The development of ancestor-worship, which, enjoining sacrifices to be made by eadi man at the tombs cf his immediate and more remote male progenitors, imjd^ anticipation of like sacrifices to his own ghost by hxs son, initiates yet another motive for cherishing sons— adds to the parental regard for diildren a feeling which t^s in favour of males rather than of females. The effects of €bis motive are at the present time shown us by the Chinese; among whom the death of an only son is especiany lamented, because there will be no one to make offerings ai the grave, and among whom the peremptory need for a son hence arising, is held to justify the taking of a costcabine» THE STATUS OiT CHILDSXIT. 771 thongh^ ''if a person lias sons by his wife (for daughters never enter into the accoant) it is considered derogatory to take a handmaid at all/' Oa recalling Egyptian wallpaintings and papyri^ and the like evidence furnished by Assyrian records^ showing that sacrifices to ancestors were performed by their male descendant — on remembering, too, that among ancient Ayrans, Hindu, Greek, Roman, the daughter was incapable of this function, and that sons were, therefore, required for maintaining the family-cult; we are shown how this developed form of the primitive religion, while it strengthened filial subordination, added an incentive to parental care— of sons but not of daughters.
In brief, then, the relations of adults to young among human beings, originally Uke those among animals, began to assume higher forms under the influence of the several desires — to obtain an aider in fighting enemies, to provide an avenger for injuries received, and to leave behind one who should administer to welfare after death: motives which, strengthening as societies passed through their early stages, gradually gave a certain authority to the claims of male children, though not to those of females. And thus we again see how intimate is the connexion between miH* tancy of the men and degradation of the women.
§ 332. Here we are introduced to the question — ^what relation exists between tibte staitta of children and the form of social organization? To this the reply is akin to one given in the last chapter; namely, that mitigation of the treatment of children accompanies transition from the militant type to the industrial type.
Those lowest social states in which o&pring are now idolized, now killed, now sold, as the dominant feding prompts, are everywhere the states in. which hostilities with surrounding tribes are chronic. This absolute dependence of progeny on parental will, is shown whether the militancy is that of archaic groups or that of groups higher in struc- 772 TH£ DOMESTIC BSIATIONS.
ture. In the Utter as in the former, there exists that lite and death power over children which is the negation of all rights and claims. On comparing children's staius in the rudest militant tribes, with their status in militant tribes which are patriarchal and compounded of the patriarchal, all we can say is that, in these last the still-surviving theory becomes qualified in practice; and that qualification of it increases as industrialism grows.
Ite Fijians, intensely despotic in government and fereoious in war, furnish an instance of extreme abjectness in the position o£ children. Infanticide, especially of femaleS) reaches nearer two-thirds than one-half; they '* destroy their infants from mere whim, expediency, anger, or indolence "; and, according to Brskine, " children have been offered by the people of their own tribe to propitiate a powerful chief/' not for slaves but for food. A sanguinary warrior race of Mexico, the Chechemecas, yield another example of excessite parental power: sons " cannot marry without the consent of parents; if a young man violates this law « « « the penalty is death.'* By this instance we are reminded of the domestic condition among the Ancient Mexicans (largely composed of conquering cannibal Chechemecas), whose social organization was highly militaat in type, and of whom Clavigero says — 'Hheir children "Were bred to stand so mnch in awe of their parents, that even when grown up and married, they hardly durst speak before them." b Ancient Central America family rule was similar; and in Ancient Peru it was the law '^ that sons should obey and serve their fathers until they reached the age of twenty* five.'* If we now turn to the few cases of uncivilized and semicivilized societies that are wholly industrial, or predominantly industrial, we find children, as we found women, occupying much higher positions. Among the peaceful Bodo and Dhimals, ''infanticide is utterly unknown;" daughters are treated ''with confidence and kindness;" and when THE STATUS OB" CHILDKKN. 778 marriages are being arranged, there is a ^^ consulting the destined bride:" to which add the reciprocal trait that ''it is deemed shameful to leave old parents entirely alone.'* The Djaks, ftg^in, largely industrial and having an unmilitant social structure, yield the fact stated by Brooke, that "the practice of infanticide is rare," as well as the facts before named under another head, that children have the freedom implied by regular courtship, and that girls choose their mates. We are told of the Samoans, who are more industrial in social structure and habit than neighbouring Malayo-Polynesians, that infanticide after birth is unknown, and that children have the degree of independence implied by elopements when they, cannot obtain parental assent to their marriage. Similarly with the Negritos inhabiting the island of Tanna, where militancy is slight and there are no pronounced chieftainships: of them we read in Turner that ''the Tannese are fond of their children. No infanticide there. They allow them every indulgence, girls as well as boys.'' Lastly, there is the case of the industrious Pueblos, whose children were unrestrained in marriage, and by whom, as we have seen, daughters were especially privileged.
Thus with a highly militant type there goes extreme subjection of children, and the status of girls is still lower than that of boys; while in proportion as the type becomes non-militant, there is not only more recognition of children's claims, but the recognized claims of boys and girls approach towards equality. ' § 883. Kindred evidence is supplied by those societies which, passing through the patriarchal forms of domestic and political government, have evolved into large nations. Be the race Turanian, Semitic, or Aryan, it shows us the same connexion between political absolutism over subjects and domestic absolutism over children.
In China the destruction of female infants is common; "parents sell their children to be slaves"; in marriage "the 774 THS DOMESTIC SELATIOKS.
parents of tho girl always demand for their child a price''; and ''forced marriages often produce the moat tragic nsuits." " A union prwnpted aolelj hy kve would be a monstroua infraction of the duty of filial obedience, and a predilection on the part of a female as heinous a crime as infidelity/' " Their maxim is^ that^ as the Emperor should haye the care of a &ther for his people, a father should hare the power of a soyereign oyer his family/' Meanwhile it is obaeryable that this legally-unlimited paternal power descending from militant times, and persistingf along with tbe militant type of social structure, has eome to be qualified b practice by sentiments which the industrial type fosters: infanticide, reprobated by proclapoation, is excused oslj on the plea of poyerty, joined with the need for rearing a msk child; and public opinion puts checks on the actions of those who purchase children. With that militant t^ of social structure which, during early wars, became higUj deyeloped among the Japanese, similarly goes great S&i subjection. Mitford, qualifying preyious statements, adnuts that needy people '^sell their children to be waitresses, singers, or prostitutes;^' and Sir Rutherford Alcock sap that '^ parents, too, haye undoubtedly in some cases, if not in all, tiie power to sell their children.** It maj be added m m that the subordination of young to old irrespectiye of sex, i» greater than the subordination of females to males; br abject as is the slayery of wife to husband, yet, after his death, the widow's power "oyer the son restores the Mance and redresses the wrong, by placing woman, as the mother, far aboye man, as the son, whateyer his age or rank.** ^^ the like holds among the Chinese.
How among the primitrye Semites the father exercised capital jurisdiction, and how along wiHi this there went a lower 9tatti8 of girls than of boys, needs no proof. But as further indicating the parental and filial relation, I in&7 name the fact that children were considered so much the property of the father, that they wore seized for his debts THK STATUS OF CfilLDRSK. 775 (2 Kmgs iv. i.; Job xidv. 9); also the fact that selling of daughters was authorized (Exodus xxi. 7); also the fact that injunctions respecting the treatment of children refeorred exdosivelj to paternal benefit: as instance the reasons given in Eeclesiasiicus, chap, zxx.^ for chastisement of sons; and the further fact that in Deuteronomy txx. 18, stoning to death is the appointed punishment of a rebellious son. Though some qualification of paternal absolutism arose during the later settled stages of the Hebrews, yet along with persistence of the militant type of government there continued extreme filial subordination.
Atreacty in the chapter on the Family, when treating of the Bomans as illustrating both the social and domesiie organization possessed by the conquering Aryans during their spread into Europe, something has been implied respecting the staJtua of children among them. In the wox^ of Mommsen, relatively to the father, '^ all in the household were destitute of legal rights — ^the wife and child no less than the bullock or the slave.'' He might expose his children: the religions prohibition which forbade it '' so fiur as concerned all the sons — deformed births excepted — and at least the first daughter,'' was without civil sanction. He ''had the right and duty of exercising over them judicial powers, and of punishing them as he deemed fit, in lif^ and limb." He might also sell his child. It remains to say that the same implied development of industrialness which we saw went along with improvement in the position of women during the growth of the Roman Empire, went along with improvement in the position of children. I may add that in Greece there were allied jnanifestations of paternal absolutism: a man could bequea& his daughter, as he could also his wife.
§ 334. If, again, we compare the early states of existmg European peoples, characterized by chronic militancy, witifai their later states, characterized by a militancy that had 776 THE DOMESTIC EEULTIONS.
become less constant and diffused, while industrialism lud grown, differences of like significance meet us.
We have the statement of Gsssar concerning the Celts d (rani, that fathers '^ do not permit their children to approach them openly until they have grown to manhood." In the Merovingian period a father could sell his child, as could also a widowed mother — a power which continued down to the ninth century or later. Under the decayed feudal state which preceded the French Bevolation domestic subordination, especially among the aristocracy, was still such that Chateaubriand says — *' my mother, my sister, and myself, transformed into statues by my father's presence, only recover ourselves after he leaves the room;" and Taine, quoting Beaumarchais and Bretonne, indicates that this rigidity of paternal authority was general. Then, after the Revolution, de S6gur writes: — " Among our good forefathers a man of thirty was more in subjection to the head of the family than a child of eighteen is now.'^ Our own history furnishes kindred evidence. Describing the manners of the fifteenth century, Wright says:— ''Young ladies, even of great families, were brougbt up not only strictly, but even tyrannicaUy. * * * The parental authority was indeed carried to an almost extravagant extent.*' Down to the seventeenth century, ''children stood or knelt in trembling silence in the presence of their fathers and mothers, and might not sit without permission.*' The literature of even the last century, alike by the deferential use of "sir" and "madam" in addressing parents, by the authority parents assumed in arranging marriages for their children, and by the extent to which sons and still more daughters, recognized the duty of accepting the spouses chosen, shows us a persistence of filial subordination proportionate to the politi&l subordination. And then, since the beginning of this century, along with the immense development of industrialism and the correlative progress towards a freer type of social organiza- TH£ STATUS OF CHILDBBN. 777 tioiij there has gone a marked increase of javenile freedom; as shown by a greatly moderated parental dictation^ by a mitigation of panishments^ and by that decreased formality of domestic intercourse which has accompanied the changing of fathers from masters into friends.
Differences having like meanings are traceable between the more militant and the less militant European societies as now existing. Along with the relatively-developed industrial type of political organization in England^ there goes a less coercive treatment of children than in France and Germany^ where industrialism has modified the political organizations less. Joined with great fondness for^ and much indulgence of^ the youngs there is in France a closer supervision of them^ and the restraints on their actions are both stronger and more numerous: girls at home are never from under maternal control^ and boys at school are subject to military discipline. Add to which that parental oversight of marriageable children still goes so far that little opportunity is afforded for choice by the young people themselves. In Germany^ again, there is a stringency of rule in education allied to the political stringency of rule. As writes a German lady long resident in England, and experienced as a teacher, — *^ English children are not tyrannized over — they are guided by their parents. The spirit of independence and personal rights is fostered. I can therefore understand the teacher who said he would rather teach twenty German [children] than one English child — I understand him, but I do not sympathize with him. The German child is nearly a slave compared to the English child; it is therefore more easily subdued by the one in authority.'* Lastly come the facts that in the United States, long characterized by great development of the industrial organization little qualified by the militant, parental government has become extremely lax, and girls and boys are nearly on a par in their positions: the independence reached being 778 THE DOMESTIC BBLATHni8.
siigIl that yomig ladies often fona their own <nii:l6a of acquaintance and cany on their intimacies without lei or hindrance from their fathers and motibien.
§ 335. As was to be anticipated^ we thus find a series of changes in the ttatus of children parallel to the smes of changes in the status of women.
In archaic societies^ withont law and halving customs extending over bat some parts of life, there are no limits to the powers of parents; and the passions, daily exercised is conflict with brutes or men, are restrained in the relations to cAspring only by the philoprogenitive instinct.
Early the needs for a companion in arms, for an avenger, and presently for a performer of sacrifices, add to tbe fatherly feeling other motives, personal and social, tending to give something like a status ix> male children; M leaving female children still in the same position as are the young of brutes.
These relations of father to son and daughter, arising in advanced groups of. the archaic type, and becoming more settled where pastoral life originates the patriarcbal group, continne to characterize societies that remain predominantly militant, whether evolved from the patriarchal group or otherwise: victory and defeat, which express tiie outcome of militant activity, having for their correlatives despotism and slavery in military organization, in political organization, and in domestic organization.
The status of children, in common with that of women, rises in proportion aa the compulsory co-operation dmracterising militant activities, becomes qualified by ike voluntary co-operation characterizing industrial activities. We see this on comparing tiie most militant uncivilised peoi^es wi& others that are less militant; we see it oa comparing the early militant states of existing nations wiib their later more industrial states; we see it on comparing nations that are now relatively militant with those that are THE STATUS OF CHILDEBN. 779 now relatively industrial. And we are especially shown it by the fact that in primitive uncultured societies which are exceptionally peaceful^ the status of children is exceptionally high.
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 interpret 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 otherwise than by empirical generalization. On gathering together 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, consisting 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 redivergent types of families — some characterized by a mixed polyandry and polygny; some tliat are polyandrous, differentiating 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 ordinary 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 advanced societies are the most coherent^ most definite^ most complex. Not to dwell on intermediate types^ we see on contrasting with the primitive kind of family group that highest kind of family group which civilized peoples present^ how relatively 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 grandchildren^ 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 mattality 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 mamtenance of the species, and begins, contrariwise, to xnak^ the maintenance of the species condnoe to the more prolonged 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 preceding 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 between 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 enemies, brute or human — daily yielding the egoistic satisfaction 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 regard 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 paraithood predominates, dearly^ then, weakness of the maritil relation, indefinite incoherent forms of family, harsh treatment 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 cooperation 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 iinplies 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, inevitably determine the arrangements within the household as they do the arrangements without it. Hence the disregard 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-operation 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 representing work done, is a habit of seeking such egoistic satisfaction 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 cultivated, 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 relations in the militant part retain the militant character, while the domestic relations in the industrial part are beginning 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 distinguished 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 compete with them, leave many other inferior species in pos- DOMESTIC BETBOSFSCT AND PSOSPECT. 78?