erely a sub-family, and often the grouping resembles
that of the Montagues and the Capulets, if Romeo and Juliet had married.
Mrs. Herbert said, charmingly, in _Garden Oats_, "Our in-laws are our
strained relations."

With the closeness of the family goes the regard for the name, once so
strong. I feel sure that in all seriousness, round about 1850, a father
may have said to his son that he was disgracing the name of Smith. Now
he may almost disgrace the name of FitzArundel for all anybody cares.
There was a time when it was thought criminal that a man should become a
bankrupt, but few families will now mortgage their estate to prevent a
distant member's appearance before the official receiver. The name of
the family is now merely generic, and the bold young girl of to-morrow
will say, "My father began life as a forger and was ultimately hanged,
but that shouldn't bother you, should it?" Much of that deliquescence is
due to the factory system, for it opened opportunities to all, which
many took, raised men high in the scale of wealth; one brother might be
a millionaire in Manchester, while another tended a bar in Liverpool.
Sometimes the rich member of the family came back, such as the uncle who
returned from America with a fortune, in a state of sentimental
generosity, but most of the time it has meant that the family split into
those who keep their carriage and those who take the tram. Perhaps
Cervantes did not exaggerate when saying that there are only two
families: Have-Much and Have-Little.

4

What the future reserves I disincline to prophesy. It is enough to point
to tendencies, and to say, "Along this road we go, we know not whither."
But of one thing I feel certain: the family will not become closer, for
the individualistic tendency of man leads to instinctive rebellion; his
latent anarchism to isolate him from his fellows. There is a growing
rebellion among women against the thrall of motherhood, which, however
delightful it may be, is a thrall--the velvet-coated yoke is a yoke
still. I do not suppose that the mothers of the future will unanimously
deposit their babies in the municipal creche. But I do believe that with
the growth of cooeperative households, and especially of that quite new
class, the skilled Princess Christian or Norland nurses, there will be a
delegation of responsibility from the mother to the expert. It will go
down to the poor as well as to the rich. Already we have district
nurses f