SOCIAL CONTROL AND FAMILY FUNCTION 703 



of daily toil potentially gives more leisure for building, adorning, 

 and enjoying the home. 



There is another result of social evolution which to many persons 

 seems to be just cause of alarm. The liberation of woman in every 

 one of its aspects profoundly involves the destiny of the family. 

 It signifies in all the' larger activities of life the relative individual- 

 ization of one half of human kind. This means, of course, a weaken- 

 ing of the solidarity of the family group so far as its cohesion is 

 dependent upon the remnants of ancient marital authority. Will 

 the ultimate dissolution of the family, as sometimes predicted, thus 

 become the price of equality and freedom? Or rather, is it not 

 almost certain that in the more salubrious air of freedom and 

 equality there is being evolved a higher type of the family, knit 

 together by ties, sexual, moral, and spiritual, far more tenacious 

 than those fostered by the regime of subjection? 



In particular the fear that the higher education of woman, in 

 connection with her growing economic independence, will prove 

 harmful to society through her refusal of matrimony or maternity, 

 appears to be without real foundation. It is true that the birth-rate 

 is falling. So far as this depends upon male sensuality a prevalent 

 cause of sterility; upon selfish love of ease and luxury of which 

 men even more than women are guilty ; or upon the disastrous 

 influence of the extremes of wealth and poverty of which women 

 as well as men are the victims it is a serious evil which may well 

 cause us anxiety; but so far as it is the result of the desire for fewer 

 but better-born children, for which, let us hope, the advancing 

 culture of woman may in part be responsible, it is, in fact, a positive 

 social good. 



It is true also that, while fewer and fewer marriages in proportion 

 to the population are taking place, men as well as women are marrying 

 later and later in life. The marriage-rate is falling and the average 

 age at which either sex marries is rising. Here, again, for the reasons 

 just mentioned, the results are both good and bad. Certain it is 

 that early marriages and excessive child-bearing have been the twin 

 causes of much injury to the human race. It is high time definitively 

 to expose the dual fallacy, derived mainly from ancient military and 

 theological tradition, that early marriages and many children should 

 be favored at all hazards. The gradual advance of the marriage-age 

 may mean better mated parents and more stable families. More- 

 over, if it be admitted that a falling birth-rate is a sign of national 

 decadence, it should be considered that an increasing population may 

 now be sustained by families smaller than in earlier times. Better 

 sanitation, the scientific mastery or prevention of disease, and the 

 lessening of the ravages of war are producing a decrease in the death- 

 rate which more than keeps pace with the fall in the rate of births. 



