family be preserved.

A recent book claiming intellectual authority and endorsed by many men
in high positions states this opinion clearly, and seeks to strengthen
it by the use of scientific half-truths used not scientifically but as
a support for a metaphysical theory of masculine and feminine quality.
Every step that has been taken from the male despotism within marriage
and parenthood has met such appeals to stay the progress of democracy
toward the hearth-stone lest the family order be wholly destroyed.
Most people, however, believe that the steps which have been taken
away from that family despotism are too many to be retraced. Women
will not be put back into perpetual legal minority when once they have
become adults under the law. They will not consent to lose property
rights and the power of guardianship over their own children. They
will not consent to their own disfranchisement or to the loss of
opportunities of education and of economic independence. It is as
futile as it is stupid to expect that in this matter history will go
backward. To oppose measures already accomplished which are in the
direction of democratic adjustment of social relations, even by those
who think certain measures "a reform against nature," is not only idle
in effect but shows that the opposer is out of touch with "whatsoever
forces draw the ages on."

There are many elements in the restlessness of a period too rapidly
changing to be always sure of its ground that needlessly confuse the
issues of family obligation and personal loyalty to accepted tasks.
There are many tendencies toward extreme individualism which need
balancing by clearer ideals of social serviceableness. Especially is
this true in the case of women somewhat intoxicated by the belated
freedom and power which came to them after too prolonged a struggle
against inherited bonds. There are many economic and educational
requirements yet to be met in order to protect and maintain the
accepted ideal of monogamic marriage. But of all the ideas inimical to
the family in our modern life, the demand for its return to
aristocratic and outgrown forms is the most absurd and the most
harmful. All history shows that those who try to put a law, a
political system, an economic method, a rule of morality, or a
religious ideal back into a form discarded by the majority of those
who constitute the ethical and intellectual elite directly work toward
the chaos of revolution. To try to forc