en with
edifying adult society, or that the family is a social unit. The family
is in that, as in so many other respects, a humbug. Old people and young
people cannot walk at the same pace without distress and final loss of
health to one of the parties. When they are sitting indoors they cannot
endure the same degrees of temperature and the same supplies of
fresh air. Even if the main factors of noise, restlessness, and
inquisitiveness are left out of account, children can stand with
indifference sights, sounds, smells, and disorders that would make an
adult of fifty utterly miserable; whilst on the other hand such
adults find a tranquil happiness in conditions which to children mean
unspeakable boredom. And since our system is nevertheless to pack them
all into the same house and pretend that they are happy, and that this
particular sort of happiness is the foundation of virtue, it is found
that in discussing family life we never speak of actual adults or actual
children, or of realities of any sort, but always of ideals such as
The Home, a Mother's Influence, a Father's Care, Filial Piety, Duty,
Affection, Family Life, etc. etc., which are no doubt very comforting
phrases, but which beg the question of what a home and a mother's
influence and a father's care and so forth really come to in practice.
How many hours a week of the time when his children are out of bed does
the ordinary bread-winning father spend in the company of his children
or even in the same building with them? The home may be a thieves'
kitchen, the mother a procuress, the father a violent drunkard; or the
mother and father may be fashionable people who see their children three
or four times a year during the holidays, and then not oftener than
they can help, living meanwhile in daily and intimate contact with their
valets and lady's-maids, whose influence and care are often dominant in
the household. Affection, as distinguished from simple kindliness, may
or may not exist: when it does it either depends on qualities in the
parties that would produce it equally if they were of no kin to one
another, or it is a more or less morbid survival of the nursing passion;
for affection between adults (if they are really adult in mind and not
merely grown-up children) and creatures so relatively selfish and cruel
as children necessarily are without knowing it or meaning it, cannot be
called natural: in fact the evidence shews that it is easier to love the
compan