THE PRIMARY SOCIAL SETTLEMENT. 543 



4. Fewer marriages and more false marriages, with the ever-ready 

 divorce escape. 



5. The great and increasing opening in the economic world to 

 female labor. 



6. The unparalleled multiplication and popularity of clubs. 



7. The willingness of outside institutions to assume functions of 

 the family, and the readiness of the family to transfer them. 



Remedies lie in Causes. In the perplexing mizmaze of the 

 modern residence, in the undue attention to the multiplex mysteries 

 of the modern wardrobe, in the multiform engagements of the modern 

 individual, the family is losing its identity. When some Ariadne puts 

 into its hand the silver cord of simplicity, the family, if it holds on to 

 the cord, will be helped back to its rightful place. Simplicity can not 

 be adorned. It is a grace of itself, whether in a house, a face, or a 

 gown. Simplicity will never entangle the family, so that one by one 

 the individuals will want to extricate themselves and run away. If it 

 is not desirable to return to white houses with right angles and green 

 blinds, to the big kitchen with its big fireplace and crane a kitchen 

 where the family gathered for ciphering, and knitting, and apple- 

 paring, and reading aloud, and "fox and geese," and blindman's 

 buff, without a thought of " the carpet " it is desirable that we 

 make some kind of a rallying center where the family will feel free, 

 comfortable, and communicative.. Even the center table is being 

 banished in some homes, and the easy settee and high-backed lounge 

 have been superseded by a luxurious-looking couch, piled high with 

 pillows, some of them pretty to look at, but often too dainty for use. 

 Things merely " to look at " should be confined largely to walls, 

 mantels, pedestals, and portfolios. 



A partial reintegration of the family will take place when the 

 house father stands for authority, judgment, and righteousness as 

 much as the house mother for patience, tact, and love. In the ani- 

 mal world, with the exception of the birds, the fathers are nearly all 

 family backsliders. In the human family, business and business 

 worries have been excuses long enough for a man to leave family 

 management entirely to his wife. Adam and Eve together were to 

 have dominion over everything. No man has a choice of the family 

 he is born into, but he is responsible for his own family, which he 

 should never have established unless he chose to be the head of it, or 

 one of its heads, and wisely co-operative in its development. No true 

 father need to be " forced " into false family living. When he per- 

 mits himself to be so forced he is a backslider. 



Individual liberty along most lines means advance and advan- 

 tage; but such liberty without becoming restraint, especially among 

 mere boys and girls in the family, results in rebellion at home and 



