666 SOCIAL SCIENCE 



upon our present situation? Does the study of what has been, in 

 this instance, furnish a sure guidance to what ought to be? Does 

 the explanation, or at least partial explanation of the past, disclose 

 any sufficient principles upon which we can rely in our attempts to 

 shape the future? Does the science of the family, if by that name 

 it deserves to be called, supply us with criteria by which to measure 

 the worth of the monogamic type of family as against other types, 

 and the higher type of monogamy as against the lower types of it? 

 There are two such criteria which w r e frequently find commended 

 in sociological text-books. The one is social survival; the other, 

 increased complexity. Now setting aside the initial scruple as to 

 whether survival is a test of worth, dismissing for the time being 

 the thought that a type of social organization which lasts only for 

 a single generation, like the democracy of Pericles, may yet hold in 

 the scale of worth a place more exalted than that of other types 

 which have lasted for a thousand years; setting aside these consid- 

 erations, I ask, does the monogamic family, measured by the test of 

 survival, outrank for instance the polygamous family? In making 

 this comparison, we are bound to relinquish momentarily our 

 ethical bias, our strong repugnance to forms of union between the 

 sexes which seem to us to degrade what is best; and to ask simply 

 in the scientific spirit whether we are to promote monogamy because 

 communities founded on the monogamic relation tend to survive, 

 while other communities tend to perish? I do not see that on this 

 ground, and apart, I repeat, from other ideal points of view, the 

 monogamic family deserves the preference. I do not see that poly- 

 gamous nations like the Turks have less chance of survival, are less 

 tenacious, less virile fighters for example, than the Western nations 

 with whom they come into collision. I do not think it can be made 

 out that the polygamous Mormons are lacking in the qualities that 

 promote survival, and that the resistance which they have offered to 

 the pressure of the surrounding majority has been less vigorous and 

 effective than would have been offered by a monogamous community 

 holding in other respects the same tenets. 



If next, instead of comparing the monogamous family with the 

 polygamous, we examine the former on its own ground, from the point 

 of view of survival, we shall find it still more difficult to arrive at 

 a clear and definite decision, supported by the facts. We may com- 

 pare, as Professor Giddings has done, the children born in wedlock 

 with the offspring of irregular unions, or the children of parents 

 whose union is permanent with those of parents whose unions are 

 interrupted by frequent divorce; and it will then be easy to show 

 that the chance of survival is greater in the case of permanent unions 

 than in either of the two others. That is to say, it is easy to show 

 that where permanent unions, because of ideals or standards pre- 



