e old Roman period. But the absolute patriarchal
control of wife and children made the man selfish and arbitrary and
weakened the bond of affection and mutual interests, while Roman
political conquest strengthened the pride and power of the imperial
masters. Religion lost its prestige and the family bond loosened,
until from being one of the purest of social institutions in the early
days of the republic, the Roman family became one of the most
degenerate. This boded ill for the future of the race and empire.

38. =The Mediaeval Family.=--The Roman family seemed in danger of
disintegrating, for the matron claimed rights that ran counter to the
rights of the man, when two new forces entered Roman society and
checked this tendency toward disintegration. The first was
Christianity, the second was Teutonic conquest. Christianity taught
consideration for women and children, but it taught submission to the
man in the home, and so was a constructive force in the conservation
of the family. Teutonic custom was similar to the early Roman. When
Teutonic enterprise pushed a new race over the goal of race conflict
and took in charge the administration of affairs in Roman society,
there was a restoration of the rule of force and so of masculine
supremacy. In the lord's castle and the peasant's hut the authority of
the man continued unquestioned through the Middle Ages, and the church
made monogamous marriage a binding sacrament; but sexual infidelity
was common, especially of the husband, and divorce was not unknown. In
the civilized lands of Christendom monogamy was the only form of
marriage recognized by civil law, and with the slow growth toward
higher standards of civilization the harshness of patriarchal custom
has become softened and the rights of women and children have been
increased by law, though not without endangering the solidarity of the
family. Similarly, the standards of sex conduct have improved.

39. =Advantages of Monogamy.=--The advantages of monogamy are so many
that in spite of the present restiveness under restraint it seems
certain to become the permanent and universal type as reason asserts
its right and controls impulse. Nature seems to have predetermined it
by maintaining approximately an equal number of the sexes, and nature
frowns upon promiscuity by penalizing it with sterility and neglect of
the few children that are born, so that in the struggle for existence
the fittest survive by a process of natur