THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY
We must understand the biological roots of the family before we can
understand the family as an institution, and especially before we can
understand its origin. Let us note, then, briefly the chief biological
facts connected with the family life.
The Biological Foundations of the Family.--(1)_The Family rests upon
the Great Biological Fact of Sex._ While sex does not characterize
all animal forms, still it does characterize all except the simplest
forms of animal life. These simplest forms multiply or reproduce by
fission, but such asexual reproduction is almost entirely confined to
the unicellular forms of life. It may be inferred, therefore, that the
higher animal types could not have been evolved without sexual
reproduction, and something of the meaning or significance of sex in the
whole life process will, therefore, be helpful in understanding all of
the higher forms of evolution. Biologists tell us that the meaning or
purpose of sexual reproduction is to bring about greater organic
variation. Now variation, as we have seen, is the raw material upon
which natural selection acts to create the higher types. The immense
superiority of sexual reproduction over asexual reproduction is due to
the fact that it multiplies so greatly the elements of heredity in each
new organism, for under sexual reproduction every new organism has two
parents, four grandparents, and so on, each of which perhaps contributes
something to its heredity. The biological meaning of sex, then, is that
it is a device of nature to bring about organic variation. From the
point of view of the social life we may note also that sex adds greatly
to its variety, enriching it with numerous fruitful variations which
undoubtedly further social evolution. The bareness and monotony of a
social life without sex can readily be imagined.
While the differences between the sexes have been mainly elaborated
through the differences of reproductive function, yet these differences
have come to be fundamental to the whole nature of the organism. In the
higher animals, therefore, the sexes differ profoundly in many ways from
each other. Biologists tell us that the chief difference between the
male and female organism is a difference in metabolism, that is, in the
rapidity of organic change which goes on within the body. In the male
metabolism is much more rapid than in the female; hence the male
organism is said to be more katabolic. In the female the rapidity of
organic change is less; hence the female is said to be more anabolic.
Put in more familiar terms, the male tends to expend energy, is more
active, hence also stronger; the female tends more to store up energy,
is more passive, conservative, and weaker. These fundamental differences
between the sexes express themselves in many ways in the social life.
The differences between man and woman, therefore, are not to be thought
of as due simply to social customs and usages, the different social
environment of the two sexes, but are even more due to a radical and
fundamental difference in their whole nature. The belief that the two
sexes would become like each other in character if given the same
environment is, therefore, erroneous. That these differences are
original, or inborn, and not acquired, may be readily seen by observing
children of different sex. Even from their earliest years boys are more
active, restless, energetic, destructive, untidy, and disobedient, while
little girls are quieter, less restless, less destructive, neater, more
orderly, and more obedient. These different innate qualities fit the
sexes naturally for different functions in human society, and there is,
therefore, a natural division of labor between them from the first.
Indeed, the division of labor between the two sexes may be said to be
the fundamental division of labor in human society.
The causes which produce sex in the individual are not known to any
extent and are probably beyond the control of man. In each species the
relative number of the two sexes is fixed by nature, probably through
some obscure working of natural selection, and in practically all of the
higher species of animals, man included, the number of the two sexes is
relatively equal. In human society much depends upon this relative
numerical equality of the two sexes. Hence it can be readily seen that
it is fortunate that man does not know how to control the sex of
offspring, for if he did the numerical equality of the two sexes might
be disturbed and serious social results would follow.
(2) _The Influence of Parental Care._ Sex alone could never have
produced the family in the sense of a relatively permanent group of
parents and offspring. We do not begin to find the family until we get
to those higher types where we find some parental care. In the lowest
types the relation between the sexes is momentary and the survival of
offspring is secured simply through the production of enormous numbers.
Thus the sturgeon, a low type of fish, produces between one and two
million of eggs at a single spawning, from which it is estimated that
not more than a dozen individuals survive till maturity is reached. Thus
sexual reproduction of itself necessitates no parental care and in
itself could give rise in no way to the family; but quite low in the
scale of life we begin to find some parental care as a device to protect
immature offspring and secure their survival without the expenditure of
such an enormous amount of energy in mere physiological reproduction.
Even among the fishes we find some that watch over the eggs after they
are spawned and care for their young by leading them to suitable feeding
grounds. In such cases a much smaller number of young need to be
produced in order that a few may survive until maturity is reached. In
the mammals the mother, obviously, must care for the young for some
time, since mammals are animals that suckle their young. But this care
of the young by a single parent only foreshadows the family as we
understand it. Among the mammals it is not until we reach the higher
types that we find care of offspring by both parents,--a practice,
however, which is common among the birds. It is evident that as soon as
both parents are concerned in the care of the offspring they have a much
better chance of survival. Hence, natural selection favors the growth of
this type of group life and develops powerful instincts to keep male and
female together till after the birth and rearing of offspring. Such we
find to be the condition among many of the higher mammals, such as some
of the carnivora, and especially among the monkeys and apes and man.
If it is allowable at this point to generalize from the facts given, it
must be said that the family life is essentially a device of nature for
the preservation of offspring through a more or less prolonged infancy.
The family group and the instincts upon which it rests were undoubtedly,
therefore, instituted by natural selection. Summing up, we may say,
then, the animal family group owes its existence, first, to the
production of child or immature forms that need more or less prolonged
care; secondly, to the prolongation of this period of immaturity in the
higher animals, and especially in man; thirdly, to the development,
parallel with these two causes, of parental instincts which keep male
and female together for the care of the offspring. It is evident, then,
that the family life rests, not upon sex attraction, but upon the fact
of the child and the corresponding psychological fact of parental
instinct. The family, then, has been created by the very conditions of
life itself and is not a man-made institution.
The Origin of the Family in the Human Species.--Two great theories of
the origin of the family in the human species have in the past been more
or less accepted, and these we must now examine and criticize. First,
the traditional theory that the human family life was from the beginning
a pure monogamy. Secondly, the so-called evolutionary theory that the
human family life arose from confused if not promiscuous sex relations.
The first of these theories, favored both by the Bible and Aristotle,
held undisputed sway down to the middle of the nineteenth century. Then,
after the publication of Darwin's _Origin of Species_ in 1859,
certain social theorists began to put forward the second theory in the
name of evolution. In order that we may see precisely what the origin of
the human family life was, and its primitive form, we must now proceed
to criticize these two theories, especially the last, which is known as
the hypothesis of a primitive state of promiscuity.
_The Habits of the Higher Animals_. We have already spoken of the
origin of the family group in the animal world generally, but it must be
admitted that there are some difficulties in arguing directly from the
lower animals to man. Man is so separated from the lower animals through
having passed through many higher stages of an independent evolution
that in many respects his life is peculiar to itself. This is true
especially of his family life. If we survey the whole range of animal
life and then the whole range of human life, we find that there are but
two or three striking similarities between the family life of man and
that of the brutes, but a great many striking dissimilarities. The
similarities may be summed up by saying that man exhibits in common with
all the animals the phenomena of courtship, that is, of the male seeking
to win the female, also the phenomenon of male jealousy, and we may
perhaps add an instinctive aversion to crossing with the other species.
These characteristics of his family life man shares with the brutes
below him. There are, however, many things peculiar to the human family
life that are found in no animal species below man. The most striking of
these differences may be mentioned. (1) Man has no pairing season, as
practically all other animals have. (2) The number of young born in the
human species is on the whole much smaller than in any other animal
species. (3) The dependence of offspring upon parents is far longer in
the human species than in any other species. (4) Man has an antipathy to
incest or close inbreeding which seems to be instinctive. This is not
found clearly in any animal species below man. (5) There is a tendency
among human beings to artificial adornment during the period of
courtship, but not to natural ornament to any extent, as among many
animal species. (6) The indorsement of society is almost invariably
sought, both among uncivilized and civilized peoples, before the
establishment of a new family--usually through the forms of a religious
marriage ceremony. (7) Chastity in women, especially married women, is
universally insisted upon, both among uncivilized and civilized peoples,
as the basis of human family life. (8) There is a feeling of modesty or
of shame as regards matters of sex among the human beings. (9) In
humanity we find, besides animal lust, spiritual affection, or love, as
a bond of union between the two sexes.
None of these peculiarities of human family life are found in the family
life of any animal species below man. It might seem, therefore, that
man's family life must be regarded as a special creation unconnected
with the family life of the brutes below him. But this view is hardly
probable, rather is impossible from the standpoint of evolution. We must
say that these peculiarities of human family life are to be explained
through the fact that man has passed through many more stages of
evolution, particularly of intellectual evolution, than any of the
animals below him. If we examine these peculiarities of man's family
life carefully, we will see that they all can be explained through
natural selection and man's higher intellectual development. That man
has no pairing season, has fewer offspring born, and a longer period of
dependence of the offspring upon parents, and the like, is directly to
be explained through natural selection; while seeking the indorsement of
society before forming a new family, sexual modesty, tendencies to
artificial adornment, and the like, are to be explained through man's
self-consciousness and higher intellectual development, also through the
fuller development of his social instincts. The gap between the human
family life and brute family life is, therefore, not an unbridgeable
one.
That this is so, we see most clearly when we consider the family life of
the anthropoid or manlike apes--man's nearest cousins in the animal
world. All of these apes, of which the chief representatives are the
gorilla, orangutan, and the chimpanzee, live in relatively permanent
family groups, usually monogamous. These family groups are quite human
in many of their characteristics, such as the care which the male parent
gives to the mother and her offspring, and the seeming affection which
exists between all members of the group. Such a group of parents and
offspring among the higher apes is, moreover, a relatively permanent
affair, children of different ages being frequently found along with
their parents in such groups. So far as the evidence of animals next to
man, therefore, goes, there is no reason for supposing that the human
family life sprang from confused or promiscuous sex relations in which
no permanent union between male and female parent existed. On the
contrary, there is every reason to believe, as Westermarck says, that
human family life is an inheritance from man's apelike progenitor.
The Evidence from the Lower Human Races.--The evidence afforded by the
lowest peoples in point of culture even more clearly, if anything,
refutes the hypothesis of a primitive state of promiscuity. The habits
or customs of the lowest peoples were not well known previous to the
nineteenth century. Therefore it was possible for such a theory as the
patriarchal theory of the primitive family to remain generally accepted,
as we have already said, down to the middle of the nineteenth century.
This was the theory that the oldest or most primitive type of human
family life is that depicted in the opening pages of the Book of
Genesis, namely, a family life in which the father or eldest male of the
family group is the absolute ruler of the group and practically owner of
all persons and property. The belief that this was the primitive type of
the human family life was first attacked by a German-Swiss philologist
by the name of Bachofen in a work entitled _Das Mutterrecht_ (The
Matriarchate), published in 1861, in which he argued that antecedent to
the patriarchal period was a matriarchal period, in which women were
dominant socially and politically, and in which relationships were
traced through mothers only. Bachofen got his evidence for this theory
from certain ancient legends, such as that of the Amazons, and other
remains in Greek and Roman literature, which seemed to point to a period
antecedent to the patriarchal.
In 1876 Mr. J.F. McLennan, a Scotch lawyer, put forth, independently,
practically the same theory, basing it upon certain legal survivals
which he found among many peoples. With Bachofen, he argued that this
matriarchal period must have been characterized by promiscuous relations
of the sexes. In 1877 Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, an American ethnologist and
sociologist, put forth again, independently, practically the same
theory, basing it upon an extensive study of the North American Indian
tribes. Morgan had lived among the Iroquois Indians for years and had
mastered their system of relationship, which previously had puzzled the
whites. He found that they traced relationship through mothers only, and
not at all along the male line. This method of reckoning relationship,
moreover, he found also characterized practically all of the North
American Indian tribes, and he argued that the only explanation of it
was that originally sexual relations were of such an unstable or
promiscuous character that they would not permit of tracing descent
through fathers.
From these theories sociological writers put forth the conclusion that
the primitive state was one of promiscuity, or, as Sir John Lubbock
called it in his _Origin of Civilization_, one of "communism in
women." Post, a German student of comparative jurisprudence, for
example, summed up the theory by saying that "monogamous marriage
originally emerged everywhere from pure communism in women, through the
intermediate stages of limited communism in women, polyandry, and
polygyny." Even Herbert Spencer in his _Principles of Sociology_,
while he avoided accepting such an extreme theory, asserted that in the
beginning sex relations were confused and unregulated, and that all
forms of marriage--polyandry, polygyny, monogamy, and promiscuity--
existed alongside of one another and that monogamy survived through
its being the superior form.
Before giving a criticism in detail of this theory let us note whether
the evidence from the lowest peoples confirms it. The lowest peoples in
point of culture are not the North American Indians nor the African
Negroes, but certain isolated groups that live almost in a state of
nature, without any attempt to cultivate the soil or to control nature
in other respects. Such are the Bushmen of South Africa, the Australian
Aborigines, the Negritos of the Philippine Islands and of the Andaman
Islands, the Veddahs of Ceylon, and the Fuegians of South America. Now
all of these peoples, with a possible exception, practice monogamy and
live in relatively stable family groups. Their monogamy, however, is not
of the type which we find in patriarchal times or among civilized
peoples, but is a simple pairing monogamy, husband and wife remaining
together indefinitely if children are born, but if no children are born,
separation may easily take place. Westermarck in his _History of Human
Marriage_ has reviewed at length all of the evidence from these lower
peoples and shows undoubtedly that nothing approaching promiscuity
existed among them. Promiscuity is apt to be found at a higher stage of
social development, and is especially apt to be found among the nature
peoples after the white man has visited them and demoralized their
family life. But in all these cases the existence of promiscuity is
manifestly something exceptional and abnormal. Perhaps civilized peoples
such as the Romans of the decadence have more nearly approximated the
condition of promiscuity than any savage people of which we have
knowledge. At any rate, one must conclude that the lowest existing
savages found in the nineteenth century had definite forms of family
life, and that the type usually found was the simple pairing monogamy
which we have just mentioned.
Objections to the Hypothesis of a Primitive State of Promiscuity.--We
may now briefly sum up the main criticisms of this theory of a primitive
state of promiscuity, not only as we may derive them from inductive
study of the higher animals and the lower peoples, but also as we may
deduce them from known psychological and biological facts or principles.
(1) In the first place, then, the animals next to man, namely, the
anthropoid apes, do not show a condition of promiscuity.
(2) The evidence from the lower peoples does not show that such a
condition exists or has ever existed among them.
(3) A third argument against this hypothesis may be gained from what we
know of primitive economic conditions. Under the most primitive
conditions, in which man had no mastery over nature, food supply was
relatively scarce, and as a rule only very small groups of people could
live together. The smallness of primitive groups, on account of the
scarcity of food supply, would prevent anything like promiscuity on a
large scale.
(4) A fourth argument of a deductive nature is that the jealousy of the
male, which characterizes all higher animals and especially man, would
prevent anything like the existence of sexual promiscuity. The tendency
of man would have been to appropriate one or more women for himself and
drive away all rivals. Long ago Darwin argued that this would prevent
anything like the existence of a general state of promiscuity.
(5) A fifth argument against this theory may be got from the general
biological fact that sexual promiscuity tends to pathological conditions
unfavorable to fecundity, that is, fertility, or the birth of offspring.
Physicians have long ago ascertained this fact, and the modern
prostitute gives illustration of it by the fact that she has few or no
children. Among the lower animal species, in which some degree of
promiscuity obtains, moreover, powerful instincts keep the sexes apart
except at the pairing season. Now, no such instincts exist in man.
Promiscuity in man would, therefore, greatly lessen the birth rate, and
any group that practiced it to any extent would soon be eliminated in
competition with other groups that did not practice it.
(6) We have finally the general social fact that promiscuity would lead
to the neglect of children. Promiscuity means that the male parent does
not remain with the female parent to care for the offspring and,
therefore, in the human species it would mean that the care of children
would be thrown wholly upon the mother. This means that the children
would have less chance of surviving. Not only would promiscuity lead to
lessening the birth rate, but it would lead to a much higher mortality
in children born. This is found to be a striking fact wherever we find
any degree of promiscuity among any people. Hence, promiscuity would
soon exterminate any people that practiced it extensively in competition
with other peoples that did not practice it.
From all of these lines of argument, without going over the evidence in
greater detail, it seems reasonable to conclude with Westermarck "that
the hypothesis of a primitive state of promiscuity has no foundation in
fact and is essentially unscientific." The facts put forth in support of
the theory do not justify the conclusion, Westermarck says, that
promiscuity has ever been a general practice among a single people and
much less that it was the primitive state. Promiscuity is found,
however, more or less in the form of sexual irregularities or immorality
among all peoples; more often, however, among the civilized than among
the uncivilized, but among no people has it ever existed unqualified by
more enduring forms of sex relation. Moreover, because promiscuity
breaks up the social bonds, throws the burden of the care of children
wholly upon the mother, and lessens the birth rate, we are justified in
concluding that promiscuity is essentially an antisocial practice. This
agrees with the facts generally shown by criminology and sociology, that
the elements practicing promiscuity to any great extent in modern
societies are those most closely related with the degenerate and
criminal elements. Those elements, in other words, in modern society
that practice promiscuity are on the road to extinction, and if a people
generally were to practice it there is no reason to believe that such a
people would meet with any different fate.
_The Earliest Form of the Family Life in the Human Species_,
therefore, is probably that of the simple pairing monogamous family
found among many of the higher animals, especially the anthropoid apes,
and also found among the lower peoples. This primitive monogamy,
however, as we have already seen, was not accompanied by the social,
legal, and religious elements that the historic monogamic family has
largely rested upon. On the contrary, this primitive monogamy rested
solely upon an instinctive basis, and, as we have seen, unless children
were born it was apt to be relatively unstable. Permanency in family
relations among primitive peoples depended largely upon the birth of
children. Thus we find confirmed our conclusion drawn some time ago that
family life rests primarily upon the parental instinct. That it still so
rests is shown by the fact, as we shall see later, that divorce is many
times more common among couples that have no children than among those
that have children.
SOME GENERAL CONCLUSIONS, both of theoretical and practical bearing, may
here be pointed out. We have seen that the biological processes of life
have created the family, and that the family, as an institution, rests
upon these biological conditions. Hence it is not too much to say,
first, that the family is not a man-made institution; and, secondly,
that it rests upon certain fundamental instincts of human nature. Now,
both of these statements are also true to a certain extent as to human
society in general. There is a sense in which social organization is not
wholly man-made, and it is true that all human institutions rest to some
extent upon human instincts. This is not saying, of course, that man has
not modified and may not modify social organization and human
institutions through his reason, but it is saying that the essential
elements in human institutions and in the social order must correspond
to the conditions of life generally and to the instincts which natural
selection has implanted in the species. To attempt to reorganize human
society or to reconstruct institutions regardless of the biological
conditions of life, or regardless of human instincts, is to meet with
certain failure.
A practical conclusion which may be drawn also is that those people who
advocate sexual promiscuity in present society, or free love, as they
please to style it, are advocating a condition which would result in the
elimination of any group that practiced it. Promiscuity, or even great
instability in the family life, as we have already seen, would lead to
the undermining of everything upon which a higher civilization rests.
The people in modern society who advocate such theories as free love,
therefore, are more dangerous than the worst anarchist or the most
revolutionary socialist. In other words, the modern attack upon the
family is more of a menace to all that is worth while in human life than
all attacks upon government and property, although it is not usually
resented as such; and it is one of the most serious signs of the times
that many intellectual people have indorsed such views. We must
reemphasize, therefore, the fact that the family is the central
institution of human society, that industry and the state must
subordinate themselves to its interest. Neither the state nor industry
has had much to do with the origin of the family, and neither the state
nor industry may safely determine its forms independent of the
biological requirements for human survival. Moreover, it is evident that
human society from the beginning has in more or less instinctive, and
also in more or less conscious, ways attempted to regulate the relations
between the sexes with a view to controlling the reproductive process.
While material civilization is mainly a control over the food process,
moral civilization involves a control over the reproductive process,
that is, over the birth and rearing of children; and such control over
the reproductive process, which has certainly been one of the aims of
all social organization in the past, whether of savage peoples or of
civilized peoples, evidently precludes anything like the toleration of
promiscuity or even of free love.
SELECT REFERENCES
_For brief reading:_
WESTERMARCK, _History of Human Marriage_, Chaps. I-VI.
HOWARD, _History of Matrimonial Institutions_, Vol. I, Chaps. I-III
HEINEMAN, _Physical Basis of Civilization_, Chaps. IV-VII.
_For more extended reading:_
CRAWLEY, _The Mystic Rose: A Study of Primitive Marriage_.
GEDDES AND THOMSON, _Evolution of Sex_.
LETOURNEAU, _The Evolution of Marriage_.
MORGAN, _Ancient Society_.
STARCKE, _The Primitive Family_.
SPENCER, _Principles of Sociology_, Vol. I.