upation, the farmer tends to produce the particular crops that
he can best cultivate and that will bring him the largest returns.
Because of increasing facilities of exchange he can sell his surplus
and purchase the goods that will satisfy his other needs. The farmer's
wife no longer spins and weaves the family's supply of clothing; the
men buy their supply at the store and often even she turns over the
task of making up her own gowns to the village dressmaker. Where there
is a local creamery she is relieved of the manufacture of butter and
cheese, and the cannery lays down its preserves at her door. Household
manufacturing is confined almost entirely to the preparation of food,
with a varying amount of dressmaking and millinery. In the towns and
cities the needs of the family are even more completely supplied from
without. Children are relieved of all responsibility, women's care are
lightened by the stock of material in the shops, and the bakery and
restaurant help to supply the table. Family life loses thereby much of
its unity of effort and sympathy. The economic task falls mainly upon
the male producer. Even he lives on the land and in the house of
another man; he owns not the tools of his industry and does business
in another's name. He hires himself to a superior for wage or salary,
and thereby loses in a measure his own independence. But there is a
gain in social solidarity, for the chain of mutual dependence reached
farther and binds more firmly; there is gain in community
co-operation, for each family is no longer self-sufficient.

READING REFERENCES

BOSANQUET: _The Family_, pages 221-227, 324-333.

THOMAS: _Sex and Society_, pages 123-146.

SMALL AND VINCENT: _Introduction to the Study of Society_, pages
105-108.

MASON: _Woman's Share in Primitive Culture._

WEEDEN: _Economic and Social History of New England_, I, pages
324-326.

CHAPTER IX

CHANGES IN THE FAMILY

72. =Causes of Changes in the Family.=--The family at the present time
is in a transition era. Its machinery is not working smoothly. Its
environment is undergoing transformation. A hundred years ago the
family was strictly rural; not more than three per cent of the people
lived in large communities. Now nearly one-half are classified as
urban by the United States census of 1910, and those who remain rural
feel the influences of the town. There is far less economic
independence on the farm than formerly,