720 THE FAMILY 



some effort can be made to determine the extent of licentiousness. 

 The decline of the birth-rate should receive careful attention. The 

 determination of the classes among which the birth-rate is declining 

 is very important. For if it is greatest among those best fitted by 

 their intelligence and pecuniary condition to rear large families it 

 becomes a far more serious problem than if it be found chiefly among 

 the ignorant and the poor. The difficult but most important subject 

 of sex merits scientific treatment. 



Still farther and most pressing of all is the need of the most thor- 

 ough investigation of the nature of the family and the home into 

 which it grows, and its actual place in the human society of to-day 

 and the place it should have. At present we are acting blindly and 

 by rule of thumb. We rarely get beyond some conventional remarks 

 and speak of the family as the " unit of society." It would puzzle 

 most who use that phrase to tell what it means, even in their own 

 thought of it. We need to ask ourselves, What is the family? 

 What is the home? What is its true composition? What is its 

 place in society? What are its functions? And what does it need 

 from the point of view of the highest scientific consideration? What 

 are the scientific defenses of monogamy as against polygamy on the 

 one hand and free love on the other? What are the sound scientific 

 reasons against easy divorce? How far and in what sense is marriage 

 a contract? Is it a contract of such a nature as to permit of the 

 remedies applied to contracts in business relations? Or is it a con- 

 tract that establishes a status by which the parties are to abide? Is 

 this status creative morally, and perhaps politically, of a new unity 

 that is essentially an organic one? If so, may this unity be in some 

 sense a moral personality, such as some have ascribed to the state? 

 How far can the American people admit the contract theory in their 

 treatment of the family after having rejected it as the political 

 doctrine of the state? 



Then in the flux of social conditions which marks our times 

 nothing is more important than to have some sound basis of action 

 to guide us. We must ask ourselves scientifically, for we shall have 

 to do it practically, where are we to place the home in our work in 

 religion, in education, in economics, in politics, and in social reform. 

 Does the history and constitution of society point to any clear ideas, 

 by which we may hope to guide ourselves in the readjustments that 

 are going on? 



Fundamentally these are problems for the sociologist. If the 

 family, or rather the home, is in any considerable degree to social 

 science what the atom is in physics and the cell is in biology, it is 

 almost inevitable that social science must follow the method of those 



1 On these last points the reader may consult my paper on " The Theory of 

 the Marriage Tie," in the Andover Review of November-December, 1893. 



