Economic Problems of the Family

a) Founding the Family

Strictly speaking, the family is founded when the first child is conceived. For at that moment the conjugal society of husband and wife is changed into the true family group of father, mother, and child. Still, it is usual and eminently practical to consider the phrase “founding of the family” in a somewhat wider meaning, and to include in it the establishing of conjugal society by valid marriage. Young people who look forward to married life and the rearing of children are faced in our day with no little difficulty in point of economics. In plain words, they need money. And somehow a great deal of money (or what it will buy) seems necessary nowadays before marriage and the establishing of a home can be seriously thought of. This fact, more than any other perhaps, accounts for the great number of delayed marriages, and the long and indefinite engagements, which constitute a modern social difficulty. We have already discussed these matters in their moral and purely social aspects; it will be profitable here to consider their economico-social character. No secular plan or program can be offered by sociology for the satisfactory settlement of the difficulty faced by the couple which wishes to marry and feels that sufficient means are not at hand. Religion must meet the difficulty, not by supplying the necessary funds, but by changing the viewpoint of the couple to a more just and reasonable angle. Faith in God, reliance upon His providence, estimation of one’s proper state in life as of more importance than its material conditions—these are not mere phrases or shadowy ideals; they are workable realities, and any number of couples has put them successfully to work. In a word, young people who wish to marry must learn to seek Arst the Kingdom of Heaven. This statement may draw a smile from modern materialistic sociologists, but it is soundly scientiAc for all that. Still, there is much for sociology to suggest and sociologists to accomplish to lessen the material or monetary difficulty which stands in the way of founding a family. First, there is the matter of work and wages. We have already studied the problem of labor and unemployment, and we shall have occasion before long to consider the question of the family-wage. Here we must turn briefly to what may be called the marrying-wage. A man has the right to labor and to possess the fruits of his labor in the form of payment or wages. Pope Leo XIII, in his famous Encyclical “Rerum Novarum ” has this to say on the amount of wages due for labor: “Let it be granted that, as a rule, workman and employer… should freely agree as to wages. Nevertheless, there is a dictate of nature more imperious and more ancient than any bargain between man and man, that the remuneration must be enough to support the wage-earner in reasonable and frugal comfort.” Now, the wage-earner, however frugal and reasonable, has normally the lawful desire to establish his own home and rear a family. He wishes to marry. And therefore his frugal and reasonable requirements include that of means sufficient to enable him to marry, to care decently for his wife, and to maintain his home. The natural law itself demands a wage that may fairly be called a marrying-wage for every young man. That the present scale of wages is often insufficient to enable the most frugal and reasonable man to set up a home, is undeniable. Economists and sociologists have much to do in working for fair wages, and perhaps much more to do in bringing into some sort of reasonable balance and ratio the wage-scale and the scale of prices for necessary commodities. Let it be noticed that the marrying-wage is such as will suffice for the frugal and reasonable requirements of the worker. There can be no doubt that much of the difficulty in point of money, which prevents early marriages and thwarts the efforts of young people to gather a fund sufficient for the founding of a home, is due to carelessness and improvidence upon the part of the couples themselves.

There is much to invite this improvidence in the very temper of the times. For somehow people of all classes, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, seem to have submitted completely and supinely to the current superstition that life to-day is “complex” and exacts a “higher standard.” In other words, people generally seem to acquiesce in the belief that, because there is to-day a bewildering number of ways in which to spend money for pleasures and luxuries as well as necessaries, and a bewildering number of voices urging all to spend freely, much money must actually be spent. This mistaken notion finds ready support in the weakly human tendency to keep pace with the styles, and to live as expensively as the others in one’s social group. Against this damaging state of affairs something may be done quickly and effectively by a combination of good sense, education, and Christian moderation. Nor is it necessary, to remedy the evil of improvidence, to train young people to niggardliness or meanness, or to ask them to be cheap or shoddy. A decent interest, a moderate spirit of carefulness, a willingness to do a little work and to apply oneself in order to know how to do it well—these requisites make for neither meanness nor cheapness, and they may make all the difference between hopeless unreadiness for marriage and a due preparedness. If the young tnan knows how to care for his needs properly and without waste, if the young woman knows something of needlework and is not afraid of labor, if the couple has anything of the spirit of repose to set against modern feverishness and the modern tireless quest of expensive entertainment, it is very likely that, no other obstacles preventing, they will come early to their marriage, and come prepared to undertake its heavy duties with a sufficient, though not elaborate, equipment. But if the young man feels that he must maintain “a car,” must have five or six outfits of clothing a year, must indulge without any thought of selfdenial his tastes in liquor and tobacco and his likings for the diversions of theatre and dance-hall; and if the young woman clothes herself expensively and requires an elaborate wardrobe, if she expects and exacts constant entertainment and diversion of the type which calls for tickets and admission-fees, and railway fares, and “gas”; if both require occasional long trips and expensive vacations; if neither thinks of setting up a home until they have a furnished house or a fully equipped apartment—then it is likely that the “engagement” will drift on for weary years, and at long last will terminate in a marriage of little fruit, small promise of happiness, and weak social effectiveness. Christian moderation, the spirit of self-denial, the due estimation of the married life as one of heavy but happy obligation—these are requisites for solving the problem of founding a family, and no Catholic can be excused for lacking them. Further, schools for girls and women may do much to ease the solution of the problem by training their pupils in the ancient homely arts, especially that of needlecraft.

b) Maintaining the Family

The problem of maintaining the family is rather a fearsome one if its component items are listed and viewed without reference to the various means that are normally available to meet their requirements. There is here no mere question of food, clothing, and shelter; there are other things to add to the daily needs, and, while these may be called occasional or extraordinary, their requirements in the way of money are so considerable as to make the problem of family-maintenance one of weight and magnitude. First, there is the problem of getting the child safely into the world. In an older day children were usually born at home, the family physician in attendance, or, perhaps, a neighbor or two lending kindly if unskilled assistance. To-day, in our cities at least, the hospital-birth is usual, and there is no denying that it offers advantages for mother and child far greater than any that can be had at home. But the expense is considerable, and sometimes frankly outrageous. For a few days of pre-natal care, attendance at delivery, and two weeks of care after birth, the hospital fees are frequently as high as two or even three hundred dollars. And two or three hundred dollars is a vast amount of money for the ordinary family, which depends for its income upon the daily labor of a breadwinner. It is easy to see that the great expense of having a child safely born is an influence which makes for the horrible social evil of artificial Birth Control. The sociologist has a notable task to perform in procuring reasonable service at reasonable cost in obstetrical hospitals. Some cities have hospitals in which obstetrical care is given without charge, and these institutions do a great deal of good and are agencies of sound social action. But there is also need for hospitals that will charge a moderate rate; for many mothers are unwilling to be regarded as “charity patients,” and a decent self-respect impels the average man and wife to “pay as they go.” We need obstetrical hospitals in which a sufficient, but moderate, charge is made. The thing can be done, and indeed it has been done. Boston presents a notable instance of its feasibility. There is, in that city, an obstetrical hospital, founded by private enterprise, in which the patient is given three days of care before the birth of the child, the attendance of skilled obstetricians at delivery, and two weeks’ care after the birth, and the total charge is sixty dollars. And this institution is maintained, without endowments or appropriations, by the fees of the patients alone. Nor is it regarded as a hospital for the poor. It receives rich and poor at the same rate, and is patronized by the wealthy as well as by commoners, for it is staffed by obstetricians of national, and, indeed, of world-wide, reputation. Once born into the world, the child requires food, clothing, shelter; and it is almost certain, as days go by, to require medical care in sickness, and perhaps a surgical operation, or special attention to correct defects of sight or hearing. And these almost inevitable requirements exact an outlay, in most cases, of a considerable amount of money. Again, the child must be educated; school-fees in one form or another, and in increasing amounts as the child advances through secondary and collegiate stages of instruction, make a steady demand upon the family purse. All these items of expense, multiplied by the number of children that come normally to the average family, and augmented by the outlay required for the maintenance of the parents themselves in health and sickness, justify our statement that the problem of supporting a family is, economically considered, rather a difficult one. But the economic magnitude of the problem is exceeded by its social necessity: it is of incalculable importance that the problem be rendered capable of solution by the average man, the ordinary husband and father. Manifestly, the solution of the problem depends, first and foremost, upon an adequate and steady income. A man has the right to a living-wage in order to maintain himself in decency and frugal comfort;

he has the further right to a marrying-wage, that he may follow the reasonable and lawful tendency of nature, and so marry and found a family; he has also the right to a family-wage sufficient, with prudent management, to procure for his family not only the bare requisites for existence, but adequate for the decent maintenance of husband, wife, and children, in the ordinary and the occasional (or extraordinary) circumstances of life, and sufficient to permit something to be laid by for times of unemployment, age, sickness, and incapacity. It is not necessary to offer proof for this assertion. Grant that a living-wage is a requirement based upon the demands of natural law, and the necessity of a marrying-zvage and a family-wage is at once apparent. For the same natural law that justifies a man’s claim to life and the means of supporting it, must extend to the normal physical and moral needs of life. A man has not only the right to live; he has the right to live humanly, and to carry out in life the wholesome and socially essential tendencies of his nature. In a word, he has the right to marry and found a family; and if this is so, he has the right to the means of supporting his family. A family-wage is certainly recommended if not absolutely exacted by the natural law itself. It is not now possible to set down the amount of a family-wage in terms of dollars and cents. Attempts have been made to determine it for a given locality in quantities of food and clothing, amounts of rent, costs of ordinary household supplies, rates of transportation, etc. This is the right way to go about the work, and, in time, we may hope to have the livingwage for families set down in scale according to locality and number of members in the family, and with very close approximation to exactness. A carefully kept family-record of expenditures and the preparation of a detailed family-budget at the beginning of each year would indicate with pretty close accuracy the amount of the family-wage requisite for a given family. To secure the living family-wage, workers should unite in lawful and reasonably controlled unions; employers should obey the precepts of justice and charity; workers and employers should cooperate in schemes of collective bargaining; just minimum wage laws should be enacted by the civil power. In computing the amount of the family-wage, the economist and the sociologist should not fail to include in their calculations the expense inevitably to be incurred when death enters the home. If a birth involves a great outlay of money, a death in the family involves an even greater. Indeed, it too frequently happens that a family which manages to maintain its members decently in life, finds itself plunged heavily into debt when one of them is called by death. For the expense of the simplest funeral is sure to be considerable. Therefore, the family-wage should be sufficient to enable the family to procure and maintain a modest insurance-policy for each member. The premiums for such policies need not be large, particularly if husband and wife are insured when they are young, and if the children are insured soon after their birth. It is part of the reasonable and frugal plan upon which family-life should be conducted to prepare beforehand for extraordinary but unavoidable outlays. Families should be urged to practice this sane preparedness, and life-insurance offers a simple and effective means for their use. Two dangers, however, are to be carefully avoided in the matter by families whose maintenance constitutes a domestic, if not a social, problem. The first danger is discerned in the tendency (likely to be fostered by insurance-agents) to take out a policy in too large an amount. It would be best not to exceed, on this score, a sum sufficient to cover the expense of a decent and simple funeral. The second danger is carelessness about paying premiums promptly, and of postponing such payments for the mere convenience of using the money for non-essentials. The family-policies should, therefore, be moderate in benefits and premiums, and they should never be allowed to lapse. Further, apart from the most unusual and extreme circumstances of need, these policies should never be used as collateral for loans. Many of the evils which make against the sufficiency of family-income may be remedied by sound legislation. But only good sense and a proper appreciation of responsibility on the part of parents can prevent or cure the hardships which come of carelessness, selfishness, and improvidence. Many a family is kept in poverty, and in debt, by poor management, by foolish outlays for needless articles, by silly addiction to the “installment plan” in paying debts, by the modern practice of seeking ordinary amusement and recreation outside of the home, by encouraging children (through powerful example) in the false belief that the most desirable things in life are those bought for money and that the lack of funds for the fulfillment of one’s own selfish desires is life’s greatest misery. The greatest sociological force available fdr careless, improvident, and selfish managers of the family is to be found in the ardent practice of the true religion. Parents and children trained in the love of One who made poverty His deliberate choice will soon learn to turn a deaf ear to the world which tells them that money is the one thing desirable, even while withholding it from their hands. Indeed, religion is the most potent source of social good in every circumstance of life, and its strong aid is to be invoked by those who feel the weight of poverty, whether it be in any degree their own fault, or come from evil industrial conditions. Truly does Pope Pius say, in his Encyclical on Christian Marriage (“Casti Connubii ” December, 1930): “There is no possible circumstance in which husband and wife cannot, strengthened by the grace of God, faithfully fulfil their duties…

Summary of the Article

In this Article we have studied the economic problems which confront the family from the moment it is founded by marriage. We have noticed the many items of expense, most of them steadily recurring through life, which call for an adequate income. Such an income we have called a living, marrying, family wage. We have pointed out its character as a wage sufficient to maintain a man and his family in decency and frugal comfort, and we have mentioned forces which work against the establishment and maintenance of such a wage. Some of these forces are industrial and social in a wide sense; others are personal to the managers of the family budget. We have discussed certain extraordinary items of expense, and have briefly indicated means in which these are to be met. We have stressed as means for the solution of the problems discussed, the practice of religion, the establishment of just associations, and the warranted intervention of the civil power.