of an ever longer period of
immaturity, and so to improve the race--this is the original purpose of
the family.

When a natural institution becomes human it enters the plane of
consciousness. We think about it; and, in our strange new power of
voluntary action do things to it. We have done strange things to the
family; or, more specifically, men have.

Balsac, at his bitterest, observed, "Women's virtue is man's best
invention." Balsac was wrong. Virtue--the unswerving devotion to one
mate--is common among birds and some of the higher mammals. If
Balsac meant celibacy when he said virtue, why that is one of man's
inventions--though hardly his best.

What man has done to the family, speaking broadly, is to change it from
an institution for the best service of the child to one modified to his
own service, the vehicle of his comfort, power and pride.

Among the heavy millions of the stirred East, a child--necessarily a
male child--is desired for the credit and glory of the father, and his
fathers; in place of seeing that all a parent is for is the best service
of the child. Ancestor worship, that gross reversal of all natural law,
is of wholly androcentric origin. It is strongest among old patriarchal
races; lingers on in feudal Europe; is to be traced even in America
today in a few sporadic efforts to magnify the deeds of our ancestors.

The best thing any of us can do for our ancestors is to be better than
they were; and we ought to give our minds to it. When we use our past
merely as a guide-book, and concentrate our noble emotions on the
present and future, we shall improve more rapidly.

The peculiar changes brought about in family life by the predominance
of the male are easily traced. In these studies we must keep clearly
in mind the basic masculine characteristics: desire, combat,
self-expression--all legitimate and right in proper use; only
mischievous when excessive or out of place. Through them the male is led
to strenuous competition for the favor of the female; in the overflowing
ardours of song, as in nightingale and tomcat; in wasteful splendor
of personal decoration, from the pheasant's breast to an embroidered
waistcoat; and in direct struggle for the prize, from the stag's locked
horns to the clashing spears of the tournament.

It is earnestly hoped that no reader will take offence at the
necessarily frequent, reference to these essential features of maleness.
In the many books about women it is,