e shell and organ of
the family. We will consider cosmic and political tendencies simply as
they strike that ancient and unique roof. Very few words will suffice
for all I have to say about the family itself. I leave alone the
speculations about its animal origin and the details of its social
reconstruction; I am concerned only with its palpable omnipresence. It
is a necessity far mankind; it is (if you like to put it so) a trap for
mankind. Only by the hypocritical ignoring of a huge fact can any
one contrive to talk of "free love"; as if love were an episode like
lighting a cigarette, or whistling a tune. Suppose whenever a man lit a
cigarette, a towering genie arose from the rings of smoke and followed
him everywhere as a huge slave. Suppose whenever a man whistled a tune
he "drew an angel down" and had to walk about forever with a seraph on
a string. These catastrophic images are but faint parallels to the
earthquake consequences that Nature has attached to sex; and it is
perfectly plain at the beginning that a man cannot be a free lover; he
is either a traitor or a tied man. The second element that creates
the family is that its consequences, though colossal, are gradual; the
cigarette produces a baby giant, the song only an infant seraph. Thence
arises the necessity for some prolonged system of co-operation; and
thence arises the family in its full educational sense.

It may be said that this institution of the home is the one anarchist
institution. That is to say, it is older than law, and stands outside
the State. By its nature it is refreshed or corrupted by indefinable
forces of custom or kinship. This is not to be understood as meaning
that the State has no authority over families; that State authority
is invoked and ought to be invoked in many abnormal cases. But in most
normal cases of family joys and sorrows, the State has no mode of entry.
It is not so much that the law should not interfere, as that the law
cannot. Just as there are fields too far off for law, so there are
fields too near; as a man may see the North Pole before he sees his own
backbone. Small and near matters escape control at least as much as vast
and remote ones; and the real pains and pleasures of the family form
a strong instance of this. If a baby cries for the moon, the policeman
cannot procure the moon--but neither can he stop the baby. Creatures so
close to each other as husband and wife, or a mother and children, have
powers of m