and which assigned to the man the duty of providing sustenance, to the woman that of keeping the house, that the nurture and development of the two sexes were so different. The struggle for existence was chiefly fought by the man, and his mental faculties were consequently stimulated to greater exertions than those of the woman. Owing to the difference of the tasks imposed upon him in everyday life, the wife was deprived of the advantage of any common discussion of his plans and occupation. It was only in the tranquil life of the village communities, in the tilling of the soil, in the rearing of the cattle, which almost exclusively occupied their lives, that women could place themselves on a level with men. When social relations were complicated under the stimulus of the struggle for wealth, which was always becoming more intense, while the growing respect for law made the enjoyment of wealth more certain because it was more protected, the demands made upon the bread-winner increased, while the housewife's position was constantly becoming more easy and tranquil, and the intellectual difference between man and wife gradually increased.

At the same time, the great demand for the education of children could hardly be satisfied by the highest mental culture. The education of the children, as the central point of family life, became the strongest bond of union between man and wife. While the husband's mental capacity exceeded that of his wife, in consequence of his strenuous conflict for subsistence, yet this conflict seemed of less importance to the children in comparison with the woman's quiet influence at home. The female mind gained in this respect what it lost in the sphere of common life, and the slighter exertions demanded by the latter made it possible for the woman to foster the tender germs of childish understanding with constant watchfulness, deep intelligence, and refined feeling. In this way the mother became the noble and esteemed companion of

the man, and the greater the duties entrusted to her, the greater became the love and sympathy which united them. The fugitive and erotic sexual impulse fails to harmonize with the nobility of this sentiment, since it is wanting alike in duration and power.

While, therefore, we see no reason to call a woman's lot contemptible, we readily admit that where the uniting and ennobling centre of the child's education is wanting, the inequality of the labour imposed respectively on man and wife may easily make itself felt in a manner disadvantageous to the woman. A childless marriage lacks the best and most natural condition of happiness, and hence it is plain that a childless couple finds it more difficult to attain to that state of content and equanimity without which happiness is unattainable, and which is most easily achieved when the object of our existence is understood to consist in living for others. The childless man is in danger of becoming so absorbed in labour which only concerns material support that he regards his wife as a mere housewife. There is still greater danger that the wife, dissatisfied with mere housewifery and unable to take interest in her husband's occupations, should abandon herself to the life of show to which the faithless mirror of society lends brilliancy and colour, while it holds frivolous sentiments in constant and changeful activity, only that it may stifle all the germs of nobler sentiments.

When we turn from the childless marriage to the unmarried woman, it must be admitted that the inferior development of the female intelligence, for which she is not to blame, has been of great disadvantage to her. Yet we are not disposed to concede that the unmarried woman, when thrown upon her own resources, can without reserve be placed on a level with the man who is a bread-winner. The man generally has to provide for the maintenance of a family, while the unmarried woman has only to provide for herself, and on that account the

struggle for existence becomes more easy. Moreover, the human community takes account of sexes and not of individuals; modes of life are formed in accordance with general rules, and those only who conform to them come under the protection of the community. The unmarried, whether man or woman, are and must always remain the exception, and they must accept whatever is arranged for them. It would be impossible for their sakes to imperil all which the experience of a thousand years has shown to be the best means of promoting the development of those aspects of human life which are most productive of happiness. The movement for the emancipation of women has not always been mindful of this general law.

The individual may justly claim such an education as will enable him to be independent of others, if necessary, but the demand does not hold good when he forgets this saving clause. The movement has sprung from the moral sentiment that we are bound to make the lot of the unmarried as tolerable as possible, but it has also overstepped the sacred threshold of marriage, and has advocated the married woman's right to her independent earnings. This assumes a legal right to independent property-a rash assumption, which would be fatal to the bond of marriage. If it is thought that independence of character and the elevation of moral worth are only possible in association with material independence, the real factors of the civilized life of man are not duly estimated. Among primitive peoples, the independent ownership of property is the condition of an independent position. The service which a wife renders to her husband might be performed by any other woman, if her personality is not to be taken into account, and she can therefore only rely on the physical forces of possession. But as soon as the wife's personality comes into play, because her capacity to bring up her children depends upon it, the attempt to base her position upon her legal right to independent property again degrades her to the rudely material standpoint.

The lower classes are often in a position which is most in favour of the woman's material independence. But those of the upper classes who snatch at means which may perhaps effect a temporary improvement in the condition of the common people, act in a shortsighted way. It would be difficult to place a woman of the lower class in a different position from those of the higher, without checking the advance into higher grades, and creating a fatal distinction of classes. To give women a position which is only in harmony with rude conditions, while it threatens the cultured forms of society with destruction, would be irrational and even criminal. If it is supposed that the legal independence of women with respect to property would remain a dead letter in the cultured classes, we may soon have reason to repent of such an error. Independence with respect to the possession of property must inevitably lead to independence with respect to its acquisition, and a woman's life must become the copy, and not the completion of that of man. It must not be forgotten that in the hard struggle for existence to which the woman is now drawn, man has lost the tender refinement of feeling which enables a mother to be the cherisher of childhood. A woman cannot take a man's burden on her shoulders without succumbing to a like fate.

T

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FAMILY, THE CLAN, AND THE TRIBE.

CONCLUSION.

Social and political meaning of the institution of the family-Patriarchal theory Distinction between the family and the clan-The family dissolved into the clan-Conclusion.

We have now ended our inquiries into the origin of the family, and will only make some brief observations on its bearing and importance with respect to the social and political forms of the State. The family has been shown to be an organization which was formed, not in order to make it easier to earn wealth, but for the better enjoyment of the wealth which was already earned; when once founded, it was maintained and carefully developed, because it offered external advantages to the man, inasmuch as his power was increased as his sons grew to manhood, and his daughters brought him into profitable relations with other families. It was an organization which was not self-contained, but depended on an external world, through which its internal ramifications were in many ways defined and modified. We have seen that the development of the family was not merely advanced by the relations which existed between its members; it was rather the different family relations of the two parents which paved the way for this development. There was, therefore, a constitutional weakness in the family, owing to the difficulty of carrying on an