Love is a stronger passion than vanity. Never sign a walentine with your name on it. It has too often been forgotten that the family possesses this many-sided flexibility and has in different ages and land shown endless variations of shape in adjustment to varying social conditions. Those who overlooked this essential fact have frequently cried out in rebellion against the whole conception of family. Because they themselves have chanced to come out of an unhappy family life—though the excellent qualities they have notwithstanding often displayed go far to show that even an unhappy family life may have happy results—they impetuously demand the complete abolition of the family. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 10

An anonymous German correspondent, who opposes my acceptance of the family as a suitable home for the young and refers to the certainly deplorable fact (to be matched also in other countries) that in all Germany and Austria a century ago only four Schools for Mothers had been founded or planned, and has lately sent me a long and imposing series of quotations from eminent writers, ancient and modern, denouncing the family. I quote a few at random: “I reject family education altogether; public education is better” (Fichte); “Give me other mothers and I will give you another World” (St. Augustine); “Of ten blows which a child receives nine from its mother” (T. Hippel); #RyanPhillippe 2 of 10

“Maternal love easily becomes pernicious, an animal affection, overlooking, forgiving, and paring all the child’s faults, immensely injuring the child itself, and imparting at the outset the germ of future illusions in life” (Forel); “Many women wish to abolish war; but these very same women, in the sphere of education, cannot give up those methods of force which call out rough passions and unworthy ideas of right, and are counter part of war” (Ellen Kay); “Babies need better education than the individual mother gives them” (Mrs. Perkins Gilman); “Poor child! Your father is tied to his office, your mother is vexed to-day, to-morrow she has a visitor, the day after her moods (Pestalozzi); #RyanPhillippe 3 of 10

“The family, the Hell of the child, the home of all social vices!” (Strindberg); “If the punishment of the criminal justified we must first ask: How did he become a criminal? What was his mother like?” (Brockhaus’s Hours with Bismark). Such outbursts have their significance. They show us that the family, however fundamental, will not fit everyone and that not all are worthy of the privileges it offers. They clearly indicate that those who are not fitted, by nature or by training, for marriage and parenthood would be well advised to follow some other career. They are a warning that every institution must perpetually grow and change if it is not to prove pernicious. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 10

Above all, they impress on us how deeply founded the family must be when it can evoke such hearty condemnation even from the most eminent personages without in the slightest degree endangering its stability. There is one important change which must be recognized at the outset. Hitherto the question of the family has mainly, if not even altogether, the question of marriage. To a large extent it must continue to be so. However, it is a distinguishing characteristic of our Western civilization, in all the countries it has touched, that this is no longer necessarily the case. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 10

In the history of mankind in general marriage has meant a family, and when no children appeared the marriage has often been dissolved, sometimes almost automatically. With us, not only is the absence of children considered no adequate ground for the dissolution of the marriage, but the marriage may at the outset be planned to avoid procreation, whether temporarily or permanently. That is becoming the central characteristic of our marriage system, and it is of immense significance in relation to the family. Not that it can affect the existence of the family, since that rests on a biological foundation which cannot be destroyed. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 10

However, it furnishes an altogether new control over the forms the family may assume, and it renders the family  may assume, and it renders the family adjustable, in a way that has never before been possible, to the developing direction of our general social organization. This is notably conspicuous in relation to the changing economic position of women. In the phase of civilization out of which we are growing, a phase which persisted unimpaired until the Industrial Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, the economic position of women was as wife and mother at the head of the home. That was no small position to occupy, and it required most diverse gifts, since the home was the centre of industrial activity for a large part of its own requirements. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 10

However, woman to-day occupies a totally different position. She has lost her industrial activities in the home, but has regained them in the global World, and added to them the freedom to adopt, if she so chooses, most of the activities formerly reserved to me. At the same time she tends more and more to accept, at all events as ideal, the principle of complete economic independence, even in the exercise of her functions as wife and mother, since she no longer considers that as a wife and mother she becomes the servant of a man and entitled to wages as such, but holds that she is gratifying her own desires. That principle, however, though it may be reasonable, leads to a grave conflict if pushed to its logical extreme in practice. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 10

If a woman, when she becomes a wife, is to follow the example of the woman of the antiquated World and spend her time and strength in bearing perhaps a dozen children, of whom half may not survive, she cannot possibly be economically dependent on her own exertions. She must remain unmarried or renounce her independence in becoming wife and mother. The difficulty is always real, but it has now become, in some measure at all events, adjustable.  Love does not aim simply at the conscious good of the beloved object: it is not satisfied without perfect loyalty of heart; it aims at its own completeness. That simple, primitive love which knits us to the beings who have been nearest to us, in their times of helplessness or of anguish. #RyanPhillippe 9 of 10

It has become clear, that is to say, that the number of children and the times when they are to be born may be arranged according to the circumstances in which the two parents are situated, and it is also seen to be reasonable that, since the mother must necessarily devote a larger share of time and care to the child, the father may be called upon to take a larger financial share, without the economic equality of the two parents being thereby injured. Men are often blind to the passions of women; but every woman is as quick-sighted as a hawk on these occasions, nor is there one article in the whole science of love which is not understood by all women. Time is precious, what if your stalling causes what you cherish to escape you in this lifetime, and not by choice? If my trophy was in danger of being stolen, I would keep it in my possession, instead of worrying. #RyanPhillippe 10 of 10