishness, sacrifice of their own likes and preferences? The give-andtake of family life trains children in these essentials for individual and social decency. And the records of courts and reformatories are eloquent in their strong declaration that where normal family life is denied to children, we may expect delinquencies, injustice, and even crime, in their adolescent and adult life. Ordinarily we do not find such anti-social activities in the children of normal homes, that is, of homes established by monogamous, exclusive, permanent, and faithful marriage. The monogamous home is in very truth “the social school.” Even in point of sheer economics, the family is the most effective agency in existence, and thus serves society by keeping down public expense, and also by affording it a working-model which it may often follow in handling general public problems. The maintenance of a child in terms of dollars and cents comes to much less in a normal home than in any public or charitable institution—to something less than one-fourth as much, in fact. The homegroup is a model economic group. Here we find adequate division of labor, together with loving interest in the work, inspiration and spirit in the service. Who does not know how wonderfully well the prudent housewife can manage on a comparatively small income ? But this economic wonder is observed only when spouses are bent upon the business of a whole lifetime, not looking forward to a break or interruption. In other words, the family operates as a model economic unit only when it is a true and monogamous family. If all marriages resulted in the establishment of such families, there would not be, as now there is, consternation among employers at the mention of “a living family wage for every worker,” nor would there be declarations of the impossibility of paying such a wage when its amount is presented in figures by calculators and statisticians. On the other hand, if it were not for the fact that so many families are decent and normal, and thus situated for solidly economical functioning, society would be quickly made bankrupt, and civilization would be lost in predatory savagery. Here once more the sociologist sees how fundamentally necessary are the social functions of the normal family. Here again he discerns his noble task of fostering normal family life and of battling against the destructive forces of divorce, infidelity, and irresponsible sexuality‘ To exercise what may be called its intramural functions with full force, vigor, and effect, the family normally requires more than one child. And as the extramural, or fully social, functions of the family depend absolutely upon the intramural, the importance for society of these latter activities is instantly apparent. Where there is only one child, the give-and-take of home life is much restricted, and the social education which depends upon this function is accordingly denied. Only a group of brothers and sisters, living under the loving and alert care of devoted parents, can make the home ideal and produce ideal social results. The only child is usually a selfish and self-willed child. Two or three children are hardly enough to give to each the requisite training in sacrifice, self-repression, forbearance, and just dealing with others—all virtues socially essential. A family of boys alone is apt to lack that refinement and spirit of chivalry without which true civilization cannot exist. A family of girls alone is likely to exhibit selfishness, shrewishness, and jealousy. Of course, parents are not the creators of their children, and they have no choice in the matter of the sex of their offspring. But the providence of God is over all, and if some families are denied children, and if others have not the balanced proportion of boys and girls which they desire, these defects may be discounted by the wise devotion and instruction of prudent parents. Even where there is a desirable and sufficiently large group of brothers and sisters, neglect and weakness on the part of parents can spoil the normal social fruits of the home. But the fact remains that the ideal home-group is a group made up of father, mother, several sons, and several daughters. The foundation of family social service is love, particularly the love of parents for each other and for their children, although the love among brothers and sisters is by no means unimportant or even unessential. Now, the only expression that true love knows, is sacrifice and the spirit of service which its object demands. The married life is a very hard and self-sacrificing life, and, while it has its beautiful consolations and is meant to be a continuously happy state, its consolations and its happiness can come only from the selfless devotion of parents, and especially mothers, to the unfailing bearing of its burdens and the unflinching meeting of its exactions. Persons who marry for their romance alone, or for ease, or social position, or comfort and convenience, will not found true and socially serviceable homes. The girl who expects with marriage a house wellfurnished, a garage supplied with modish motors, a bank account of her own for requirements of elaborate dress and the payment of bridge-debts, a social calendar fully dated, and a husband as a minor appurtenance, will not make a sociologically successful wife and mother. But there are no such girls, one says. Here is an excerpt from a boiled-down edition of an article by the Professor of Economics at Mount Holyoke College (Reader’s Digest, June 19345 condensed from Current History): “In the prosperous late 1920’s… it seemed that for every graduate of the women’s colleges there was waiting around the corner a bond-salesman husband, a honeymoon trip to Europe, and a three-car garage. But in the 1930’s… there are many long years through which young people must wait for even a one-car garage.” Here be high ideals for the prospective bride! The garage is more than the home, and the bond-salesman more than the husband! What prospects are here indicated for the true home, the home which is the temple of undying self-sacrifice and devotion, the home which is to shelter children and train them, and save humanity for decency and civilization? Truly, the high humanity of our ideals has been, in many quarters, strangely debased. The establishing of a family is not, in these days of industrialism, without its considerable expense. Indeed, the money question presents the most common, and the most stubborn, difficulty to those who contemplate marriage and to married couples who weakly wish to be dutiful, but lack the sense to call upon God’s help and to trust His providence. Yet this difficulty is outrageously exaggerated. Many, if not most, of the solidly established families of what is often called “the middle class” are the product of marriages entered upon with a bare minimum of essentials. Husband and wife, with but a room or two, and the simple requisites for clean and decent living, worked together in a spirit of sacrifice, and built tip the home, taking the children as God sent them, and meeting each day’s difficulties as they came. And such marriages were almost invariably happy, and eventually prosperous, even in a material sense. There was then no ardent expectation on the part of the prospective bride of a three-car garage, or a one-car garage, or a bond-salesman. If a man had a steady job, even though a poorly paid one, he did not delay to marry. And he was right, as events have amply proved. But the spirit of our day is, on the one hand, an influence for prodigality, expansiveness, and expense; and, on the other, of a too canny consideration of material prospects for the future. Voltaire’s sneering witticism about the foibles of his day, “Le superflu, chose si necessaire,” is, it appears, a simple statement of fact in our own times. Young people, rapidly losing claim to the adjective, see the years come and go, and still postpone marriage because sufficient money is not in sight. Meanwhile, there is little planning or sacrifice to garner the amount foolishly supposed to be necessary. The young lady must have her flowers, and her candy, and her dances, and her theatre parties. The young man must maintain a “car,” must show himself a good spender. Both dress in an expensively stylish manner. The marriage is indeed intended, but it continues to be indefinitely postponed, while the parties concerned make little or no sacrifice to bring it to definiteness and actuality. Foolish parents, forgetful of the true happiness of their own days of struggle, declare that their children must not have the hardships which they experienced, and encourage the meaningless and fruitless delay. Another difficulty, allied closely with that just mentioned, comes from the fact that many girls are gainfully employed in offices and shops, and they find it hard to give up the “independence” which comes with one’s own pay-check. Sometimes, with the foolish notion that they can have their cake and eat it too, they marry and still retain their position. This, for the couple, and for its social force and influence, is an unmitigated evil. It makes, on the one hand, for slighted duties in the home, and is a strong incentive to the filthy evil of Birth Control; on the other hand, it robs the husband of selfrespect, for it shows him to be an incompetent, and it encourages in the wife a spirit of overbearing pride towards her spouse. Children—if such couples permit them to be conceived and born—are robbed of their natural heritage of a normal home, and are doomed to suffer neglect and an improper rearing. Far better a home maintained in grinding poverty, the husband earning what he can, and the wife and mother devoted exclusively to her indispensably important duties in the bosom of the family, than ease and affluence with both spouses gainfully employed, while essential duties are left undone and children are unnaturally orphaned. Too much stress cannot be laid upon the advisability (even the necessity) of early marriage. The money difficulty, the reluctance of the woman to leave her salaried position, the selfish unwillingness of young people to make a definite decision which involves finality and sacrifice, the willingness of couples to prolong the pleasant term of courtship— all these are evil influences, not only for the persons concerned, but for society as well; they are definitely anti-social in character. For early marriage is in accordance with nature, and is normally fruitful. Couples who marry in youth have usually the opportunity of rearing their family to full maturity. Women are normally best prepared for motherhood in their last ’teens or early twenties; later, they enter upon the duties of this sacred state with greater difficulty and sometimes with considerable (albeit perfectly justifiable) risk. And there are few sadder sights than that of an aging father playing the role of Foxy Grandpa to his first offspring, especially if he forgets to be what nature means and what the child wants—a father—and essays (poor addlepated dotard) to be to his child that revoltingly unnatural thing, “a pal.” Notable among the many influences which bear strongly upon selfishness and unworthy ambition to prevent early marriages is modern higher education, particularly co-education of college or university grade. So many years are taken for the mechanical amassing of credits; so little attention is paid to the native abilities and attainments of the individual, that education for the professions is becoming more and more of a life-time occupation. Suppose a lad wishes to become a physician. Finishing gradeschool at thirteen, let us say, he spends four years in high school, four years (unless he follows a scamped course in pre-medics) in college, and three or four years in university. Now, at twenty-five, he enters upon an interneship of one or two years. At twenty-seven, he is permitted by law to hang out his shingle and to begin the weary work of setting up a practice. Normally, he will be well over thirty before he is able to marry and support a family. And consider the girl, victim of a school psychologist or vocational guide. Her maidenly heart is set upon winning a Ph.D., perhaps—only Heaven knows why. Or she will be a lady lawyer, it may be.

School, high school, college, university—twenty long years of sitting on oaken school benches, and she is qualified for her profession. Manifestly, she means to work at it, after such a weary period of preparation. And so she moves gracefully into her thirties before she is willing to entertain any serious thought of marriage. And when she comes to marriage, she comes under great handicaps. She is physically not at her best for the duties of the married state; she has no training in the matter of home-building; she has a wrong scale of values, for she has given years to technical training in courses poorly suited to her sex, and has allowed the great purpose of her earthly being to be put into the background as relatively unimportant. Co-educational universities have been mentioned as especially anti-social in their influence for late marriage; and with reason. For, very frequently, attachments leading to marriage are formed on the campus. Mary (or would it be Jacqueline?) will not think of hampering John’s (or Bernie’s) career by marrying him and imposing the domestic burden upon his athletic shoulders before he takes his degree and becomes established. Meanwhile the courtship continues. And since long courtships— especially such as are marked by the daily meetings and unchaperoned intimacies which campus-life encourages—are notoriously dangerous, the couple are fortunate indeed if they come through it unscathed and unstained. Human welfare is offended by unlawful sexuality, and by the needless risk of it; human welfare is hurt by late marriages, normally of little fruit. And thus the influences here discussed deserve the name of anti-social factors in modern life. Co-education is anti-social in another way, too: it is founded on the wholly inadmissible assumption of equality in the sexes. Things complementary, as the sexes are; things necessary to each other, yet essentially different in structure and function, cannot be equal. Neither can they be unequal. There is no equality in the lock and the key. There is no inequality in the relations of violin and bow. These (like the sexes) are simply different things, each of which is required in a work of mutual service, and each of which has its own distinct and distinctive function. You can train men and women together for the professions, but you cannot train them together for life. Co-education does not look to life; it looks to the professions. And in this it is worldly and materialistic; it knows no goal or heaven but success in matters of money or position in polite society. And since all agencies of true social service must look to man’s earthly welfare, as seen in the white light of his eternal destiny, co-education is manifestly not such an agency; on the contrary, it is anti-social. Colleges for women are not entirely without fault for their neglect of the essential training which girls require. Girls need to be trained for life, and not for a position merely. They need careful instruction and guidance in the high meaning and purpose of their existence. They need to be trained with a view to their work of building homes, of discharging worthily the duties of motherhood, of devoting themselves to their divinely given task with that unsparing self-sacrifice which is not only the glory of their sex, but the solitary hope of humanity. And they will not receive this training in a few classhours of “domestic science.” Nor will they gather a hint of it from courses that are frankly patterned after professional curricula suitable for men. There may be justification for the too-ready criticism of old-fashioned institutions for “female education,” where girls learned to play the harp, and to paint on silk, and to do miracles of fine needlework. But such institutions, however defective, did stress things distinctively feminine; they did train women to be womanly; and so they served souls and served human society. The sane sociologist will not raise the banner of revolution in the world of business, industry, and education, to the end that we may have more early and fruitful marriages and more saving home-life. But he will work perseveringly to that end by effecting such gradual adjustments and changes as are possible without depriving women of their livelihood or suddenly turning their educational institutions topsy-turvy. His work must be the more gradual and politic for the fact that it is almost impossible to present arguments in this matter without arousing bitterness and unpleasant personalities. Yet the personalities, as is usual with such things, are likely to be as unjust as they are bitter. The Christian sociologist does not deny that many homes have been maintained by the gainful occupation of women, that many are so maintained to-day, and would not be maintained at all if women could not hold salaried positions or earn daily wages. He does not deny that many and many a professional man has achieved his present place by reason of the loving generosity, and the earnings, of devoted sisters. He does not deny that the college-trained woman of business, or the laboring woman, works tirelessly— and for much less than would be paid to a man in the same employment—for noble ends: for the support of parents, or the maintenance of younger brothers and sisters. The objection of the sociologist to the unnatural function of women in industry and business (and in most professions) does not touch these fine things at all, and is not answered by calling them to his attention. For the sociologist recognizes and appreciates these things. He objects, not to persons and their high purposes, but solely to the abnormal state of social affairs which makes it necessary for women to hold a place in the ranks of wage-earners. It is not the fact that Mary’s earnings are putting brother Johnny through college (even if Johnny were better out of college, which is frequently the case) that stirs the true sociologist to opposition; the sociologist has nothing but the deepest admiration for Mary and for her selfless devotion. But he does object to the social situation which requires such work and such ill-paid sacrifice. Mary putting Johnny through college is a noble Mary. But Mary, given her rightful opportunity of marrying young and of rearing her own Johnny, not at the cost of earnings, but at the incalculable cost of her very self and all her powers, is a much more noble Mary, a sublime Mary. Industrial life has robbed us of the power to estimate realities clearly, even as the smoke of the industrial era has robbed our bodily eyes of unclouded vistas. We have come to measure everything—even souls and their destiny —in terms of figures on a pay-check. Now, it is not well for us that this is so; it is not well for individual images of God, and it is not well for society. Therefore, the sane sociologist, setting his face against this evil situation, will labor in season and out of season to effect salutary changes. He will not seek to have women thrown out of their employments; he will not, with titanic effort, upset the curricula of women’s colleges. But he will labor tirelessly to get current the conviction that present-day conditions are not admirable or desirable; that; if society owes every man the opportunity of earning an income sufficient for himself and for founding and maintaining a family, society owes every woman the opportunity of concurring in this necessary and exacting social function. Not, indeed, that every woman is called to the married life. Some are called to the glory and the sacrifice of consecrated virginity. Some are, physically, not equipped for the exactions of married life. Some (to speak bluntly) are not asked to undertake it. But all these constitute so small a minority that their case may be called exceptional. That is to say, normally and naturally these women constitute a very small minority. Thanks to the office, and the factory, and the professions, and the modern technical training of women, the minority has become something like a parity in our unnatural times, or even a majority. Now, the sociologist has to turn the minds of human beings against what is unnatural and abnormal. And, even in normal social situations he must first attend to what is requisite for the race in general, and then, if need be, he will consider the matter of exceptions. Meanwhile he must not be dismayed nor thwarted by the current unsound argument which employs personal and sentimental appeals for the maintenance of an evil status quo. One sociological writer has declared: “It would be silly to think that all working women and girls could be sent back to the home to spend their time in idleness, deprived of the necessaries and decencies and conveniences of life.” Quite silly, indeed. Almost as silly, in fact, as to make such a shortsighted and inconsequential statement. The work of the true sociologist—he it repeated—does not consist in getting women and girls discharged. His work is the spreading and—in a good sense—the popularizing of the true philosophy of life. It is his hope, of course, that the office-girl and the factory-woman will one day cease to be servile factors in the social tangle. But he sees very clearly that that day is far off, generations off in fact. And he has no intention of committing girls and women to idleness and want. What he seeks is a fundamental adjustment, which will put society into its natural and divinely intended order, thus insuring its permanence and preventing the ruin which existing conditions, if long continued and aggravated, are sure to bring to social peace and stability, and to civilization itself. No, the sociologist does not seek to have women discharged; he seeks to inaugurate socially healthful trends which will bring about (after much time, no doubt) the liberation of women from the enslaving conditions which obtain at the present time, and the establishment of women, not in idleness and want, but in dignity and honor, in the busy, active, selfsacrificing functions of the normal home. This fine objective cannot be attained by so simple a procedure as that apparently envisioned by the author from whom quotation was made at the head of this paragraph. It will be the outcome of many and various changes, of changes “all along the line,” as the saying is; it will be the fruit of far-reaching social adjustments. But the point is that these changes must eventually be made, and these adjustments must be effected, if society is to endure. It is a difficult and a graceless task to explain to a working woman that the employment to which she gives her time, her strength, and her very life, so that she may live decently and support her dependents, is not a socially serviceable thing. Nor, indeed, would it be quite accurate to put the matter in such blunt terms. The difficulty is the greater, as we have indicated, for the fact that the woman in question is almost sure to regard the argument or explanation as impertinent and offensive to her personally. But, somehow or other, women must be led to consider this matter dispassionately and impersonally. For there is a great social evil here, a radical evil, a truly calamitous evil; and women must somehow be got to see it, and to work for its eradication. If you tell a modern business woman that over nine millions of women are working for wages in America at this minute, she is apt to say, “Well, what of it?” If you add that of these nine millions, over two millions are married women, most of them with children, she may reply, “Who will support the children if the mother does not work?” If you tell her that most women employees are outrageously overworked, many of them unsuitably employed, and that married women in industry inevitably neglect home duties, she may say, “A person must take what she can get; and a woman can’t be everywhere at once.” If you explain that the employment of women means the enforced idleness of many ablebodied men who could, if given the opportunity, marry and support a family, she may answer, “Too bad; if the great, hulking creatures had any spirit, they could get employment.” If you patiently explain that many close-fisted employers are only too glad to have the cheaper and often far more effective labor of women, she may pridefully declare, “Of course; everybody knows that women are more intelligent and clever than men. Why shouldn’t employers hire them?” If you show her that the employment of women in business and industry means a growing dearth of women for work which they alone can do, she is likely to turn scornful and say, “Oh, you mean housework. Well, let the girl who likes be a kitchen-slavey for starvation wages and the abuse of snobbish housewives. I’ll stick to the office.” If you point out the fact that the seeming independence of women workers implants wrong ideals in the minds of young girls, she may exclaim, “Do you mean to say that I3m a bad example to the young?” If you indicate the fact that the employment of women loosens home-ties and often disrupts the family, she may flatly refuse to believe it, and may quote you rapidly a list of a dozen families that have not been harmfully affected by the fact that the daughters go out daily to work. If you argue that it is unnatural, and unfair to both parties concerned, for men and women to compete for the same positions, she may answer, “So that’s it! The men, poor dears, know that they are unequal to the competition, and they ask us to retire from the field! Fine chance!” Your objections have all been answered; but your objections have not been met. Not one of them has been met. But the fact that valid arguments can be answered so glibly, and with such plausible reason, indicates at once the difficulty of making requisite social adjustments, and the difficulty of making the average working woman recognize the fact that such adjustments must be made. Nor will it avail to preach to the modern working woman on the subject of marriage and homebuilding. She will say, “Well, what am I to do about it? Can I go into the street and throttle the first eligible man who passes, and force him to marry me?” As Shylock says, “What! Are you answered?” But the sociologist is not answered. Discouraged he well may be, but not answered in the sense of being silenced, or, what is much worse, converted to the belief that any social evil is a matter of fated necessity, a thing as inevitable as death and taxes. He knows perfectly well that the function of women in business, industry, and most of the professions, is an unnatural function, and therefore a function that must not permanently endure. He knows that the employment of large numbers of women is the biggest obstacle in the way of establishing a living, marrying, family wage for men. He knows that there is a sound psychological or spiritual reason for the fact (and it is a fact) that the woman “with a job” has far less opportunity than the home-girl for early and desirable marriage. He knows that, because a woman is naturally whole-souled and self-sacrificing, she will bring these fine qualities to “the job,” thus misdirecting their use and debasing them, for they are meant for family-life and the good of mankind, not for factory-life or office-life and the good of capitalistic employers. And in the face of this knowledge, the Christian sociologist will not weakly surrender to the charge of impertinence, gracelessness, or even ingratitude, when he calls attention to the fundamentally anti-social character of women’s labor in business, industry, and the professions. But what plans has the sociologist to offer ? What program has he to suggest? Many plans and many programs, some of them valuable, some of doubtful worth. These range all the way from the establishing by law of a minimum living family wage for men, to the founding of pensions and dower-funds for women. But, as we have many times insisted, the question here pondered is not to be solved by the sudden application of a ready-made set of rules or plans or laws. The present work of the sociologist is to make people recognize the fact that the industrial and professional work of women is basically a harmful thing for the women themselves, and so for the human race. Once this truth is fully and generally grasped, we may look for a general social reconstruction—and it must be general— which, if it come gradually and not with destructive revolutionary swiftness, will bring human energies once more to the service of real human needs. Meanwhile it will not do to taunt the sociologist and deride his efforts because there is not available an obvious program of reform, definite in every detail and wholly practicable. To do so would be to act in the foolish manner of the sick man who should say to his physician, “But after I get rid of this fever, what will there be for me to do?” There is such a thing as social health, only most of us have forgotten, or have never learned, what it is. And social health, like bodily health, is a thing desirable in itself. The normal person will know well enough how to put it to use and to enjoy it, once he has got it. Here, as in the face of every radical and subtle social evil, the main effort of the sociologist must be to revive and foster among men the truly Christian concept of life and the proper estimation of the principle of human dignity. Men must be taught to recognize, not the “equality” of the sexes, but their essential diversity, together with the absolute equality of human value in man and woman, boy and girl and infant, and the indispensable human requirement of normal home-life.

Passing now from the absorbing yet difficult subject of women’s labor and its effect upon the home and family, we turn briefly to another question touching the family and the home. We ask, “Is the modern home a home or merely a boarding-house ?” Far too many parents, and far too many children, make the family residence a place in which to eat and sleep, a place in which they expect eventually to be sick and to die; but they do not make it a place in which to live. When evening comes, both parents and children in far too many families “go to places and do things.” There is a feverish unrest in young and old. To “stay at home” is a kind of sentence and punishment, not frequently to be endured. The evening hours do not find the modern American family united in that peaceful, delightful companionship in the privacy of the home, which poets and patient mothers used to call the acme of human happiness here upon earth. If grave Alice pops in for the children’s hour, she is far too likely to find that Father has popped out to his club, or has gone, to restore his fatigued mental tissues, to a musical review. If laughing Allegra comes all prepared to spend an evening with Mother, she may have to do her laughing in solitude, while Mother views the movies, or boosts the attendance at some local meeting of matrons for “social uplift”! If Edith expects caressing fingers to toy with her golden hair, she may find herself driven to seek the services of a marcel-artist. But it is not likely that the modern Alice, Allegra, and Edith will notice their deprivation of family joys. Most probably the girls are “dated up” for every evening. You will find them, duly squired, in motor-twosomes on the highways, or, perhaps, “flinging a dashed efficient shoe” in some wayside dance-parlor, with jazz-orchestra in attendance and beer on tap. And if you expect to see them ascending the broad hall-stair, you are recommended to choose for your expectant vigil the darkest hour that’s just before the dawn. This sort of thing is not, thank heaven, the usual or average “family-life” of America, but it is extremely common, particularly in cities and larger towns. And, even in families of young children, it is quite customary for parents and children to spend two or three evenings every week at the motion-pictures, or to seek escape from the home in aimless touring of streets and roadways in the family car. Now, all this is of great significance for humanity, for society, and it must engage the earnest attention of the student of sociology. This restlessness and this abandonment of peaceful, quiet home-life, bodes ill for society. It inordinately develops the love of pleasure. It induces an actual fever of selfishness in the quest for fresh entertainment. It loosens the saving and sanctifying ties of home. It kills the native ability of young and old to make their own entertainment, and teaches them that the only pleasures worth while are those bought for money. It makes strongly for mental and spiritual dissipation. It spoils the fine spirit,of altruism and sacrifice upon which man’s earthly welfare depends, and encourages young and old in the belief that the end of existence is that cheapest and most debasing of all cheap things, “a good time.” Almost the only effective agency at work to-day against the social evil here considered is the Catholic Church, with her wondrous Sacraments that sanctify the home, and her ceaseless admonitions which keep young and old reminded of the duties of “their particular state of life,” and which warn all mankind that we have not here a lasting city, but seek one that is to come. The student of sociology cannot make a more valuable contribution to the work of serving human welfare than a strong personal determination to appreciate his home, to spend as much time as he can there, and to encourage brothers and sisters to do the same. The government of the home, by natural as well as divine ordinance, is vested first and foremost in the husband and father. With him the wife and mother holds an equal dignity, but the husband has the place of command. He is to remember that his wife is not his servant, but his full equal, and the primacy of authority that is vested in him is not a matter for boasting or ostentation, but a stern and exacting responsibility. The wife and mother is second in command. Parents who allow their children to take over the control of family-life, and to dictate its program, fail in their duty, and almost certainly bring ruin to the home-life. Therefore parents who seek to serve God, their own interests, and the welfare of their children and of all society, will take their duties seriously, enforce their gentle rule effectually, and abandon the modern notion that sentimental softness and the effort to be the “pals” of their children will constitute a full discharge of their duty. This notion of being “pals” with one’s children is a malignant and disgusting social evil. And no one more than the normal child wants his parents to be. parents, and not “pals.” There is a certain dignity of position and office in the status of parents which the child has a normal right, and a natural desire, to see manifested. One final word about the family and the home. We have seen in another place that divine grace is a most potent factor in the shaping of human lives. It is, therefore, the part of the scientific sociologist to promote practices that win this grace for men and for families. Now, there is no means of grace but prayer and, for Catholics, the Sacraments.

Christian parents who hope for normal home-life will not neglect the duty of prayer—personal prayer and family prayer. This is a plain duty, not only to God and to children, but to society. And Catholic parents will not fail to go with their children, to receive, frequently and fervently, the divinely bestowed food of souls in Holy Communion. The Catholic home, the members of which are faithful to personal and family prayer and to the devout and frequent reception of the Sacraments, is a home where peace has a chance to dwell in the midst of the insane modern restlessness; it is a home in which uncharity does not make the staple of conversation; in which selfishness is not the motive of activity, nor meanness the principle of domestic rule. Such a home is the hope of society. Now, all this is not a paragraph borrowed from a book of devotions; it is strictly in place in a manual of scientific sociology. Students of sociology will please see that this fact is not discounted or discredited.

b) The Family and the State

The family is the social unit, the “social cell.” And just as sound living tissue, just as organ, and limb, and the whole living body, depend for structure and function upon healthy cell-life, so does the community or State depend for sound structure and normal function upon healthy family-life. But the value of the biological metaphor ceases here. For while the cell in a living body exists for the body and to serve its functions, the family does not exist for the community or State. On the contrary, the State exists for the family and for the individual human person. This being clearly understood, there are nevertheless duties as well as rights which individuals and families have with reference to the State or civil power. The rights of the civil power or State with regard to the family have their origin in the fact that the State is a collection of families. Peace and good order are to be maintained for the sake of the many, and are not to be disrupted at the pleasure of one or a few families. Hence in maintaining its rights in matters touching the family, the State (within the due bounds of its just authority) is fostering and protecting the rights of all families. Thus the State is the servant of families, and not their owner or absolute master. The State has, for example, the right to regulate marriage and the founding of families in so far as civil and purely social circumstances and effects are concerned. Thus the civil power can lawfully require persons wishing to marry to procure a license and to have their marriage entered on the public records. Further, the State may justly require parents to give their children the minimum education requisite for their normal social equipment. Again, in cases where the ignorance, negligence, or inability of parents works definite injustice to children in point of health, employment, or moral training, the State may intervene to right the wrong and see justice done. But in this latter function the State must proceed with the utmost care and caution, not exceeding its role of true servant of families and individuals. The faulty theories of modern materialistic sociology, coupled with the impertinence and fussiness of many social workers and civil officials, often lead to abuses in this matter, and to open oppression of the poor. Therefore, the right of the State to intervene in family affairs is not to be invoked easily or arbitrarily. Such intervention is lawful only when it is manifestly necessary to prevent or remove definite injustice. Even then, it must remain within its limits as a help to those whom it serves, and not expand its powers possessively to the detriment of human liberty. The family has rights of its own which the civil power is bound to respect. For the family is not a State institution; it is anterior to the State, and its rights are not derived from the State. Hence it would be unjust and tyrannous on the part of the State to usurp control over matters of fundamental family right. The family has, for example, the right to freedom of conscience and religion, and with this right the State cannot justly interfere. If the family, however, manifests its religion by outward practices harmful to public peace or sound morality (nudism, for instance, or polygamy) these may be justly prevented by the civil power. But over the consciences of its citizens the State exercises no lawful control. Nor is the State justified in bringing influences to bear upon the religious convictions of its citizens, prohibiting, for example, the attendance of children at religious or private schools. So long as such schools are equipped to give pupils adequate training and instruction for the ordinary civil and social requirements of life, they have every right to exist, and parents must be allowed to send their children to them, if they so desire. State interference in this matter has been effectually snubbed in America by the decision of the United States Supreme Court, handed down June i, 1925, in settlement of the Oregon case. A law passed in Oregon in 1922 requiring all children of elementary school age to attend State schools (commonly but improperly called “public schools”) was declared unconstitutional. Another instance of family right is that of the transfer of property to children by way of inheritance. With this basic family right the State cannot lawfully interfere, although it may place a heavy tax on abnormally large inheritances, the maintenance of which within small groups of relatives would constitute a definite menace to public welfare. The family must be properly considerate of all other families, and therefore it must be a conservative and reasonable unit of society, eager for the fulfillment of all social justice. On the other hand, the family must be jealous of its fundamental rights, and alert to see to it that the authority of the State is not expanded into tyranny. The State, on its part, must zealously serve the true interests of the families and citizens who make it up. It must not become paternalistic—and it has ever a tendency to become so—nor must it be callously indifferent to injustice and public evils which have their source in the conduct of individuals or families.

c) The Family and Education

Parents have the right and the duty of educating their children. Thus education is distinctly a family matter and not a civil or State affair. Still, the State is the servant of families and citizens, and it must, therefore, place at the disposal of parents the facilities which will enable them to discharge their natural functions in a manner most profitable to society. For this reason the State will foster education, will be its steady patron and support. But the State must not usurp the rights of parents in the matter; it must not indicate certain schools to which children have to be sent; it must not dictate courses of study or choose textbooks. Nor shall the State make unreasonable requirements in the matter of compulsory schooling for a long term of years. The only compulsion justified is that which the State may bring to bear upon parents who neglect altogether to give their children the opportunity for a minimum of education—and the minimum may be fairly expressed as “a grade-school education.” Notice carefully that the State cannot compel parents to send their children to school; if parents are qualified to instruct their children in the common school subjects at home, they may surely do so; or they may have their children taught by private instructors or tutors. The State may only see that the children have their opportunity of learning the ordinary subjects of study which modern social life requires; in other words, the State may see that parents attend to the duty of educating their children—nothing more. Education means, of course, much more than schooling. It means the training of the child in body, mind, and soul. Physical education is attained by the due development of bodily powers and the normal promotion of health. Parents have, therefore, the natural right and duty of seeing that their children are properly nourished, clothed, and sheltered; they must provide for their children—to the best of their ability—ample air, sunlight, and exercise; they must take diligent care of weak or sickly children. Intellectual or mental education is imparted by instruction in truths that man must know, and in those which will serve him well in point of grace and general culture. Parents have, therefore, the duty of seeing to it that their children are equipped with such knowledge as will enable them to make their way in life, to support themselves, and to bring their mental powers to a degree of perfection in development. Moral education trains the will to embrace and fulfil the great duties of life, which intellectual education makes known to the mind. It trains the child in the exercise of virtue; it builds character; it sets the child’s feet in the path which leads to the only success worthy of the name— eternal salvation. Now, the first and greatest of educational institutions is the home. For education—intellectual, physical, and moral—begins with life itself. The little lad or lassie who creeps unwillingly to school at the age of six or seven has already undergone six or seven years of very important and effective educational processes. And even during the years of schooling, the child is under the care and instruction of school-teachers only five hours in twentyfour, only five days in seven, and only thirty-two or thirty-four weeks in fifty-two. Yet its education is going steadily forward all the time, during every waking hour. Parents must, therefore, not lean too heavily upon the school, nor may they shift to the school the responsibility for the full training of their children. School-hours are important hours; they have a very great effect in the education of the child. But the home-hours are even more effective, and they outnumber the school-hours by over ten to one, counting as home-hours all that are spent out of school. Parents must, therefore, see to the education of children in the home-hours. They must give their children the benefit of noble example; they must supervise the children’s work and play with loving care, yet without too much officiousness or interference; they must be especially vigilant in guarding their little ones from evil companionship; they must inculcate love of home and respect for the kindly and affectionate, yet firmly effective, home authority. Parents must answer to God for the training of their children. And Catholic parents know that they must also answer to God for their conduct on the score of obedience to the Church, which God has established on earth for the sanctification and salvation of mankind. To the Church has Our Lord committed the task of feeding the lambs and the sheep of God; to the Church He said, “He that heareth you, heareth me.” Now the strict command of the Church in the matter of education is plain and unmistakable. The Church requires Catholic parents to send their children to Catholic schools, where such schools are available; and this under dire penalties. If Catholic parents disobey their divinely appointed Mother Church, they have little right to expect obedience and reverence from their own children. Such parents are socially inadequate. Their homes will not be true homes, and their function in society will not be a proper and helpful function. The law of the Church touching education and

Catholic schools is not restricted to Catholic grade schools. Indeed, the school as an aid to home education, has the greater influence as age and experience widen childish interests and lessen the direct and absolute power of the home. Hence, children of high school age are in far greater need of Catholic schooling than children of elementary school age. Nor are those Catholic parents without grave sin who send their children to secular and State colleges and universities, where God is denied or ignored, and His law derided. Godlessness is always antisocial; it is the most destructive and malignant of all anti-social forces. And the secular colleges and universities of our day are, in the main, thoroughly godless.

Summary of the Article

In this Article we have considered many important sociological questions. We have defined family and home, and have indicated necessary and desirable conditions for the adequate functioning of the home as a social institution. We have studied the “intramural” activities of the home, discerning in these a truly social character; we have investigated the relations of father, mother, and child. We have seen that the family in the normal home is the best social school, and the model economic society. We have indicated the fact that, for ideal functioning, the family should have several children and a due balance of sons and daughters. We have studied the current social evils that militate against normal and effective family life, dealing in some detail with the financing of marriage, the reluctance of couples to marry early because of a worldly spirit of independence, and the demands of higher education. We have dwelt at length on the question of women in industry and business, and have seen that this phenomenon of our days is fundamentally anti-social. We have indicated the fallacious character of the feminist theory of (eequality of the sexes” showing that, while all human beings are equal in dignity and value, the sexes are complementary and not identical, and have their distinct and distinctive requirements. We have studied the loosening of home ties common in our time, and the tendency to turn the home into a boarding-house, and thus to strike a basically destructive blow at human society. We have seen that the government of the home is vested in the parents, and, first of all, in the father. We have indicated the place of divine grace in the activities of the family and have stressed the necessity (based on truly scientific reasons) of family devotion to prayer and the Sacraments. We have discussed the relations of the family with the State or civil power, indicating the place and function of each, and noticing the sociological importance of clear distinctions and stresses in this naturally necessary relationship. Finally, we have discussed the right and duty of the family in the work of education, distinguishing the respective services of parents and State in the matter, and indicating the imperative character of Catholic education for Catholic children of all ages and grades.