is
allowed do not lead to the belief that legal permanence of the
marriage bond secures socially helpful family life. On the contrary,
such facts already show that divorce in the civilization we have
inherited comes as a result of bad conditions which worked infinite
harm before divorces could be obtained.

=Old Institutions Need New Sanctions.=--We must now ask of any laws
concerning any institution not what did ancient "folk-ways" ordain but
what do modern conditions require? No form of human association,
however old and whatever its contribution to the social inheritance,
but is on trial to-day before all free minds. That trial must be
openly conducted. No "secret diplomacy" to reinstate old ideals or
laws against the common belief; no "boring from within" to propagate
new schemes the object of which is to gratify personal wish without
regard to public good; but "open covenants" with the future "openly
arrived at" in an ethically consecrated present. What shall be our
guide in such a free and frank consideration of the present and the
future of the family?

=The Monogamic Family Justifies Itself by Social Usefulness.=--In the
first place, one must accept the fact that it is presumptive evidence
of the continued worth and value of any inherited institution if it
can be proved that it has served vital social needs which still
operate and that no other existing institution is able or ready to
take its place for the special social service which it was designed to
render. To the present writer it seems clear that the monogamic family
holds its title clear to social preservation on both these points. The
family preceded individualistic marriage as we know it and was
developed for the purpose of giving to oncoming generations a share in
the race-life, whatever the ideals concerning that race-life may have
been at any period of social order. Even in its present undeveloped
form, with its cramping limitations of past autocracy and with its
crude attempts at an as yet half-understood democracy, we may well
count the private monogamic family as a priceless inheritance and work
toward its better organization and larger service to social life. No
other institution yet developed has shown in history or now shows in
present life a worthy substitute for its functioning in child-care and
child-development. Many also believe that no form of sex-association
secures such possibilities of moral discipline and personal
satisfaction as