h
infancy with at least one parent, is as yet undeveloped, any instruction
will be individual and usually incidental.

The second form is that of a kind of family unity, either about the
mother or the father, or both, or about a group of parents, in which the
children live together and are sheltered and nurtured for their earlier
years. Here, however, the real relationship of the child is to the
tribe, the family is but his temporary guardian, and, at least by the
age of puberty, he will be initiated into the tribal secrets. If he is a
boy, he will cease to be a member of the family group and will go to
live in the "men's house," becoming a part of the larger life of the
tribe.[8] Such moral and religious instruction as he may acquire will
come from the songs, traditions, and conversation which he hears as a
child.

The third type approaches the modern ideal, with a greater or less
degree of permanent unity between the two parents and with permanence in
the group of the offspring. The parental responsibility continues for a
greater length of time and, since the tribe makes smaller claims, and
the parents live in the common domestic group, much more instruction is
possible and is given. The tribal ideals, the traditions, observances,
and religious rites are imparted to children gradually in their homes.

The last type brings us to the Hebrew conception of family life. It
developed toward the Christian ideal. At first, polygamy was permitted;
woman was the chattel of man and excluded from any part in the religious
rites. But it included the ideal of monogamy in its tradition of the
origin of the world, it denounced and punished adultery (Deut. 22: 22),
and it gave especial attention to the training of the offspring. "And
these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart; and
thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of
them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way,
and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up ... and thou shalt
write them upon the door-posts of thy house and upon thy gates" (Deut.
6: 6, 7, 9).

Much later, the messianic hope, the belief that in some Jewish family
there should be born one divinely commissioned and endowed to liberate
Israel and to give the Jews world-sovereignty, operated to elevate the
conception of motherhood and, through that, of the family. It made
marriage desirable and children a blessing; it rendered motherh