DEMO CRA C Y AND THE HOME 233 



mother would, when it came to the point, tear out Book in 

 the eyes of any socialist legislator who, under 

 pretext of increasing her weekly wages, should 

 seriously attempt to snatch her children out of her 

 arms. Similar resistance would be offered to any 

 attempt to modify, beyond certain limits, the institu- 

 tion of marriage, or to interfere in any way with the 

 habits of a people's home life. These habits give This truly 

 rise to legislation by the few, but they do not coincidence 

 originate in it. The legislation of the few, on the go 



contrary, has so to shape itself as to protect those l . accomnl - 



* ' date themselves 



modes of life and institutions which these habits to '* 

 naturally produce ; and the laws that do this, no 

 matter who devises and administers them, come into 

 being under genuinely democratic dictation. It is 

 a genuinely democratic power which maintains them 

 unaltered, or imposes its own limits on any modifica- 

 tion of them which may be made. 



The effects, however, of the natural similarities The same 



, democratic 



of men s family lives are not to be found only in power deter- 

 the domain of laws and government. They confront SSa 

 us even more openly in the material surroundings of houses ' 

 our existence, especially in the structure of the 

 dwellings of all classes except the lowest. The 

 detached cottage as well as the large mansion, the 

 row of cottages each with its separate door, and the 

 tenement of three rooms, are in one respect all alike. 

 They are constructed and arranged in accordance 

 with those propensities which keep the members of 

 the family group united, and each family group 

 separate from all others. Nor do matters end here ; 



