THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



SEPTEMBER, 1877. 



DOMESTIC EETEOSPECT AND PEOSPECT.' 



By HEKBERT SPENCER. 



INDUCTION has greatly predominated over deduction throughout 

 the foregoing chapters ; and readers who have "borne in mind 

 that Part II. closes with a proposal to interpret social })henomena 

 deductively, may infer either that 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 to- 

 gether the threads of the argument, however, we shall find that the 

 chief conclusions forced on us by the evidence are those which Evo- 

 lution implies. 



We have first the fact that, little as it might have been expected, 

 the genesis of the family fulKlls the law of Evolution under its lead- 

 ing aspects. In the rudest social groups nothing to be called mar- 

 riage exists : the unions of the sexes are extremely incoherent. Fam- 

 ily groups, consisting of mothers and such few children as can be 

 reared without permanent paternal assistance, are necessarily small 

 and soon dissolve : integration is slight. Within each group the re- 

 lationships are less definite ; since the children are mostly half-broth- 

 ers 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 

 polygyny ; some that are polyandrous, difierentiating into the fraternal 

 and non-fraternal ; some that are polygynous, differentiating into 

 those composed of wives and those composed of a legitimate wife and 

 concubines ; some that are monogamous, among which, besides the 

 ordinary form, there is the aberrant form distinguished by a wife 



' Conclusion to the chapters on " The Domestic Relations," which complete vol. i. of 

 the " Principles of Sociology." 

 VOL. XI. 33 



