ties, of some ecclesiastical organizations,
even of some American trusts might be quoted to show that the danger is
not imaginary. Short of this, an association may act oppressively
towards others and even towards its own members, and the function of
Liberalism may be rather to protect the individual against the power of
the association than to protect the right of association against the
restriction of the law. In fact, in this regard, the principle of
liberty cuts both ways, and this double application is reflected in
history. The emancipation of trade unions, however, extending over the
period from 1824 to 1906, and perhaps not yet complete, was in the main
a liberating movement, because combination was necessary to place the
workman on something approaching terms of equality with the employer,
and because tacit combinations of employers could never, in fact, be
prevented by law. It was, again, a movement to liberty through equality.
On the other hand, the oppressive capacities of a trade union could
never be left out of account, while combinations of capital, which might
be infinitely more powerful, have justly been regarded with distrust. In
this there is no inconsistency of principle, but a just appreciation of
a real difference of circumstance. Upon the whole it may be said that
the function of Liberalism is not so much to maintain a general right of
free association as to define the right in each case in such terms as
make for the maximum of real liberty and equality.

6. _Domestic Liberty._

Of all associations within the State, the miniature community of the
Family is the most universal and of the strongest independent vitality.
The authoritarian state was reflected in the authoritarian family, in
which the husband was within wide limits absolute lord of the person and
property of wife and children. The movement of liberation consists (1)
in rendering the wife a fully responsible individual, capable of holding
property, suing and being sued, conducting business on her own account,
and enjoying full personal protection against her husband; (2) in
establishing marriage as far as the law is concerned on a purely
contractual basis, and leaving the sacramental aspect of marriage to the
ordinances of the religion professed by the parties; (3) in securing the
physical, mental, and moral care of the children, partly by imposing
definite responsibilities on the parents and punishing them for neglect,
partly by elabo