Family

The family is the society every reader of these volumes has known first. Its idea covers marriage and its ends, the bond between husband and wife, the love and authority that join parents and children, the ties of brothers, sisters and wider kin, and the household as an economy that passes goods and a name down the generations. It is a great idea for the Harvard Classics because it appears in nearly every kind of book they contain. It moves the epics of Homer and Virgil and the tragedies of Aeschylus and Shakespeare. It is the subject of scripture, of Confucius and the Koran, and of treatises on education and political economy. Comedy and the household tale take it for their matter. Again and again these books ask whether the family is natural or made, whether it is a little state or something other than a state, and how much any one member owes the rest.

Several modern writers treat the family as the seed of all larger society. Freeman holds that the natural family, enlarged by adoption, grew into the gens and then into tribe and nation, so that kindred, “real or artificial,” underlies all government^1,2. He also admits that the primeval Aryans need not have been a natural family at all³. Renan finds the Celtic institutions to be extensions of the family⁴. Taine calls the family a natural but limited state, founded on the obedience of wife and children to the father⁵. Hugo pictures the first age as a time of patriarchs, without kings or laws⁶. Whether the family is natural in this sense is disputed in the books themselves. Pope argues that man’s helpless offspring need long care, and that this care forms lasting bonds of love and gratitude⁷. Rousseau denies that primitive families lived together. Mother and child, he says, parted once need ceased^8,9, and conjugal love arose only when settled huts made families into little societies¹⁰. Darwin’s Fuegians, without home or domestic affection, seem to lend sad support to the sceptic¹¹.

If the family is the first society, perhaps the father is the first ruler. Confucius says that being a good son and brother is itself a way of ruling¹², and that order holds only when father is father and son son¹³. In Plato the laws claim a parent’s standing over Socrates, having regulated his parents’ marriage and his nurture¹⁴. Bacon’s Bensalem honors the Tirsan, a patriarch who settles discord and directs the marriages of his line at the state’s cost¹⁵. Pope makes filial obedience the model of political obedience¹⁶. The moderns hesitate here. Hobbes holds that governing a family and governing a kingdom are different sorts of business¹⁷. Rousseau limits paternal authority to the child’s years of need, after which the son owes respect but not obedience¹⁸. Smith applies the same reasoning to colonies, which owe their mother city gratitude but not submission¹⁹.

The family is also the school of the wider affections. In Burke’s phrase, our public affections begin in our families²⁰. Freeman likewise traces feeling outward from household to race²¹. Yet the books dwell just as often on conflict between home and city. Confucius thinks uprightness means that father and son screen each other²². Antigone sets the burial of her brother above Creon’s decree²³. Crito urges Socrates to live for his children, and Socrates replies that his friends will care for them^24,25. Volumnia can turn her son from Rome only by appealing to what a child owes his mother, and Plutarch judges that Coriolanus should have spared mother and country together^26,27. Religion sharpens the conflict further. Christ in Luke brings division into households²⁸. Bunyan’s Christian stops his ears against wife and children²⁹, and Polyeucte places his debt to God above wife and country³⁰.

On the nature of marriage there are three main positions. The first treats it as a sacred and indissoluble bond. Milton’s Adam and Eve are “one flesh,” and their state cannot be parted^31,32. Cervantes calls marriage a divine ordinance that makes two one will³³. Luther uses the marriage of Christ and the soul as his figure of faith³⁴, and Rousseau’s Vicar calls marriage the first and most sacred institution of nature³⁵. The second view stresses procreation. The Psalms count children a heritage from God³⁶. Pliny secures for his friends the privilege granted to fathers of three children^37,38. Bacon’s king owns himself a debtor only for the increase of his subjects³⁹, and Smith shows how well-paid labor makes children a source of wealth⁴⁰. The third position sets celibacy above marriage. Paul allows marriage as a remedy against fornication but calls celibacy better and happier^41,42. Augustine feels bound and burdened by married life⁴³. Epictetus doubts that the Cynic should marry except in a republic of the wise⁴⁴. Against clerical celibacy Luther insists that priests need lawful wives^45,46, and Harrison finds the households of married clergy more orderly⁴⁷. Sceptics go further than either camp. Montaigne thinks marriage a constrained covenant, unfit for the freedom of friendship⁴⁸. Browne calls the union of the sexes the foolishest act of a wise man⁴⁹. Thackeray’s Swift rails at marriage and children altogether⁵⁰.

Who chooses a spouse, and on what grounds? Penn counsels marrying for love and preferring person to money^51,52. Bacon contrasts the chaste unions of Bensalem with European bargains for portion and alliance⁵³, and Massinger’s Lovell wants equality of years, birth and fortune⁵⁴. Much of the literature, however, shows fathers arranging matches. A Buddhist father sends his daughter off with a vast dowry and precepts for living with her husband’s family^55,56. Molière’s Orgon asserts a father’s right over his daughter’s match^57,58. Locke notes young men hurried home to marry for their parents’ sake⁵⁹, and Franklin’s Moravians defend marriage by lot on the ground that choosing for oneself risks unhappiness too⁶⁰. Daughters defy such matches: Dekker’s Rose⁶¹, Massinger’s Margaret, who says that duty forced too far may break^62,63, and the lovers of Burns’s songs⁶⁴. Law itself begins to balance the claims. Bacon’s Bensalem lets children married without parental consent inherit only a third⁶⁵, while the Massachusetts Body of Liberties lets children complain against parents who deny them marriage⁶⁶.

Between husband and wife the books join affection with hierarchy. Odysseus praises a husband and wife of one mind as the best thing on earth⁶⁷, and Penn would have a wife be friend and second self^52,68. Yet Paul names the man head of the woman⁶⁹, the Koran grants husbands authority to admonish⁷⁰, and Milton’s God rebukes Adam for yielding his headship to Eve⁷¹. Augustine’s Monica wins her harsh husband by patient meekness⁷². Bagehot finds in Milton’s divorce tracts the overweening rights of the man⁷³. Among the moderns the question is opened. Defoe would have men take women as companions rather than stewards⁷⁴. Mill honors the Saint-Simonians for proclaiming the equality of the sexes⁷⁵ and asks the state to check the despotic power of husbands⁷⁶. Ruskin reconciles the wife’s subjection with a guiding role⁷⁷, and he questions whether the man is always the wiser ruler⁷⁸. The comic tradition treats mastery as a contest. Sheridan’s Teazles quarrel over authority and money⁷⁹, and Burns calls a shrewish marriage “pains o’ hell on earth”⁸⁰.

The bond is tested by betrayal. Homer’s Agamemnon sets faithless Clytemnestra against prudent Penelope⁸¹, and Penelope keeps faith through twenty years⁸². The Thousand and One Nights opens on a wife’s infidelity and the killings that follow⁸³. Cervantes shows the folly of a husband who tests his wife⁸⁴. Dryden’s Octavia, wronged by Antony, keeps her duty to their children⁸⁵. On divorce the positions divide sharply. Paul forbids it among believers⁸⁶, and Luke calls remarriage adultery⁸⁷. More’s Utopians allow it for adultery or intolerable manners⁸⁸. Milton, in Bagehot’s account, claimed the husband’s right to put away an unfit wife, a claim Bagehot doubts because it makes husbands judges in their own cases⁸⁹. Mill answers Humboldt’s wish for dissolution at will by pointing to the obligations created by children⁹⁰. Polygamy, which the Koran regulates⁹¹, Tacitus finds almost absent among the Germans⁹². Mill calls it an infraction of liberty, even when women accept it voluntarily⁹³.

Widowhood brings its own question. Penelope is torn between her husband’s bed and remarriage⁹⁴. Hamlet is outraged at his mother’s haste⁹⁵, and his player queen calls a second marriage a second killing of the husband⁹⁶. Webster’s Duchess defies her brothers’ ban on remarriage⁹⁷, while Walton records the happy remarriage of Herbert’s widow⁹⁸. Donne, left a widower with seven children, vows never to give them a stepmother⁹⁹.

The love of parents for children is perhaps the most universal theme in the collection. Monica weeps for her son more than mothers weep for dead children¹⁰⁰. Lear grieves over the dead Cordelia¹⁰¹, and Tell protests that a father cannot aim at his child’s head¹⁰². Tennyson’s mother would rather share hell with her son than be saved without him¹⁰³. Bacon adds that wife and children are hostages to fortune¹⁰⁴. The Stoics urge detachment: Epictetus holds that wife and children are God’s, to be yielded up¹⁰⁵, and Marcus Aurelius calls them leaves¹⁰⁶. Love also has its dangers. Locke warns that parents’ fondness cherishes their children’s faults¹⁰⁷, and Penn observes that partial parents are ill obeyed¹⁰⁸. Goldsmith’s Mrs. Hardcastle makes comedy of a doting mother¹⁰⁹.

How children should be reared is chiefly Locke’s question. He would have parents rule first by awe, then as the son grows relax their command, confide in him and become his friend^110,111,112. Pliny had already counseled a harsh father to remember that he too was once a boy¹¹³. Burke observes that a father’s authority hinders love¹¹⁴. Mill’s account of his own father, under whom fear dried up the children’s affection, bears out the warning¹¹⁵. Montaigne would raise a child away from his parents’ fond eyes¹¹⁶, while Locke prefers education at home¹¹⁷. Fathers choosing their children’s vocations meet resistance in Cellini, whose father wanted him to be a musician¹¹⁸, and in Manzoni’s Gertrude, forced into the cloister¹¹⁹. Smith and Mill turn to the duty of parents to provide. Smith shows poverty killing children¹²⁰, and Mill calls it a moral crime to beget a child without the prospect of providing for it¹²¹.

Children’s duties run from Confucius to the Quakers. Confucius asks for reverence and not mere feeding, and for three years’ mourning to repay three years of parental care^122,123. Aeneas carries his father out of Troy¹²⁴. More kneels daily for his father’s blessing¹²⁵. Penn makes the obligation as indissoluble as the relation itself¹²⁶. Yet calling may override it. In Luke disciples must put parents behind them¹²⁷, and Walton’s Herbert asks leave to be an “undutiful son”¹²⁸. Lear’s daughters show ingratitude “sharper than a serpent’s tooth”¹²⁹.

The family can also be a scene of tyranny. Cenci tortures his children¹³⁰, and the Pope upholds a father’s power while leaving them unprotected¹³¹. The house of Atreus repeats kin-murder through generations¹³². Its cycle ends only in a trial where Apollo argues that the father alone is the true parent¹³³ and the Furies reply that the womb is the closest bond¹³⁴. Gudrun kills her own sons to avenge her brothers¹³⁵. Against these stand brothers and sisters bound by devotion, from Antigone¹³⁶ to Andersen’s Eliza¹³⁷. Kinship by adoption is honored as well; Freeman treats it as making a man one with the gens in everything but physical descent¹³⁸. Not every writer finds blood binding. Montaigne thinks kin may be fools¹³⁹, and Browne would love a friend before his nearest kin¹⁴⁰.

Last, the family transmits property. The Koran fixes each heir’s share¹⁴¹. Burke defends the perpetuation of property in families as a bond of society¹⁴². Smith thinks it cruel to tax a child’s inheritance from a father¹⁴³. Manzoni’s prince sacrifices his younger children to keep his estate whole for the eldest¹⁴⁴. Penn and Woolman would have parents leave their children virtue rather than riches that become snares^145,146. Orgon disinherits his son to enforce obedience¹⁴⁷.

The ancients largely took the household’s hierarchy for granted and fought out their conflicts within it. The moderns ask whether that hierarchy is natural at all. They ask how far a father’s power should reach, whether wife and husband are equals, and whether the state may enter the home to protect its weaker members. These questions remain open in the books themselves.