53 6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



class, "civil society, thereby designating economic life." They 

 have some difficulty in disposing of the family, but are inclined to set 

 it aside as an institution by itself, closely related to all the others, 

 calling it the " primary social form," in which the cell, the individual 

 unit, is found. I think it is Dr. Mulford who says: " The family is 

 the natural and the normal condition of human existence. It is not 

 the unit of society that is the ultimate and integral element, but it is 

 the unitary form of society." Yet, as the individual is rarely sepa- 

 rate from and outside of some kind of a family, and as social life is 

 more generally concentrated in the family than in any other institu- 

 tion, I can not see that it makes the family more or less primary — 

 that is, chief in importance — either by calling it the social form of 

 the unit of society, or the unit of society itself. The old system of 

 classification will probably continue to be used in philosophical if 

 not scientific discussion of social institutions. 



Conditions past as well as present must be understood before 

 one would dare prescribe remedies for the present threatened disin- 

 tegration of the family. A surgeon, before attempting a certain 

 operation, has his assistant spend hours with the patient, writing 

 up the history of the case, as to heredity, environment, causes and 

 effects, not only for his own benefit and the patient's benefit, but for 

 the benefit of surgery in general. A history or prehistory of the 

 family case is altogether too long for a magazine article, but we may 

 get kaleidoscopic if unsatisfactory views of the family in its evolu- 

 tion by means of such authorities as Moses, Homer, Christ, Paul, Plu- 

 tarch, Dr. Hearn, Sir Henry Maine, Letourneau, Starcke, Professors 

 Maurice, Drummond, and Small. 



One should never judge of the ancient domestic institution by 

 any modern standard, as is too commonly done. Neither is it well 

 to use the modern name, family, but rather household, for the Semitic 

 and Aryan domestic establishments, so extensive and complicated in 

 their various ramifications, laws, and customs. From the Semitic 

 (more properly Shemitic) household the modern family has evolved, 

 although Herbert Spencer is at variance with the theory that the 

 infancy of society is found in the patriarchal group. His evolution 

 goes back to an aggregation of males and females without settled 

 family arrangements. Be that as it may, it is a fact that all societies 

 were originally organized on the " patriarchal theory," based on the 

 scriptural history of the Hebrews. The Hebraic household was 

 really a corporation. At the head of this corporation was the patri- 

 archal father, with absolute power over wives, children, servants, 

 household property, and in a representative way over the flocks and 

 herds of his sons. Such households were those of Abraham, Jacob, 

 and Laban. 



