Marriage and the Child [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512800784

Table of contents :
Introductory Note
Contents
Tables
Part I The Background if Child Welfare
Chapter I. Child Welfare and the Modern Mind
Chapter II. The Child Welfare Movement
Part II. Selected Problems of Marriage
Chapter III. The Age Factor in Marriage
Chapter IV. Residential Propinquity as a Factor in Marriage
Chapter V. Nationality and Nativity as Factors in Marriage
Chapter VI. Further Studies in Marriage Selection
Chapter VII. Ecological Areas and Marriage Rates
Chapter VIII. Marriage Rates and the Depression: A Philadelphia Study
Chapter IX. Summary
Index

Citation preview

MARRIAGE AND T H E CHILD

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD BY

JAMES H. S. BOSSARD Professor of Sociology and Professor of Child Ηel-ping The William T. Carter Foundation University of Pennsylvania

PHILADELPHIA

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS LONDON: H U M P H R E Y

M I L F O R D : OXFORD UNIVERSITY

I94O

PRESS

Copyright 1940 U N I V E R S I T Y OF P E N N S Y L V A N I A Manufactured

PRESS

in the United States of America

By the Haddon

Craftsmen,

Inc.

To the memory of CORNELIA REDINGTON

CARTER

whose interest in the well-being of children dominated her life and whose deep insight into the solution of their problems inspired the establishment of T H E WILLIAM T . CARTER FOUNDATION

INTRODUCTORY

NOTE

THE William T. Carter Foundation of the University of Pennsylvania, administered through the medium of a professorship of Child Helping, was established in 1924 by Mrs. Cornelia Redington Carter, of Philadelphia, in memory of her husband, the late William Thornton Carter. The idea of the Foundation was the outgrowth of experience in the maintenance of the William T . Carter Junior Republic, a school for training boys, organized in 1899 on a hundred-acre tract of land at Redington, Pennsylvania, and based primarily upon the initial concepts of William R. George, founder of the George Junior Republic. For twenty-five years Mrs. Carter gave a large part of her time to the study of the underlying causes of the misbehavior of boys. In many cases she visited the homes from which the boys had come, talked with their parents and associates and the judges before whom some were brought. Notwithstanding the recognized success of the "Republic" in helping to develop character and self-dependence, the conviction grew that the difficulty was rooted deeply in the past. Factors in the home life and deficiencies in the parents tended to produce children who sooner or later would be brought before the juvenile courts. Likewise, other deficiencies of a less evident kind but equally serious, such as lack of patience, sympathy, and understanding on the part of teachers as well as parents, produced unhappy results. Mrs. Carter's conclusions, both as to the nature of the problem and the most effective approaches to it, are well stated in the deed of gift establishing the William T . Carter Foundation. "The problem of helping children," it reads, "is essentially an educational one, the solution of which is to be found in the educating of parents and teachers to the necessity and in the methods of reaching a proper understanding of the individual Child." Thus, with the realization that the more permanent values of the vii

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD school's experience could be rendered more effectively to a greater number of people, M r s . Carter decided to transfer its endowment to the University of Pennsylvania. T h e purposes of the Foundation, as stated at the time of its establishment, are " t h e study of the principles governing and necessary to the welfare of the child, and the proper education in those principles of those who, as parents, teachers and otherwise, are charged with or undertake the upbringing of children and their moral and mental development to meet the obligations of life and discharge the duties of good citizenship." T h e first occupant of the chair thus established was the late J. S. H e b e r l i n g , former director of the "Republic." U n d e r his leadership a service was developed to assist parents and teachers in meeting the problems of children, both at home and in school. M r . H e b e r l i n g continued in this position, ably maintaining this service, until his death on September 28, 1932. O n February 1, 1933, K a r l de Schweinitz, a well-known social work administrator in Philadelphia, was appointed as M r . Heberling's successor. A t the same time, the purposes of the Foundation were broadened slightly to include further emphasis upon the development of closer relations between the University and the social agencies of Philadelphia. T o this end the chair was associated with the Department of Sociology. Beginning with the fall of 1933, a course on " T h e D e v e l o p ment of the I n d i v i d u a l " was offered to junior and senior students in the C o l l e g e of Liberal Arts, the W h a r t o n School of Finance and Commerce, and the School of Education, of the University. T h e purpose of this course was " t o give students a background of future relationships with children as parents, teachers, or otherwise, and for civic activities on behalf of children as members of boards, commissions, and the like." T h i s course was offered until 1936, w h e n M r . de Schweinitz was given a leave of absence to serve as secretary of the D e p a r t m e n t of Public Assistance of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. O t h e r activities of the Foundation during M r . de Schweinitz's tenure included: ( a ) the maintenance of a research

student

through w h o m an effort was made to maintain close relation-

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

ix

ships with agencies in the field of children's work and to gather "materials for use in interpreting to students and to the general public the experience that is being developed in the practice of social work"} (b) an affiliation with the Child Guidance Clinic, whereby requests received by the Foundation from parents, teachers, and other individuals for counsel about their problems with children were referred to the Clinic, and whereby Dr. Frederick H . Allen, director of the Clinic, conducted a weekly seminar on behavior problems of children to the resident and visiting staff of the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia} and (c) the conduct of a number of courses at the Pennsylvania School for Social Work. Following the resignation of M r . de Schweinitz during the academic year 1937-1938, James H . S. Bossard, professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, was named director of the Foundation and assumed his duties on July 1, 1938. Since 1922 Dr. Bossard has been conducting courses on the problem of child welfare in both the graduate and the undergraduate schools of the University, and his appointment as director of the Foundation made possible the coordination of its resources with the established courses of instruction in the field of child welfare. In conformity with the donor's objective of furthering education through the University in the specific field of child helping, the Foundation is now engaged in formulating a long-range program looking toward that end. T o meet certain immediate needs in this program, particular emphasis is being given at this time to research and to the promotion of scientific literature in the field of child helping. The volume herewith presented is the first fruit of this emphasis. It seeks primarily to do two things} first, to show where we are now, by summarizing the philosophy and the trend of concrete developments in the field of child welfare to date} and second, to present the results of a series of research projects related to the family, so basically important in any consideration of the problems and programs of child wellbeing. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the help received from various quarters in the preparation of this volume. Grants of financial

χ

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

aid from the Research Fund of the University of Pennsylvania have made possible certain aspects of the concrete studies embodied in Part II of this volume. To many graduate students who have labored painstakingly with the details of these studies, I owe a very great deal. Continuing contacts with my colleagues in the department of Sociology are a constant discipline and inspiration in the breaking of new academic ground. Mrs. W i l liam C. Dickerman, of New York City, daughter of Mrs. Carter, has been very helpful in supplying me with information concerning the Carter Junior Republic as well as other material included in this editorial preface. M y two daughters insure my abiding and realistic interest in the problems of child development. To Miss Ann B. Flynn I am indebted for the kind of secretarial aid that reduces to a minimum the burdensome details of book writing. Finally, for the possibility of preparing this volume, I am indebted to the facilities placed at my disposal through the William T. Carter Foundation of Child Helping. It seems therefore fitting and proper that this first volume to be published under the auspices of the Foundation should be dedicated as a memorial to Cornelia Redington Carter, whose foresight and sympathy conceived the project of this Foundation, and whose generosity made possible its translation into reality. J . H . S. B. Philadelfhia, May 29, 1939.

CONTENTS Charter

Page

INTRODUCTORY NOTE Part I: The Background· of Child

vü Welfare

I CHILD WELFARE AND THE MODERN MIND II THE CHILD WELFARE MOVEMENT

3 26

Part II: Selected Problems of Marriage

III THE AGE FACTOR IN MARRIAGE IV RESIDENTIAL PROPINQUITY AS A FACTOR IN MARRIAGE V NATIONALITY AND NATIVITY AS FACTORS IN MARRIAGE

55 79 93

VI FURTHER STUDIES IN MARRIAGE SELECTION 120 VII ECOLOGICAL AREAS AND MARRIAGE RATES 135 VIII MARRIAGE RATES AND THE DEPRESSION: A PHILADELPHIA STUDY 153 IX SUMMARY INDEX

165 175

xi

TABLES Page ι. Number

and Percentages

of M e n

and

Women

Marrying, Grouped by Three-Year Age Periods

64

II. Total Number of Marriages Showing Differences of A g e Between Parties, Number and Percentages HI. M e a n Age of Mates by Designated Years

. . .

65 67

IV. A g e Combinations in Marriage, by Order of Frequency v. Prevailing

69 Age

Differentials, b y

Order of

Fre-

quency

69

vi. Percentages of Persons Marrying, in Early Age Period, in Four Studies

73

vii. Percentage of Marriages with M e n and Women in Given Age Group, in Four Studies

74

viii. Relative Ages of Grooms and Brides, in Four Studies

75

ix. Four Most Frequent Age Combinations in M a r riage

76

x . Percentage Distribution of Marriages by Age Differentials

78

x i . Distribution of Five Thousand Marriages by Residential Propinquity Before Marriage

. . . .

81

xii. Distribution, Cumulatively, of Five Thousand M a r riages by Residential Propinquity Before M a r riage XIII.

81

Distribution of Marriages by Residential Propinquity Before Marriage in New Haven and Philadelphia, 1931

87

x i v . Distribution, Cumulatively, of Marriages by Residential Propinquity

Before Marriage

Haven and Philadelphia, 1931 xiii

in

New 87

TABLES

XIV

Page XV. Marriages, According to Nativity of Brides

and

Grooms, by Per Cent of Each Group, New Y o r k State, Exclusive of New Y o r k City, 1936 . xvi. Intermarriage

with

the

Native-Born

.

White

.

101

of

Native-Born White Parents, by Nationality, N a tivity and Sex, New Y o r k State, 1936 xvii. Intranationality Marriages

of the

. . . .

103

Foreign-Born,

by Nationality and by Sex, New Y o r k State, 1936

105

xviii. Marriage of the Foreign-Born by Nationality, N a tivity and Sex, New Y o r k State, 1936

. . . .

108

x i x . Intranationality Marriages of the Native-Born of Foreign Parents, by Nationality and by Sex, New Y o r k State, 1936 x x . Marriage

of

the

no Native-Born

of

Foreign-Born

Parents, by Nationality, Nativity and Sex, N e w Y o r k State, 1936

in

x x i . Foreign-Born Grooms and Brides, Marrying Persons of the Same Nationality and Nativity, by Sex and by Per Cent for Ten Largest Nationality Groups, New York State, 1916-1924, 1929, 1936

114

x x i i . Foreign-Born Grooms and Brides, Marrying Persons of the Same Nationality Who Are ForeignBorn and Native-Born

of

Foreign or

Mixed

Parentage, by Sex and by Per Cent, for Ten Leading Nationalities, New Y o r k State, 1929 and 1936 x x i i i . Intermarriage,

IIS Foreign-Born

and

Native-Born

White of Native-Born White Parentage, b y N a tionality and Sex, New Y o r k State, 1929 and 1936

116

x x i v . Socio-Economic Grouping, Gainful Workers of the United States by Percentage, 1930

126

x x v . Marriage Selections of Previous Conjugal Condition, by 125,424 Persons Remarrying, by and Previous Conjugal Condition, N e w State, 1916-1924, 1929, 1936

Sex York 130

TABLES

xv Page

xxvi. Ages of Persons Marrying, by Ten-Year Periods and by Previous Conjugal Condition, Percentage Distribution, Massachusetts, 1937 xxvii. Previous Conjugal Condition of Brides and Grooms, by Country of Birth, New York State, Exclusive of New York City, 1936 xxvni. Remarriage of Divorced Men and Women, by Time Interval, New York State, 1922, 1929, 1936 . . xxix. Marriage Rates Classified by Decennial Groups, by Census Tracts Having 500 or More Marriageable Males xxx. Marriage Rates by Main Sections xxxi. Marriage Rates by Zones xxxii. Marriage Rates by Areas of Population Change . xxxni. High- and Low-Marriage-Rate Areas by Number of Tracts, Number of Marriageable Males, Marriage Rates, and Ecological Location xxxiv. Census Tracts with 500 or More Marriageable Males, Classified by Rates and with Race and Nativity Distribution of Marriageable Males by Classes xxxv. Changes in Marriage Rates, by Census Tracts, from Predepression to Depression Series XXXYI. 182 Census Tracts, Classified by Extent of Change, and by Race and Nativity of Marriageable Males xxxvii. Selected Contiguous Low-Rate Areas, Predepression Marriage Rates, and Race and Nativity Make-up of the Marriageable Males . . . . xxxvni. Selected Contiguous High-Rate Areas, Predepression and Depression Marriage Rates, and Race and Nativity Make-up of the Marriageable Males

132

133 133

138 139 141 142

142

148 155 157

159

160

FIGURI Ι . Marriage Rates by Zones in Philadelphia: 19281935

ИЗ

Part I

THE BACKGROUND OF CHILD WELFARE

CHAPTER

I

CHILD WELFARE AND THE MODERN MIND* "Is A N D R E W JACKSON going to Heaven?" asked a doubting conservative of a century ago. "Yes," replied one of the faithful, "if he wants to." Once the vain boast of an enthusiastic disciple of a great political leader, the above remark, with its confident avowal of man's control over his destiny, comes today to epitomize the philosophy of the modern mind. Contemporary man worships at the shrine of progress, meaning by that concept a controlled development of society in a direction believed to be desirable. Supremely sure of himself, modern man deems himself the master of his fate, contends that he need not submit, and that there really is no virtue in continuing to submit to the limitations imposed upon him by the forces of nature or the follies of man. T o understand more clearly this current philosophy, it is necessary to consider the background out of which it grew, how it took form, and what factors have been most influential in its development. This clarified, it is proposed to indicate the application and implication of this philosophy for child welfare. This is the purpose of the present chapter. T H E M E D I E V A L BACKGROUND

America was colonized by medieval Europeans in revolt against its medievalism. Their unsettlement in the Old World * A few paragraphs from this chapter are reproduced with the permission of the publishers from earlier writings of the author. Acknowledgment is made to the American Academy of Political and Social Science, publishers of Postwar Progress in Child

Welfare,

the September 1930 volume of the Annals,

and to Harper and Brothers, New York, publishers of the author's Man and His World,

1932.

3

4

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

led to their settlement in the New. W h i l e new ideas were in process of formation, old values continued to prevail. M e n — the rank and file of them—are slow to cast off the accumulated ideas of the centuries. T h e immediate past of the pioneer Americans was after all medieval, and if in part they strained at their bondage to the medieval culture, the form of the slowly crystallizing new ideas was dictated by what had been. W h a t men rebel against determines the content of their rebellion. T h e student of medieval history, analyzing a thousand years of European experience, ought to have no difficulty in understanding the philosophy which dominated that period. H e will have surveyed the breakup of the earlier Roman state and the gradual deterioration of its civilization into the bleakness of the Dark Ages. First its deterioration, then the continuity of that condition, and ultimately its standardization in feudal society, stand out. Furthermore, the student will see churchmen dominating the thinking of that period. From the time of Boethius (d. 525) to Dante (d. 1321) there was not a single writer of renown in Western Europe who was not a professional churchman. Out of this background, and through such media, there developed a philosophy which discounted every hope for this world and centered all of them in the next. T h e world was going back, they said; nor was this of any consequence, for the earth was to be destroyed soon. There would be a new heaven and a new earth. Most of the early church fathers expected the speedy end of the world and, as time denied their prophecies, these became not fewer in number or fainter in promise, but more indefinite as to time. T h e lengthening delay in the fulfillment of this cosmic schedule led gradually to its acceptance as part of a divine plan. Religious faith, surveying an unhappy world and perplexed by its continuance, finally evolved the concept of providential guidance. In substance, this theory conceived of the world as a huge stage in which the drama of human destiny was being enacted. T h e forces of good and evil were locked in dramatic struggle. In the way which dramas are wont to have, things look darker

THE MODERN MIND

S

and darker for the forces of good as the play unfolds, but there is the blessed certainty that in the end they will emerge in glorious triumph. This theory, conceived originally in regard to the world as a whole, came to be interpreted subsequently by individuals and nations as applying specifically to themselves. The Middle Ages, then, were the domain of stability, continuity, and mundane hopelessness. Ignorant of the processes of history, men allowed themselves to be governed by the unknown past j ignorant of science, they never believed in hidden forces working on to happier ends in this world. A sense of decay was upon them. Each generation seemed so inferior to the last in ancient wisdom and in ancestral worship that they found comfort in the assurance that the end of the world was at hand. Time was, after all, but a dressing room for eternity. What all this implied concerning the here and now was its static nature. The external, visible world was settled and secure; the occupations of men were defined, their duties were prescribed, their relative rank was fixed. One's privileges, one's duties, and one's future were deeply grooved into the mold of the established order. "Over the daily life," writes Mumford, "lay a whole tissue of meanings, derived from the Christian belief in eternity: the notion that existence was not a biological activity but a period of moral probation. . . .' n The duty which this bi-world arrangement enjoined upon mankind was equally distinct: it was one of passive acceptance. Wisdom and good citizenship combined to lead one across the earth like a monk in his cowl, looking neither to the left of rebellion nor to the right of orderly reconstruction: eyes always intent upon the distant goal. "The medieval culture lived in the dream of eternity." 2 GRADUAL E M E R G E N C E OF A NEW A T T I T U D E

The breakup of the European heritage of medieval culture was a gradual process. In the thirteenth century it was still in1

p.

Lewi» Mumford, 13.

'Ibid.

The

Golden

Day,

Boni and Liveright, New York, 1916,

б

M A R R I A G E AND T H E C H I L D

tact j by the end of the seventeenth century it was well on its way to disintegration. Visual representations of it remained, to be sure j institutionalized forms survived, but the essential fact was that the mental outlook was changing. These centuries may be characterized as a twilight period—a time of ferment, during which many new and fruitful influences were at work. Four of these might be stated briefly in passing. One was the increase of wealth in western Europe. This was of great importance, for, as it multiplied, "it displaced the hope of heaven with the lure of progress." 3 Second, the achievement of the Renaissance and post-Renaissance periods, material and other achievements, created for man a spirit of confidence in his own ability. The reward of doing a thing well is the capacity to do another and a bigger one. Third, the break with the past, involving the rejection of the unimpeachable authority of the ancient thinkers, had to come before men could face the future with confidence. This was an achievement of this transition period. Finally, there progressed, at first slowly and painfully and with strange reluctance, a scientific understanding of the universe. This not only shattered the beliefs of the past, but furnished an insight into processes which laid the foundation for man's subsequent control of his material environment. The new attitude or philosophy above referred to came consciously to be formulated by the French philosophers of the eighteenth century. Writes Turgot: " T h e total mass of the human race marches continually, though sometimes slowly, toward an ever increasing perfection." Condorcet, his friend and biographer, who spent the last months of his life under the shadow of the guillotine in writing a history of human progress, refers in similar vein to "the human race, freed from its chains and marching with a firm tread on the road of truth and virtue and happiness." Furthermore, his hope for the future was unlimited. " N o bounds have been fixed to the improvement of the human faculties; the perfectibility of man is absolutely indefinite; the progress of this perfection, henceforth above the con3

William Durant, "Is Progress a Delusion?" Harfer's Magazine, New York, October, 1936, p. 743.

THE MODERN MIND

7

trol of every power that would impede it, has no other limit than the duration of the globe upon which nature has placed us." A cosmic schedule of increasing perfection there was, and what was most important and thrilling about it was that man had a share in it all, that man could manipulate that schedule} he could, if he would, accelerate and direct it. " W i l l Andrew Jackson go to H e a v e n ? " " H e most assuredly will if he wants to." T H E A M E R I C A N PROOF O F T H E PUDDING

During the centuries in which this philosophy was taking form and in the years since, almost the whole life of the American people has been a living proof of its essential soundness. Three outstanding phases of our history will be briefly analyzed with reference to their bearing on the philosophy of the modern mind. T H E COLONIZING PROCESS

T h e far-reaching, revolutionary significance of the colonizing process itself in the formation of American values and ways of living has never perhaps been sufficiently explored. W h a t in general it seems to have involved was this: that men and their families, thousands of them, came from an environment in which certain social habits had become fixed on the basis of their survival value, and entered a new environment in which they neither fitted nor had survival value. T h e inevitable result was their gradual rejection and displacement. The occupations of men might be settled, their privileges and duties prescribed, in the Old W o r l d } but these could be anything but settled and prescribed in a world so new and strangely different as that to which the American colonists came} the future might be hopeless in the Old World, but it was as bright as the morning sun in the New; the hopes of the Old World might have centered upon life in the world to come, but the colonists in the New managed quite nicely and comfortably as time went on in the here and now. So, for a while, the New England devout retained the old religious loyalties but increasingly, even though their lip service continued, their thoughts seldom wandered far from the

8

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

harvesting of their crops or their remunerative three-cornered trade with the West Indies and Virginia. Decade after decade, American colonists and their descendants saw a world being remade before their eyes. Forests disappeared, native redmen and animals moved out, cultivated fields took form, houses were built and improved, towns grew, wealth increased, population doubled every two decades and spread out over new territory. Upon the virgin continent that lay before them, upon its trees and rocks and fields, successive generations of Colonial America carved what they willed. At first, this man-made newness was one of the externals of life. It was their material culture which they had remade. As time went on, however, changes crept subtly but inevitably into their values, ideas, viewpoints, and philosophy. Colonial Americans began as time went on to live in a mental world as far removed from that of Europe as their material environments were from each other. They broke with the static conceptions of the Old World before the Europeans did, and before they themselves realized what was happening. When, therefore, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, advanced thinkers came forward to tell them that man could master his world and direct it toward "an ever increasing perfection," the American colonists knew that they were right. They had seen it happen. Nor did this influence cease in the eighteenth century. Students of American history have been taught that the colonizing period came to an end before the Revolutionary War, and so it did in the sense of the coming of a large number of settlers into colonies of the Crown. But the colonizing process, as a social phenomenon, continued in this country until the opening years of the twentieth century, for what is the westward movement of the frontier during all of the nineteenth century but the continuation, within a country now politically independent, of the social process of colonization. Modern students of the frontier have emphasized quite rightly its very great historical role in that it has resulted, on its ever advancing front, in the constant rebirth of civilization, a rebirth not only of its material features

THE MODERN MIND

9

but of its spirit, its institutions, its laws—in other words, of what sociologists call its adaptive culture. In summary, then, throughout their history until yesteryear, the American people have gone on remaking their world in the sense of opening up the continent to its expanding population; for three hundred years they have remade many features of their national life by way of accommodation to this constant expansion; for three centuries the philosophy that man could remake himself and his culture has been signally, dramatically demonstrated. POLITICAL REVOLUTION

During the very years in the eighteenth century that the philosophers were restating the fundamental tenets of the western mind, events in the political realm offered striking proof of the soundness of their contentions. These events were destined to buttress mightily the creed of human control which the colonizing process had created through its transformation of the physical basis of society. Taking western Europe as a whole, until toward the end of the eighteenth century, the prevailing type of political arrangement was the absolute monarchy, even if the king by divine right had softened in places into the benevolent despot. Then, first in America in 1776 and later in France in 1789, changes in the political system occurred to which the term revolution is applied unhesitatingly. These changes are usually thought of as ushering in a new form of government—the democratic form, whose growth and expansion constitute the epic feature in the life of the modern world. What was fundamental and of greatest importance about these revolutions is that they were not a mere change in the personnel or the structure of government, but in its basic philosophy. The earlier conception of government which came into the eighteenth century with all the hallowed prestige of centuries of almost unquestioned acceptance was that of a divinely ordained institution, set up by an omniscient Providence and imposed from

10

MARRIAGE AND THE

CHILD

above, for the benefit of a populace whose passive acceptance of this arrangement was the essence of orthodox citizenship. Moreover, this Providence was thoughtful in that it selected, too, the personnel which ruled "by the Grace of G o d . " T h e essence of the new philosophy as it came to crystallize during the eighteenth century is this: that government was a man-made institution, existing on the basis of a social contract, functioning for the purpose of achieving certain ends of human well-being, and deriving such powers as it had (and these were by no means unlimited) from the consent of its subjects. M e n have inherent rights, contended the American Bill of Rights of 1 7 7 5 , of which they cannot be deprived. A l l power of government is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people. Government is instituted for the common benefit of the people, and when it shall be found inadequate to these purposes, a majority of the people have the "indefeasible right to reform, alter, and abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal." Similar runs that great Charter of Democracy, the Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal: that they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights; that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. T h e political revolutions of the eighteenth century in France and the United States, together with their successors in other lands, and followed by a continuing series of changes and adaptations during the years since—these are man remaking his political world.

THE MODERN MIND Industrial

II

Change

More striking, more intimately comprehensive, and more convincing proof of man's power to remake his world, however, came from the industrial world. Again during that same eventful second half of the eighteenth century, there began, first in England and later on the Continent and elsewhere, a series of transformations in the workaday life of mankind. W e speak of these transformations as the Industrial Revolution; in retrospect, we see them as the inevitable result of the scientific revolution of the preceding era; in briefest substance, we summarize them as changes which substituted the machine for the hand of man, and the forces of nature for his brawn and that of the domestic animals. In its broader aspects, however, the Industrial Revolution was more than a revolution in the processes of industry. Because these processes had to be pursued under different surroundings, i.e., in factories gathered together in new manufacturing centers, and because its products were utilized in daily life, the Industrial Revolution resulted also in a revolution in the manner of living for millions of people. T h e exploitation of natural resources by the machine is the outstanding feature of the history of the past century and a half; the products of this process of exploitation constitute the basis of modern living. T h e years customarily assigned to the Industrial Revolution in England cover the span from 1760 to 1830. Many persons, as a result perhaps of their schoolboy experience in studying dates of its beginning and of its end, come to think of the Industrial Revolution as something which flourished and ended so many years ago. This is obviously incorrect. The nature of its machines and of the power that drives them, the products which it produces and the readjustments in the life of mankind which result, all have been a continuing process, and have proceeded with unbroken continuity down to the present time. What has varied through the succeeding decades has been not the fact but the rate of industrial change. T h e initiation of these new industrial processes, as well as

12

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

their continuing revision, has been the result primarily of the application of scientific method and understanding to the business world. W h i l e it is true that the first steps in the development of modern industry were taken by men of practical bent who were ignorant of the refinements of scientific theory, it is equally true that these men proceeded in the spirit of, and on the basis of, the scientific achievement of the preceding decades. For a time this dependence of industrial progress upon science continued without coordination of the contributions or agents of science. H e r e and there an inventor, enlightened by the advances in pure science, tinkered with their possible application to business problems; but for the most part scientists worked in their remote laboratories while practical inventors experimented with the application of new insights to industrial processes, each keeping aloof from the other, and what is more striking, often disdainful of each other. It was the Germans who were destined to point out the way of hitching plodding business to the star of science. Germany, it will be recalled, emerged as a unified nation comparatively recently. It was not until after 1870 that a united and revivified Germany entered aggressively the marts of modern trade. Coming so late, this newly industrialized competitor found herself at somewhat of a disadvantage. A n d yet these were the years when German scientists were famous the world over. W h a t happened in that country during the closing decades of the nineteenth century was as inevitable as it was logical: Germany organized her scientific resources in state industrial laboratories, dictating the material practicability of their tasks, and making available the results of their efforts to German industry. T h e outcome of this development in turn was inevitable: by the opening years of the twentieth century, Germany was challenging the business supremacy of other nations. It is interesting to speculate what would have been the course of history had Germany been content with her accelerated business success and had foregone visions of military grandeur. W h a t these developments in Germany made clear was not only the relationship between scientific advance and business

THE MODERN MIND

13

progress but also how the latter could be accelerated by consciously organizing the resources of science and directing them toward technological improvement. Business in the United States was particularly quick to sense both of these points and to act upon them. But in this country, it was not in state-organized industrial laboratories that these principles were applied, but in the research departments of big business units. Big business in the United States saw in scientific research a method of business pioneering which could be of very great advantage both in competition with other business units and with other industrial products. Thus it has come about that scientific research departments constitute an integral part of all large business units in this country j that private industry is now spending more than a hundred million dollars a year in such research j and that revolutions in industry are being effected, through the application of scientific method to its problems and projects, with a speed and over an area that make the developments of a century ago seem puny indeed. (Incidentally, it is but a century ago that the abolition of the United States Patent Office was recommended on the ground that all the patents that could conceivably be made had already been made.) Scientific research is the modern form of business pioneering. Many new industries have resulted from the advance in our scientific knowledge and its application to the modern world. Two illustrations will suffice. One is the development of the electrical industry. A laboratory experiment by Oersted disclosed the relationship between electricity and magnetism, for he observed that an electric current deflected the needle of a compass. Later, another laboratory experiment by Faraday proved that a moving magnet can generate a current. Out of these basic contributions to our scientific knowledge have grown our electrical industries, with a book value of more than twenty billion dollars, and the availability at trivial cost of the equivalent of sixty man-power of energy for every man, woman, and child in the United States. Another illustration of the creation of an industry by scientific research is the rayon silk business. Non-existent twenty-five years ago, this industry, producing products to a

Η

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

value of more than $ 150,000,000 a year, owes its being to the curiosity of men of science who wanted to know why a silk worm could make silk and man could not. T h e foregoing reference to industrial revolution during the past century and a half was made because of its effects upon public attitudes and beliefs. Our continuing experience with industrial development tends to drive home repeatedly and in most dramatic fashion the following four ideas: ( 1 ) That change in industry is continuous, and often occurs at an inordinate rate; ( 2 ) that these changes result from the advance of scientific knowledge5 ( 3 ) that to understand something is to be able to change it as we wish; and (4) that revolution in one's daily life, as a result of these industrial changes, is inevitable. Put in the simplest form, what a century and a half of experience with industrial change has done to the mind of modern man is to accustom him to expect miracles. H e thinks there is no limit to what the "experts" can do. I f , for example, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company were to announce today the perfection of an instrument, the size of a fountain pen, as easy to carry, and as cheap to buy, which could be utilized through the simple device of putting it to one's mouth, to speak to any person to whom one wished in any part of the world, our contemporary public would raise its eyebrows a bit, read all about it in the newspapers and newsweeklies, and then sit back with an air of: " W e l l , I've been wondering when those experts would get around to that." In summary, what the preceding analysis has hoped to make clear is this: that three hundred years of continuous experience has made us the most confident and optimistic people in the world. W e believe we can go to Heaven because, metaphorically speaking, for several centuries we have been doing so. W e have occupied, exploited, and remade a very large and a very rich continent. As that process went on, civilization was repeatedly reborn on its advancing frontier. T h e political philosophy which initiated our separate existence revolutionized the political tenets and structures of much of the world. Our own political ideas and forms have been repeatedly recast, always with the fond

THE MODERN MIND belief that the latest revision would just about usher in the millennium. Our industrial history is a dazzling record of miracles. What, in view of all this, could be the philosophy of the American mind but what it is? H o w else could we proceed but in our confident roistering fashion? T H E CARRYOVER TO SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Perhaps the outstanding fundamental development in the social thought of the present era has been the carryover of this philosophy to problems of human well-being and of human relationships. Inspired by the achievements in the remaking of the material environment, contemporary man contemplates with irritable impatience the continuance of social miseries. T w o examples will suffice. Infantile paralysis kills and cripples our children. In epidemic form it sweeps over a part of the country. A t once we turn to our laboratories, our bacteriologists, our medical scientists in general. W h y don't you stop this senseless slaughter of the innocents? Y o u have eliminated smallpox, typhoid, and diphtheria. What is the matter? Have you been sleeping? Come to, now, master this bacterial Herod. T h e problem of poverty is as old as man. It has persisted in all stages of social development and in all forms of economic organization. Y e t in 1928 the intensely practical M r . Hoover campaigned successfully on a platform which included the promise to banish poverty from the face of the nation. Four years later, with more than one-sixth of the population being publicly maintained, his successor promised not only to do away with poverty of the lower third but to guarantee the more abundant life to the remaining two-thirds. Political promises such as these seem destined to remain unfulfilled, but the Tact that they are made by politically minded leaders, and apparently accepted, bears witness to the widespread belief among the electorate that the fulfillment of the promise is not impossible. This demand for constructive achievement in the social field comparable to that of the natural scientists in the realm of industry has led in recent years to the formation by political

l6

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

leaders of what journalistic ingenuity has called the brain trust. This term is used, of course, to signal the drafting of social scientists by governmental agencies. In times of crisis, public leaders have turned to academic experts in related fields, expecting, hoping, that they, like the natural scientists in the industrial laboratories, could draw rabbits of socio-economic salvation from the politicians' stovepipe hats. "Come, come," the politician says to the professor, "it is now four o'clock, the campaign committee meets at five. I want you to jump through the hoop and save us from our dilemma by five minutes of five at the latest." The results from such experiments have been somewhat disappointing, to say the least, but it is well to remember that the trouble may be, not with the basic idea of these experiments, but with the sudden grandeur of their hope. What has just been said is not to be interpreted as lacking in appreciation of what scientists working on the problems of human relationships have already done. T h e social sciences are now laying the foundation of understanding upon which the mechanisms of future directed control may possibly be built. Various modes and successive waves of popular education are interpreting them to us. Many of our social scientists have their noses so close to the grindstones of their tasks that they cannot see the implications of the work to which they are contributing. Only the far-sighted and the mentally unfettered catch an occasional glimpse of that which may be in the realm of man's social relationships. Slowly, man's bondage to himself is passing. INEVITABLE EMPHASIS U P O N T H E C H I L D

T h e contemporary movement for social betterment represents, then, the application of the philosophy of the modern mind at work in the field of human problems and human relationships. This movement is, of course, a very old one. It was, one might say, born at the dawn of human history out of an emotional concern for the unfortunate. Throughout the centimes, it was driven by religious zeal and directed by good intentions. Recently, however, it has been transformed. It has ceased to be a sentimental exercise: it has become a serious organized move-

THE MODERN MIND

17

ment. Into its old bottles, the new wine of our imperious confidence has poured. That these bottles have burst is noteworthy: what is of signal importance are the figures the blot of the wine is taking. Quite clearly, it would seem, the movement for social betterment has been pointing toward the child. It is increasingly emphasizing the child, not as sentimental subject but as rational object. Child welfare is now the legitimate and ultimate end of social welfare; efforts expended in the happy resolution of child difficulties, the most constructive form of social investment. If you want to achieve a social Heaven, look to the child, not as a matter of emotional release, but as rational strategy. In the retrospect of time, it is clear how inevitable this growing emphasis upon the child has been. Two claims of development in particular are responsible. One has been the natural development of the social betterment movement: the other has been the logical outcome of the application to human problems of the scientific method. The Natural Development of the Social Betterment Movement Each successive step in the development of the modern movement for social betterment has carried the emphasis nearer to the inception of life. This may be seen best in a review of its development in England, where it first became an organized movement, definite and self-conscious. Springing out of a new recognition of the eternal worth of individuality, which made its appearance coincident with modern industry, naturally such a movement concerned itself with the immediate task at hand which it found in the conditions obtaining in the newly created industrial cities. Thus it began largely as a sanitary effort to clear away the filth in city streets; the development of more adequate lighting, cleaning, and policing facilities; and the creation of proper drainage systems. But there were those who said, as time went on, behind these problems of sanitation and drainage, there are human beings— women, children. And they are working inordinately long hours.

ι8

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

T h u s began the era of factory legislation. H o u r s of labor were regulated, especially for women and children; some dangerous and unhealthy occupations were forbidden; and many similar matters were brought under public supervision and control. One particularly obvious evil, energetically opposed and with considerable success, was the employment of young children. A campaign against child labor is negative and incomplete. If children must not work, what are they to do? Success in child labor legislation led then, speedily and logically, to the necessary next step. This was emphasis on the education of these children. T h e training and education of future citizens began to be recognized as an imperative public duty. T h e last third of the nineteenth century saw, throughout Western civilization, the acceptance of the theory of public education for children; the twentieth century is witnessing the actual application of this theory and the working out of its details and implications. N o sooner were children gathered together in large numbers at public command and under public auspices, than a host of problems, ever increasing in number and of recognized importance, forced themselves upon the attention of public leaders. Gradually, out of this consideration of countless children and their needs, there emerged childhood as the chief concern and the main emphasis of the modern social welfare movement. It marked, in other words, the coming of age of child welfare work as a broad social movement which concerned itself not merely with the dilemma of conspicuous cases of need but with selected social requirements for all children. A relatively few years passed. " I t is all very well," earnest child welfare workers said, " f o r us to focus attention on the needs of the school and adolescent child, but we come to deal with many of them when it is too late. B y the time they arrive in the school span the damage has already been done." W e passed thus logically and inevitably into the stage of emphasis upon the problems of the pre-school child. T h e Fisher Act of 1 9 1 8 marked the M a g n a Charta of the pre-school period in English history; the decade of the nineteen-twenties, its domination of the literature in the United States.

THE MODERN MIND

19

Even then, already dim figures appear against the skyline of social-work thinking, betokening the nature of the inevitable next step forward. "Work with the pre-school child is necessary and important, but much of the occasion for it must be attributed, not to the child, but to its parents." Now appear the occasional birth-control clinic, eugenic legislation, the sterilization movement, the marriage clinic and counsel, parental education classes, and the like. Let it be repeated: each step forward in the development of ihe movement to promote consciously the social well-being has carried the emphasis nearer to the inception of life. Science and the Child It has been implied in the preceding discussion that science has been man's method of mastery of his physical world, and that the material success achieved as the result has meant the commercial vindication of science. Science is the architect of our civilization. Its achievements dominate modern culture, and its spirit shapes the character of our intellectual and spiritual life. To the Western mind, all other expressions of the creative spirit seem somewhat futile. The final appeal in all problems and points of disputation is to the scientist, and his judgments we consider to be true and righteous altogether. The history of science is the story of its progressive application to an ever wider range of phenomena. First applied to the material objects of the non-living world, with the consequent development of the physical sciences, the scientific method came in time to be applied successively: next, to the field of organic life, with the resultant renaissance of the biological studies; then, to the realm of psychic phenomena, with the emergence of the modern psychological sciences; and, finally, the most complex phase of human life, namely, human association, has come to be studied scientifically, with the gradual emergence of the social studies as scientific disciplines. One phase of this most recent extension of scientific method has been its application to the social welfare movement. Con-

20

MARRIAGE AND T H E CHILD

ceived originally in good intention and born at the dawn of human history out of an emotional concern for the unfortunate, this movement has been going to school, figuratively speaking, in the temple of science. T h e lessons being learned in that temple, the methods utilized, the attitudes emphasized, are revolutionizing social welfare just as science has revolutionized other fields of human effort. W e are concerned, at this point, in appraising in somewhat broad terms how the application of the scientific method to social phenomena in general and to the social welfare movement in particular has affected our attitude toward the child and his importance. One very definite way in which the application of scientific method to social phenomena and social problems has affected the status of children's work has been through its emphasis upon the genetic viewpoint. T h e viewpoint of modern science is genetic. Since the time of Charles Darwin, and as a result of his work, all science has become, broadly speaking, biological. Every science sees its problems against an evolutionary background, which means that everything is viewed in the light of its historical development. In other words, when we say that the viewpoint of modern science is genetic, we mean that every science sees its problems in historical perspective ·, that if we want to understand anything we must understand its origin and its development. Such a viewpoint applied to human life problems has revolutionary significance for childhood, for it crowns this earliest period of life with paramount importance. Childhood is the period of origins, the stage of beginnings. This is the period in which so many of our problems arise and exist in their incipient stages. This can be illustrated with particular aptness in the history of the science of Psychology. Professor G. Stanley H a l l , the Nestor of American Psychology, was also its outstanding specialist in Genetic Psychology. A second way in which the application of scientific method to social phenomena and problems affects child study and work is through its emphasis upon principle of causation. T h e viewpoint of modern science is causal; the object of science is the establish-

THE MODERN MIND

21

ment of causal relationships. This is saying horizontally much the same sort of thing we say vertically when we point out that the viewpoint of modern science is genetic; at any rate, in their ultimate analysis, their deeper significance is the same for childhood. This is, perhaps, the essential difference in the ways our ancestors and we regard the child: our ancestors saw these earliest years as a negative period of life, a sort of necessary evil full of idle deviltry and cantankerous mischief, which one survived and which parents endured as best each could, until late adolescence when life hesitatingly began. We, of this later vintage, regard childhood as a foundation period of very great importance, a period of twig-bending during which the nature of the future forest is determined. To be sure, students of human problems have emphasized causal antecedents for many years. Recently, however, has come the knowledge that these causal relations were neither so few in number nor so simple in their operation as had previously been supposed. In the study of causal relationships, there has been a transference of interest and emphasis from the broadly obvious to the subtly effective. It is this which is essentially new in the contemporary approach to the study of behavior problems. Modern psychiatry and the psychoanalytic procedure have multiplied by many times the significance of the earliest years. Theories of the causation of crime, mental disease, distorted character, economic failure, and domestic maladjustment have had to be reconstructed on the basis of the contributions of the modern sciences and resolved into elements of juvenile conditioning. Under the suggestive influence of the genetic and causal viewpoints of modern science, then, the social welfare movement is coming to a new and better understanding of its task. The cumulative effect of recent discoveries in the life sciences has been to make the social welfare movement more "childminded." The modern mind, wrestling with the problems of human welfare, finds them where Plato dreamed his ideal state— in the directed development of the next generation. Science now dictates what our tender sympathies long have counseled. So-

22

MARRIAGE AND T H E CHILD

ciety's "acre of diamonds" lies revealed in the rocking cradle within the door, and social statesmanship finds its task in the heart of a child. ON SECOND T H O U G H T

I n the preceding pages an effort has been made to interpret the confident philosophy of the contemporary mind; to show how it developed out of our past experience; how that philosophy, developed and vindicated chiefly in the field of material achievements, is now being carried over to social problems; and how this has led inevitably to a very great emphasis upon the social problems of childhood. One wishes that the present chapter might end with the note of optimism implied in the foregoing discussion, but it would come close to being naive if one were to do so without some reference to certain aspects and questions which are bound to present themselves. (Side comment: " T h e strength of science," according to G. N. Lewis, "lies in its naivete.") It seems necessary to point out, in the first place, that the current philosophy of confidence in the possibilities of scientific achievement is not a wholly temperate one. In many quarters it must be admitted that the popularization of science and the constant insistence upon its possibilities have but created a new gullibility—new in the sense that it displaces the gullibility of earlier generations who were totally ignorant of science, and gullible in that it expects the most miraculous and bizarre achievements to be perfected by scientists much as magicians perform with their rabbits and their hats. T h e application of science to social phenomena and problems has become almost synonymous with radicalism. Social scientists are supposed to be, per se, something only slightly removed from starry-eyed reformers. It is surprising how widespread this attitude is. Undoubtedly, not a few social scientists have this conception of themselves and of the meaning of the application of science to social problems. It might be well to emphasize that science spells conservatism as well as radical innovations; that its discoveries and insights

THE MODERN MIND

23

impose limitations of achievements as well as open up new possibilities. The scientific approach to social phenomena is in order, not only with the hope of performing miracles but also to gain a reasonable perspective of things. This much one can say, this much one ought to insist upon, that he who turns to social problems with the scientific attitude must be prepared to follow the pathway of fact, whether it lead to conclusions that are ultramedieval in their pessimistic passivity or as vividly red as a poet's Utopia. Perhaps another way of emphasizing the same point would be the insistence upon the maintenance of the scientific attitude equal to the faith in the scope of scientific achievement. A second and very important fact that needs emphasis is that recent hopes of human reconditioning and social reconstruction through the insights gained by the application of the scientific method rest upon one premise: that what science has done with material objects it can do with human subjects. This premise merits careful analysis, and such analysis would seem to raise two questions: (1) Can man understand man? Or, restated, can man understand himself? Egotism and emotion promptly and proudly answer, "Yes" j cold analytical reason ponders the question. Students of science, surveying the past, look ahead with happy faithj students of behavior, overcome with its complexities, are hesitant or skeptical. The history of science shows this revealing fact: that man is the last thing man is interested in studying scientifically. Science begins with the stars—the objects farthest removed; it comes last to the minutiae of human living. Is this the logic of development of subject and methodology in science, or is it due to reluctance to look at human beings objectively? Much must be said for the former point of view, but contrariwise is the fact that man has resisted rather than welcomed each step in the advancement of science in his own direction. Large numbers of intelligent persons, so called, still resist on grounds other than factual, the conclusions of the biological sciences, and perhaps the chief reason many more do not oppose the conclusions of the sciences of human behavior is that so few as yet realize the implications

24

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

of the work of these sciences. One hesitates to prophesy, but is not unwilling to believe, that a public controversy is destined to rage in future years about the conclusions of the sciences of behavior as violent as the nineteenth century witnessed on the subject of evolution. Can man understand man? Possibly the question should again be restated to ask: Does man want to understand man? T h e understanding of the human unit is not an easy task. For man, by himself and as a part of that web of social relationships which we call society, is a subject of exceedingly great complexity. Man's mastery of this field will be difficult, and the insight gained will not always be "pleasant to take." Man's fumbling search for the keys to his own behavior is handicapped both by his willingness to misdirect himself and to mislay the keys once they have been found. Moreover, research in this field is proving difficult and costly. Reference has been made earlier in this chapter to the huge sums of money spent for research in the physical sciences and in their commercial application. These amounts, large as they have been, are but mere pittances compared with the cost of adequate research in the fields of individual and social behavior. Until recently, social research has been the Cinderella of Science, neglected and sitting in the corner, while her proud sisters in physical and biological research have been stepping out and talking about the wonderful things they have done. In part, this lag has been due to the fact that the social sciences themselves have developed so recently, so that there is nothing strange in the delayed appearance of organized and systematic research in these fields; in part, it must be attributed to the fact that there are no large commercial interests ready to develop social research from the profit motive, as is the case in other scientific fields. ( 2 ) A second implied question is this: Can man control man? Can society direct its own development? Here are questions the like of which are not encountered in the application of scientific knowledge in other fields. M a n controls the forces of nature as fast as he gains the insight necessary for such control; plant and animal life bends to man's mastery as he comes to understand

THE MODERN MIND

25

the nature of their life cycles and processes; but in the case of man, new elements and new difficulties enter the situation. The natural scientist who shows the way to utilize the elements to do man's bidding has relatively a collection of Caspar Milquetoasts with which to deal. The behavior of atoms is predictable, and subject to control. They have no traditions to hamper them, no half truths to mislead them, no complexes to deceive them, and no instincts of the cave man to lead them into temptation. The insight which science gives may be administered painlessly to rotating electrons, but man persists in error in the face of the most naked truth. Yet men are controlled, even though Abraham Lincoln implied that it could be done only in part and on occasion. It is a question, pertinent to be asked and debatable in answer, whether it is done most successfully through the rational processes developed by the scientist or through the artistry utilized by the demagogue. Along the road we have traversed in the understanding and conquest of behavior, there are as yet no conspicuous milestones of progress, and the question which remains undetermined is whose approach is the more scientific—that of the academic psychologist, of the clinical psychiatrist, or of the ward politician. Possibly the limited success there has been in the control and direction of individual and social behavior grows more out of the methods and personnel utilized than from the impracticability of the idea itself. These questions have been posed, not to prejudice the reader, but to suggest that the small sallies which scientists have won in their dealings with steam, electricity, and microbes are as child's play compared to the battles that must be ventured in the human and social arena. An intestinal operation was once an impossible project, and a diagnosis of diabetes was equivalent to a death sentence. Because these and their likes have been conquered, it is at once blithely assumed that a slum population may be reconstructed and that warfare can be banished. One hopes that this is true: and it will become true the sooner if we realize that man is more complex than diabetes, and that a controlled population policy is a vastly more difficult problem than an operation for hernia.

CHAPTER

II

THE CHILD WELFARE MOVEMENT I N EVERY

civilized country there exists today a well-defined social

movement whose object is the conscious promotion of the wellbeing of its children. Such movements, while comparatively recent in origin, have made tremendous strides forward in the past century, and particularly during the last thirty or forty years. T h e general objectives emphasized and the specific means utilized in these movements have varied from one country to another, dependent upon the nature of the civilization

into

which the children are born, the conditions of life in which they compete, and the stage of development

of thought of

the

leadership involved. In the United States for reasons which it is hoped the preceding chapter has made clear, such a movement crystallized comparatively early and grew quickly to marked proportions. Measure by whatever objective tests you will, our country today is outstanding, not only in the number and variety of child caring agencies, but also in the standards set up and the quality of the services rendered by these agencies. T h e r e are more than seven thousand organizations in the United States engaged in some form of child caring or child protective work. No one knows how great are the

financial

expenditures of these agencies, but, based on reports from certain areas and agencies, their aggregate budgets run annually into hundreds of millions of dollars. Child welfare work is one of the most extensive and expensive of our social welfare activities. O r , speaking in another language, it is one of the nation's biggest businesses. Child welfare activities in the United States may be grouped on the basis of various considerations: size, budgetary provisions, sources of funds, interest of management, scope of problem at26

CHILD WELFARE MOVEMENT

27

tacked, or unit of service utilized. Thus considered, they may be large or small} endowed or currently financed} public or private} religious or sectarian} sentimental or scientific} local, state, regional, or national} case, group, or societal. Each of these classifications has its value and importance in the field of child welfare. In the present chapter, another basis of classification will be used. It is that of the type of service, conceived in terms of social scope or emphasis. On this basis, four main types of child welfare work will be identified. It is the purpose of this chapter: first, to identify briefly these four types of activity} second, to consider the changing status of childhood in the United States, which serves as a background against which to consider their development} third, to review the historical development of these four types} and, fourth, to make certain general comments concerning the trends in this development and their meaning for the research student. FOUR TYPES OF CHILD WELFARE ACTIVITIES

It has been customary 1 to divide child welfare activities into three main types on the basis of method utilized, and much can be said for retaining such a classification when activities and programs specifically related to children are concerned. During the past decade or more, however, child welfare work seems to have been entertaining a new method of approach, and this development seems to have received sufficient emphasis to warrant a revised fourfold classification. The first of these four types concerns itself with children in need of special care. Most of these are children who are being cared for apart from their own parents or other natural supporters. In times past such children have been spoken of customarily as dependent, delinquent, and neglected children, 1 Neva R. Deardorff, Child-Welfare Conditions and Resources in Seven Pennsylvania Counties, published by the Children's Bureau of the U. S. Department of Labor as Publication No. 176, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1927, p. 2.

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MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

using these terms to include children who presented such situations of behavior, health, abuse, or economic need, that the agencies of society stepped in to assume responsibilities ordinarily discharged with reasonable acceptance by their parents or natural supporters. Earlier, there was a good deal of emphasis upon separating these children into current categories; today it is more customary to group them together on the basis of their common need of special social care. A second type of child welfare work concerns itself with certain needs and problems which pertain to all children. These problems grow out of the acceptance by the community, and society at large, of certain "irreducible minima" for all children, whether they are living with, and being cared for by, their parents or not. Rather generally today certain rights are being accorded to all children: the right to be wanted, the right to life, the right to be physically well, the right to play, and the right to be mentally healthy. These emerging rights are being translated into concrete standards, and this second type of child welfare work concerns itself with the many different kinds of activity which aim to raise child life in general to these minimum requirements. Illustrations of this type of child welfare work, then, include the operation of a birth control clinic, the maintenance of a child health center, the conduct of a nutrition class, the organization of a recreation center, or the opening of a mental hygiene clinic. A third type of child welfare work is directed toward parents as such. The effort here is to extend help to parents so as to enable them to discharge more effectively their duties and opportunities as parents. Such services may take the form of the protection of family life against the hazards of our industrial order, or of guidance to the best and approved methods of parental dealing with children. Examples of this type of service would include parental education, classes of young mothers for instruction in the care of babies, or health service to parents. A fourth type of child welfare work, which has been emerging during the last decade, concerns itself with the community and larger social situations which relate themselves directly to

CHILD WELFARE MOVEMENT

29

the problems of children. Such situations are often as vitally related to the welfare of children as the situations in their own homes. Thus there has grown up, particularly since the third White House Conference on Child Health and Protection (1930), an emphasis upon the somewhat broader program "of social endeavor, to be sought through many complex changes and adjustments" 2 as one of the basic approaches to the problems of child well-being. W e might, then, speak of this as the community approach to child welfare, and the community type of child welfare service, and this is done in certain quarters. And yet, many of the activities developing in the spirit of this approach are far broader than the term "community" customarily connotates, so that we are in need of a phrase or terms more strictly in accord with actual developments. W i t h this brief introductory outline of the main types of child welfare work, we are in a position to consider, somewhat more at length, how each of these developed, quite naturally, in the evolution of the child welfare movement of the United States. Before doing so, however, it would seem proper to sketch briefly the changed status of childhood in this country, because it is this changed status of childhood as a whole which constitutes the background against which the historical development of the specific child welfare movement must be considered. T H E CHANGED STATUS OF CHILDHOOD

T h e great changes in human history occur, not in the mechanical gadgets which men use, nor in the institutionalized arrangements by which they live, but in their attitudes and in the values they accept. T h e revolutions of the past which have had great meaning for mankind are those which have taken place in the minds of men. T h e outstanding change in the recent history of children has occurred in the minds of their elders. It has been essentially a change in the way in which elders, and particularly parents, have come to regard children. This change has constituted a revolu2

Lawrence K . Frank, " T h e Child," American Journal

versity of Chicago Press, Chicago, May, 1931, p. 1006.

of Sociology,

Uni-

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MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

tion in the lives and status of children as a social element in the population. Because this revolution has been achieved through gradual and voluntary concessions, rather than wrested through the more spectacular devices of bloodshed and riots, social historians have been slow to identify it or to appreciate its importance. Yet so profound and so far reaching in its consequences is this change in status proving to be that, viewed in the retrospect of a lengthened perspective, we may yet recognize it as one of the great revolutions of history. T H E NATURE OF T H E CHANGE

Two thousand years ago, children had little, if any, status as a separate age group in the population. Of affection between children and parents, of happy compensations in their daily lives, there were no doubt a great deal, but, in the sense of having rights and privileges which were their distinctive own there was no such thing. Infanticide was common, not only among primitive, roving tribes, but also in the higher and more stable cultures which flourished in Mesopotamia, along the Ganges, and along the Roman Tiber. When, at a later date, abandonment of newly born children on the neighboring hillside, or placement in the tours or turn boxes of the monasteries came to be accepted as substitutes for infanticide, these developments must be viewed, not as indicative of a new status of childhood but as a softer alternative for an old and rigorous practice. Just as infanticide was lawful, so did the father of the earlier civilizations have the right to sell his sons or daughters into slavery to satisfy his debts or his avarice. Not only under the principles of Roman law, but in the old Persian, Egyptian, Greek, and Gallic legal codes was a father given absolute power over his children. While, generally speaking, fathers loved their children and did not desire to kill them or sell them or rule them in an arbitrary or selfish way, they had the right to do so and the state enforced this

CHILD WELFARE

MOVEMENT

31

right instead of interceding in behalf of the child. U n d e r the R o m a n l a w this absolute p o w e r did not end w h e n the child reached his m a j o r i t y b u t continued t h r o u g h o u t the f a t h e r ' s life. 3

Three hundred years ago, the United States was beginning its history, in scattered settlements of medieval Europeans, chiefly English. T h e culture which they established here was that which prevailed in the Europe from which they came: this was true in their treatment of children as it was in other aspects of their living. A study of parent-child relationships of the time shows much that is interesting and unique, but nowhere does one seem to find thought of opportunity for children to be treated with discrimination or with recognition of their individual needs, capacities, or purposes. Only as they fitted into the pattern of adult life in the community, only as their abilities and interests contributed to the welfare of their elders were they considered to be of any importance. "Both under slavery and under feudalism," writes Thurston, 4 "the personal and affectional relations of children to their own parents and to others were a secondary consideration." T h e status of children was distinctly subordinate. T h e social historians have gathered much data from which one can piece together the picture. T h e Puritan conception of home, in the England from which the early settlers came, was negative. . . . It was full of biblical traditions which cultivated reverence for paternal authority. . . . T h e theory of infant, damnation was universally accepted. T h e rod was favored so that the devil might well be whipped out of children. . . . Calvin insisted that children "who violate the paternal authority by contempt or rebellion are not men but monsters." . . . Children of all classes were treated with great severity. . . . T h e poet Milton was the embodiment of unreasonableness and cruelty to his children. . . . Judge Pastor's marriageable daughter was beaten once or twice a week by her mother, sometimes twice in 3 Grace Abbott, The Chili and The State, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1938, Volume I, p. 3. * Henry W. Thurston, The De-pendent Child, Columbia University Press, New York, 1930, p. 3.

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

32

one day. . . . Elizabeth T a n f i e l d ( 1 5 8 5 - 1 6 3 9 ) , L a d y T a n f i e l d , while speaking to her mother, always knelt before her. . . . 5 In colonial N e w E n g l a n d , children were to be seen, not heard, and the less they were in evidence to the eye the better. Letters and diaries contain little mention of them. " T h e r e was no purpose to make the child appear valuable or noteworthy to himself or others. Scientific child study was a thing of the future." 6 . . . Families were l a r g e ; infant and maternal mortality were excessively h i g h ; child labor, the inevitable third of this customary trinity, was everywhere evident. . . .

A

stern

theology distorted the conception of childhood, and the logical outcome of that theology of child depravity was w h o l l y contrary to any appreciation of child nature or needs. W h i t e f i e l d , the great preacher, likens them to rattlesnakes and alligators, which he says are likewise beautiful w h e n small. Jonathan E d w a r d s called them " y o u n g vipers." H e says: " A s innocent as children seem to be to us, yet, if they are out of Christ, they are not so in G o d ' s sight, but are y o u n g vipers, and are infinitely more hateful than vipers." 7 . . . C h i l d manners were formal and meek. H o m e discipline was relentless. T h e rod was the accepted standard of subjugation. T h e view of John Robinson, the P i l g r i m preacher, that "there is in all children (though not alike) a stubberness and stoutness of mind arising f r o m naturall pride which must in the first place be broken and beaten d o w n , " was generally shared by parents. 8 T h e law upheld stern parental authority. F o r incorrigible disobedience to parents the penalty was death. 9 W h a t every student of American social history knows is that, in the years since, these earlier and sterner attitudes changed. Miss Grace Abbott, former Chief

of the

have

Federal

Children's Bureau, has shown recently, in a noteworthy collec5

Arthur W . Calhoun, A Social History of the American

Family, Arthur H .

Clark Company, Cleveland, 1 9 1 7 , Volume I, pp. 29-51; H. D. T r a i l l and J. S. Mann, Social England,

G. P. Putnams' Sons, 1902-1903, Volumes III, I V .

6

Calhoun, of. cit., Volume I, p. 105.

7

Jonathan Edwards, Works, New Y o r k , 1881, Volume III, p. 340.

8

Quoted from W . Goodsell, Problem

of the Family, T h e Century Company,

New Y o r k , 1928, edition, p. 76. 9

Calhoun, of. cit., Volume I, Chapters V I , X V I I .

CHILD WELFARE MOVEMENT

33

tion of judicial decisions and interpretations, how this change has taken place in so slowly evolving a field as the law. A century ago, James Kent, former Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court, in his Commentaries on American Law, was saying that "courts of justice may, in their sound discretion, and when the morals, or safety, or interests of the child strongly require it, withdraw the infants from the custody of the father or mother, and place the care and custody of them elsewhere."10 As early as 1813, a Pennsylvania court, in deciding the custody of two children, frankly states that "it is to them, that our anxiety is principally directed."11 Or, there is the decision of the Supreme Court of the State of Alabama which declared in 1931, in a case involving parental rights, that "the welfare of the child is the question of paramount importance."12 Today, as can be easily perceived, "the welfare of the child is the question of paramount importance." Not only is this the dictum of judicial decisions, but it is the tacit assumption in the organization of the lives of millions of families and hundreds of communities. In the children's division of that new Magna Charta of human rights which a century and more of social stress and struggle has evolved in our western civilization, there are no emphases upon the rights of parents and relatively few about the rights of society. Rather is it all about the rights of children. Moreover, these rights are not simply new versions of the old prerogatives of the child in the matter of food, shelter, and reasonable care: they are new rights, unknown and albeit inconceivable to parents and citizens of earlier centuries. The Children's Charter, formulated by the third White House Conference on Child Health and Protection would be as sacrilegious or unfathomable to parents of a thousand years ago as the Declaration of Independence would have been to Louis X I V of France. That the whole life of the modern child, all that is done and hoped and planned for him, either by individual parents or by 10

Abbott, of. cit., Volume I, p. 52.

11

Ibid., p. 54.

12

Ibid., p. 74.

34

MARRIAGE AND T H E CHILD

organized social agencies, represents the opposite pole of the conceptions held two thousand or two hundred years ago, is obvious: through the welter of changing circumstances and criteria, one seeks for the substance of the change. What is the essential change in the nature of the status of childhood? T h e answer proposed is this: that the essence of the change is a shift from a subordinate and incidental position in a family group dominated by an autocratic parent to one of acceptance as an equal with his own personality, needs, and problems of development. More tersely stated, it is a change from a position of subordination to one of equality, both in the family and in the larger social group. Use words to hide the truth as we will, the fact of the matter is that for centuries the child was dominated by his elders to be exploited in their interests. I t had no rights, save as they fitted into the interests of their elders or the kinship group. T h a t the bases of established authority upon which this exploitation rested came at times and places to be clothed in ethical terms, may confuse but does not alter the essential fact. Today the child is recognized as a human personality, in a peculiarly vital stage of development. H e is a co-equal personality in the emerging democracy of the family. T h e guarding of this personality is the child's precious right, and the dangers which threaten it are recognized social problems; the development of that personality is his most precious opportunity, and the furtherance and guidance of that development are the concern of his elders. This, the essence of the change in the status of the child, is a change principally in the minds of his elders—a change so significant as to take its place among the great revolutions of history. T h e child has been the last serf of civilization to be freed. HISTORICAL D E V E L O P M E N T O F C H I L D W E L F A R E W O R K

Through many centuries there have been children who, because of the misfortunes of the responsible elders in their kinship group, were thrown upon the larger society for support. In these cases, the basic condition recognized was that of need,

CHILD WELFARE MOVEMENT

35

and the customary arrangements made were in keeping with the accepted time and place where the need was manifest. With the passage of time, conceptions of need and customs of care change, so that it seems appropriate to review, against the background of the changed status of childhood as a whole, the changes in the care of this more specific element in the child population. H e r e again we shall concern ourselves with developments in the United States. Early Beginnings W e began in this country, and we continued for many years, with the principles of relief of need and distress which were formulated in Elizabethan England. Two of these principles of child care concern us here. One of these was the theory, basic in all Elizabethan poor relief legislation, that the local community was responsible for the care of children whom parents or privately supported agencies left dependent and neglected, and that the financial cost of this responsibility was to be paid out of publicly collected tax funds. Such public funds could be expended either for the maintenance of public institutions, principally the poorhouse, in which needy children could be placed; or for the relief to persons who cared for these dependent children in their own homes. These two forms of relief expenditures are known as public indoor relief and public outdoor relief, respectively. A second basic principle of child care established by the Elizabethan legislation involved the apprenticeship or binding out of children. This principle was a product of one of the accepted bases of social organization of the time: viz., that every person must be attached to some family, to some occupation, and in some locality. This basis was accepted both in England and in the United States during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Children who were recognized as being in need were children not thus attached, usually because of the death of, or neglect by, a parent or parents. What was more logical as a solution of such a problem of need than to take these children and attach them to some family which would give them

зб

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

this threefold anchorage of home, occupation, and locality? Thus arose the indenture system or binding-out system which was practised widely in England for centuries and in the United States from 1636 until into the twentieth century. It was legally abolished in Pennsylvania in 1927. The Situation by 1800 T h e opening of the nineteenth century found the Elizabethan poor law system fully established in most of the sixteen states which then comprised the union. Homer Folks, summarizing the situation as it had come to develop by 1800, points out the following significant facts: ( 1 ) Outdoor relief, i.e., the relief of the poor in their own homes, was the method by which the larger number of needy children, as well as adults, were cared for at the end of the eighteenth century. (2) Children, as well as adults, were cared for in almshouses, which were maintained under the direct control of public authorities. Almshouses were first built in the large cities, but as time went on, smaller cities and then the counties had begun to build them. (Philadelphia, the largest city in the country in 1800, was at that time occupying its second public almshouse, located in the area bounded by Tenth, Eleventh, Spruce, and Pine streets. This had been built in 1767.) (3) Indenture was in common use. It had been regulated by laws quite carefully all through the eighteenth century. (4) There were the specialized children's institutions, of which there were seven by 1800. One of these, publicly developed and maintained, was located in Charleston, South Carolina; the other six had been privately established.13 Contributions of the Nineteenth

Century

One hundred and eighteen years later a committee, in reporting to a national professional group of child welfare work on 13

Homer Folks, The Care of Destitute, Neglected and Delinquent

The Macmillan Company, New York, 1902. Chapter I.

Children,

CHILD W E L F A R E MOVEMENT

37

the most important things that had been done for children in the nineteenth century, presented the following brief summary. 14 ι . The establishment and maintenance of separate institutions for the care of the separate classes or groups of handiacpped children found at the beginning of the nineteenth century in mixed almshouses and jails, in inadequate homes and in the streets and alleys. For example: (a) orphan asylums (b) institutions for the blind (c) institutions for the deaf (d) institutions for the crippled (e) institutions for the low grade feebleminded (f ) institutions for the epileptic ( g ) reformatories and industrial schools for delinquents. 2. T h e substitution of the beginnings of placing-out and boarding-out of dependent, neglected, and delinquent children under supervision for the old indenture and apprenticeship of these children without supervision. 3. The beginnings of separate parts of our present juvenile court system in the form of: (a) probation (b) separation of children from adults in court and under detention. 4. T h e establishment of societies for the prevention of cruelty to children. 5. The beginnings of compulsory school attendance. 6. T h e beginnings of child labor legislation. From this brief summary it is clear that social work for children for the greater part of the nineteenth century was concerned chiefly with the separation from the community of class after class of children who were specially afflicted by some outstanding handicap, like homelessness, neglect, blindness, deaf14

Henry W. Thurston, chairman of the Children's Committee, reporting to

the National Conference of Social Work. Cf. Annual Report, National Conference on Social Work, Chicago, 1 9 1 8 , pp. 48-4.9.

38

M A R R I A G E AND T H E C H I L D

ness, crippled bodies, mental deficiency, delinquency, etc. One after another of these groups were withdrawn from the undifferentiating almshouse or system of public outdoor relief, and given separate and specialized care in accordance with the existing understanding of their particular need. Children's work in the nineteenth century, then, might be called child saving work. Its purpose was to save fairly distinct classes of dependent, defective, neglected, and delinquent children. In the last quarter of the century, leaders in this field were busy working out agreement upon the general methods and objectives that were to be pursued, and an increasing effort was made to have these emerging standards of procedure adopted by all communities, states, and sections of the country, despite the diversities of their population make-up, their social interests, or their political development. The first White House Conference, called together by President Theodore Roosevelt to consider a variety of problems affecting dependent and neglected children, marked the coming of age of this stage of the history of the child caring movement in the United States. This conference engaged the best minds in child welfare^ it was concerned with the intimate discussion of standards of work, and voted unanimously for the endorsement of principles considered to be fundamental in this field. Included among these principles are the following: ι . That children shall not be removed from their own homes by reason of poverty 2. That the most important and valuable philanthropic work is not the curative but the preventive 3. That when it is necessary to remove children from their own homes, they should, so far as possible, be cared for in foster homes 4. That such homes shall be selected with care, adjusted with finesse to each child, and supervised wisely and thoroughly 5. That institutions shall be used primarily for temporary care, and where used, shall be of the cottage type 6. That careful histories shall be kept of all children, and

CHILD WELFARE MOVEMENT

39

that this record keeping, as well as the whole treatment process, shall be done by what is known as good social case work.15 This first White House Conference, then, crystallized in its recommendation the experience of a century in the care of dependent, neglected, and delinquent children. C H I L D SAVING EVOLVES INTO C H I L D W E L F A R E

In the early stages of the history of the care of any needy group, the conspicuous cases are the first to receive attention. The primary interest of socially minded citizens in children with special handicaps during the nineteenth century was entirely natural; but so also was the inevitable next step in the development of that movement. This was the emergence of a social concern for the welfare of all children. Such a concern grew quite naturally and logically out of experience in the specialized care of particular types of need. One cannot long deal, for example, with blind children without learning how children become blind, which leads in turn to the thought of the prevention of blindness in other children, and this ultimately but inevitably suggests the safeguarding of the sight of all children; special institutions for the deaf imply that all children need ears to hear; restrictions on child labor lead directly to problems of school attendance and recreational facilities; and to appraise critically foster homes cannot but focus ere long attention upon the need of proper homes for all children. In short, workers engaged with these groups of specially handicapped children came in time, as did their fellow workers with adults, to an appreciation of the economy of preventive work. This led them to a consideration of the essentials of welfare upon which children of normal opportunity thrive, and this, in turn, to a consideration of such essentials for all children. This progress, wrote Professor Thurston in 1918, "has been symbolized by our changing emphasis in the use of terms. Child saving had to yield a large place to prevention and now both " J . Prentice Murphy, in the Annual Proceedings, National Conference on Social W o r k , University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1921, p. 25.

40

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

. . . are giving way to the larger and newer conception of child welfare."19 It was during the second decade of the twentieth century that the term "child welfare" began to take on this more comprehensive meaning, began to be used more and more to mean, not simply social case work with specially handicapped children, but also the various organized movements and activities directed at the promotion of the welfare of all children. It was this broader implication of the term which was uppermost in the minds of the men and women who participated in the regional and Washington Conferences on Child Welfare that were held during the year 1919. Just as the first White House Conference on Child Welfare held in 1907 crystallized the standards of the first type of child welfare work outlined at the beginning of this chapter, so the second or Washington Conference of 1919 formulated the standards for the second type, in which the emphasis is upon what President Wilson, in his letter suggesting the conference, called the "irreducible minimum standards" for all children. CHILD WELFARE THROUGH THE HOME

"That there is a new era at hand in which the customs and traditions of child raising will be subject to scientific examination is undisputed. As an integral part of such a program, the mental hygiene of the child will be the inescapable responsibility of its parents or guardians. The child today is too frequently brought up in a haphazard, unconscious way." Thus wrote a psychiatrist in a symposium on child welfare, edited by the author in 1921. 17 In 1930, in another symposium edited by the author on the same subject, one reads: " I n today's social thinking, a comprehensive child welfare program includes (as one of its major 16

Thurston, of. cit., National Proceedings, 1918, p. 53.

17

Leonard Blumgart, "Some Aspects of the Mental Hygiene of the C h i l d , "

in "Child W e l f a r e , " The Annals

of the American

Academy

Social Science, Philadelphia, November, 1921, p. 53.

of Political

and

CHILD WELFARE MOVEMENT

41

divisions) . . . direct efforts to help parents and parent substitutes more adequately to care for and guide the growth of their children."18 These two statements serve to identify a period and a stage of development in the history of the child welfare movement. The period covers the post-war years, from about 1918 to 1930; the development is a type of child welfare service which centered its efforts upon the family and home situation of the child; its basic philosophy is that the young child is not a thing detached and apart from his home, but is so much a part and parcel of that environment that child and home must be considered as a unity. Two points of emphasis stand out from these efforts to promote the welfare of children through their homes: one is directed toward the protection of the family against the hazards of the modern industrial order; the other aims at the guidance of parents to discharge more effectively their obligations and tasks as parents. The first of these, the protective measures, were suggested by the Washington Conference of 1919. While detailed standards were not formulated in this field, the concluding statements of the findings of the conferences recognized that certain broad aspects of social welfare, such as an adequate wage for the father and wholesome housing and living conditions for the family were fundamental to the realization of any child welfare program. In the course of the next few years, as a result, such movements as those for the prevention and compensation of accidents} the control and elimination of industrial diseases; the family allowance system, so extensively developed abroad; the whole relief and social work program; all these and others were being reёxamined in relation to the specific problem of family protection and the well-being of children. There was repeated 18

Ralph P. Bridgman, "Ten Years' Progress in Parent Education," in "Post-

War Progress in Child Welfare," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Philadelphia, September, 1930, p. 32.

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

42

reference to these as constituting the " n e w values in child welfare."18 T h e second emphasis in relation to the family aspects of child welfare was upon the training of parents for the task of parenthood. M o r e and more it came to be charged, and confessed, during the teeming twenties, that merely being a father or mother was not in itself sufficient preparation for the complex and difficult job of rearing children. S w i f t l y the conviction g r e w that fathers and mothers needed to be educated to this business of parenthood, and that no social program for the welfare of children can be complete unless it seeks to make available to parents the results of experience and of the scientific study of behavior that was accumulating so rapidly. T h u s took

form

what is usually referred to as the parental education movement. T h i s movement, which developed so rapidly during the third decade of the century, came as the result of many factors. It has been in part a phase of the general adult education movement which, in its broadest aspects, represents the efforts of intelligent adults to keep up with the times; in part it is the natural heir of that extensive work in popular education in home making and home management which came to be carried on under the auspices of the federal government after the passage of the Smith-Lever Act of 1 9 1 4 and the Smith-Hughes Act of 1 9 1 7 ; but mostly it should be viewed as a definite phase of the child welfare movement resulting f r o m three sets of influences. T h e first of these comprehended the accumulating

findings

in the

study of human behavior. F r o m child guidance clinics, f r o m the offices and clinics of psychiatrists, f r o m the reports on the lengthened therapy of the psychoanalysts came a mass of evidence, the weight of which was to crown childhood as the period of paramount importance in personality development. It was the earliest years which mattered most; it was the first conditionings which were the more permanent, and parents were virtually the sole agents molding children through these years. T h e second 19

C f . James H. S. Bossard and J. Prentice Murphy, " N e w Values in Child

W e l f a r e , " the Annals of the American Academy of Political Philadelphia, September, 1925.

and Social

Science,

CHILD WELFARE MOVEMENT

43

precipitating factor was the intensification and multiplication of problems of child rearing which resulted from social change. T h e rapidity and scope of these changes in our social life, the fact that so many of them affected particularly the young, left many parents confused and perplexed, so that the eager search for help that now developed was neither unusual nor visionary. Finally, there was the disconcerting influence of those changes in the nature and functions of the family itself to which sociologists were giving more and more attention. A democratic form of the family was replacing the semi-patriarchal form of the immediate past} coercion was giving way to subtle persuasion} suggestion succeeded compulsion} and training in obedience was giving way to visions of an educational progressivism which people seemed to accept in inverse proportion to their understanding of it. It is not the purpose of this chapter to set forth the concrete activities which have developed under the various types of child welfare work identified, but rather to indicate how each developed in a sequence of ideas, what their basic philosophy and purposes are, and the general period of time during which the particular type or emphasis developed. It will suffice then to say in conclusion that by 1925 a permanent organization, the National Council of Parent Education, was formed to coordinate efforts in this field} that in 1928 the first National Conference of Parent Education Workers was held: that by 1932 courses in parent education were offered in one or more colleges and universities in at least twenty-five states} and that by 1935 a fifty-three page pamphlet, issued by the U . S. Office of Education, was needed simply to catalogue and describe briefly the agencies, public and private, working in this field.20 C H I L D W E L F A R E T H R O U G H T H E LARGER SOCIAL SITUATION

Important as the family as the setting for the first developments of personality may be, the life of the child manifestly is not confined to the family. Early in its life it comes in contact, 20

Ellen C. Lombard, Parent Education

Ofportunities,

U. S. Office of Edu-

cation Bulletin, 1935, No. 3, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington.

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

44

through the school, the church, recreational groups, etc., with the life of the larger community. Moreover, the family in which the child lives from the beginning is a part of a larger neighborhood, community, or area, which in turn is a part of the more inclusive state, region, or nation. It would seem obvious, then, that the child cannot be studied, understood, or treated adequately without considering it in relation to its social setting. N o r is such a procedure new to scientists, who in working with human organisms have placed them experimentally in different situations to observe the effects upon their behavior. Particularly have the physiologists and psychologists practised this procedure. E v e n more so would it seem pertinent to include this approach in the study of human behavior, and the last decade has witnessed an increasing emphasis upon it. In part, this approach has taken the form of considering the child in relation to the more immediate community ·, in part, in relation to the life of the larger society of which the community is a part. ( i ) What might be called the community approach to child problems has been developed most clearly by the students of juvenile delinquency. As early as 1902 Charles H . Cooley, professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan, stated the scientific creed of such an approach in his emphasis upon the "self as a social product," 2 1 but it was another two decades before the implications of his theory were translated into research studies of juvenile delinquency. A brief summary of the dates, spokesmen, and statements representative of this approach will fix its time, status and specific nature. In 1928, William I. and Dorothy S. Thomas, having surveyed child study activities in the United States, emphasized the newness but the inevitability of this approach. 22 T h e most important situations in the development of personality, they 21

Charles H. Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order, Charles Scrib-

ners Sons, New York, 1902. 22

William I. and Dorothy Swaine Thomas, The Child in America,

S. Knopf, Inc., New York, 1928.

Alfred

CHILD WELFARE MOVEMENT

45

pointed out, are the attitudes and values of other persons (Ρ· 5 7 0 · T h e following year Clifford Shaw and others, of the Institute for Juvenile Research and Research Behavior F u n d , published a study of delinquency areas in Chicago as "an initial phase of a situational approach to the study of delinquency." T h e first chapter of this study is an excellent brief summary of the essence of this "situational or sociological" approach. 23 This approach, Shaw said, . . . is an attempt to relate behavior to the social and cultural setting in which it arises. Persons live and act in families, clubs, schools, playgrounds, gangs. These groups reflect community life, and the community in turn itself reflects larger cultural and social processes. Behavior of a delinquent may be in part a reflection of a family conflict which drives him into a gang in which delinquency is a traditional group pattern. The delinquent gang may reflect a disorganized community life or a community whose life is organized around delinquent patterns. 24 I n 1934 James S. Plant, director of the Essex County Juvenile Clinic in Newark, N e w Jersey, emphasized in clear-cut fashion the role of the community in the causation of juvenile delinquency. T h e delinquent is not merely an actor, to be assessed by the techniques of an individualistic approach: he is . . . a river, accumulating from all his springs and tributaries the forces and drives that now show themselves. . . . The artifices and shams, the triumphs and tawdry cheapnesses of the community— all of these flow into the child and become a part of him. He who comes to you in agency, school, or clinic brings with him the dirt of his street, or its challenging struggle to some distant goal. . . . As we know him better, the wall of individualization melts away and we see here little more than a section or a part of the community in which he lives. . . . Delinquency is the result of long conditioning, and until we change the community and until we alter 28

Clifford Shaw and others, Delinquency Chicago, 1929. 24 Ibid., p. 9.

Areas, University of Chicago Press,

46

MARRIAGE AND THE

CHILD

the conditions of living of the delinquent, we shall get nowhere with our therapeutic program. . . . Delinquency is a dramatization of our social problems and difficulties. 25 T h i s same point of v i e w is elaborated in D r . Plant's recent book ( 1 9 3 7 ) in which he insists that personality can be understood only if the cultural pattern in which it is g r o w n , and f r o m which it has taken its coloring, is understood. 2 6 E v e n W i l l i a m H e a l y , after thirty years of specialized studies of juvenile delinquents which have run the gamut of the varied individualistic approaches, writes ( 1 9 3 8 ) : It would not be difficult to adopt the viewpoint of certain leading sociologists and social psychologists. T h a t would mean starting from the periphery of factors influencing personality and gradually working through concentric areas of influence until the central single personality was reached. 27 I n other words, we see this community approach as a development primarily of the last decade, and taking the form of an insistence that the child cannot be understood apart f r o m his cultural setting, and that therapeutic measures directed at his delinquency must fail if they overlook this type of child w e l f a r e activities. (2)

In the preceding references to the importance of the

local community setting of the child, there usually are f o u n d references also to the fact that the community in turn reflects larger cultural and social processes, which suggests that the problems of child w e l f a r e are in part but an index of our larger social life and its conditioning of human welfare. T h i s idea was implied quite definitely in much of the work of the third W h i t e H o u s e Conference on C h i l d H e a l t h and Protection in 1930. T h e scope of its deliberations: the large-scale problems of health, education, public administration, profes25

James S. Plant, in the Annual Proceedings of the National Conference of

Social W o r k , University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1934, pp. 335-338. 28

James S. Plant, Personality

and the Culture Pattern, T h e Commonwealth

Fund Publications, New Y o r k , 1937. 27

William Healy, Personality

in Formation

Company, New Y o r k , 1938, p. 139.

and Action,

W . W . Norton &

CHILD WELFARE MOVEMENT

47

sional ethics, political relations, economic opportunities, judicial organization could mean but one thing, and that was that child welfare problems are a phase of the whole social welfare program. Whatever doubt one might have had on this point has been dispelled by events of the past decade. With as many as eight million children in families on public relief in this country, only the public school system has touched the lives and influenced the personality development of more children; with several million children born to their parents while on relief, one need but to accept a fraction of what psychiatrists are saying about the conditioning significance of the early years, to realize how pervasive and far reaching the effects of the general economic situation of the nineteen thirties has been upon child development. As a result of the problems precipitated during the depression years, we have come to see that child welfare problems do not exist in vacuo, cut off from the larger social situations by those compartment walls which academic folk are so wont to erect between the fields of their specific interests. We have come to realize that nothing that happens in society is irrelevant to the welfare of children: that a basic test of the quality of our economic, politicial, and social order is the quality of the children which it produces. Thus it has come about, in the past few years, that our child welfare hopes have become a phase of our national recovery efforts, of our social security program, and of our national health measures. TRENDS I N T H E D E V E L O P M E N T

The foregoing review of the historical unfolding of the child welfare movement would not be complete without a summary of what seem to be the main trends in this development. Three such trends would seem to stand out. ( i ) The democratization of the movement. In its earliest stages, social concern with child problems was restricted to a few groups of children in conspicuous need. Its progress, for many years, consisted in the addition of more such groups, with some

48

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

lightening too of the degree of need required. Out of this background grew finally a consideration of the essentials upon which all children thrive. T h e child saving movement of the nineteenth century became the child welfare movement of the twentieth century; from a concern with a few groups of children it has come to have as its objective the well-being of all children. (2) The intensification of the movement. This is the outgrowth of the intensive study of personality development of the past two decades, particularly of the psychiatric insistence upon the very great importance of the earlier years when the child's contacts are confined so largely to the family. One need not accept in their entirety all the theories of the psychoanalytic schools in order to conclude that many of the events and even of the minutiae of daily family life come, in curiously subtle and roundabout ways, to have far-reaching effects in the development of a child's personality. T h e whole gist of this emphasis has been to intensify the child welfare movement, as it were, to give new and greater meaning to factors and situations not considered important before in the history of children's work. (3) Its incorf oration into the larger field of social welfare. This has been the result of new insights gained of the lateral implications of child problems, of their place in the larger pattern of our social life. Just as in the study of a living body, fuller knowledge has involved a better appreciation of the correlation of its parts; just as progress in the study of natural history has revealed the intricacies of the web of life; so the more we study scientifically the problems of different elements in our complex society, the more is it clear that the development, the wellbeing, and the interests of any one element cannot be dissociated from those of the other elements. M E A N I N G FOR RESEARCH

W i t h these three main trends in mind, there remains to be considered, in accordance with the declared outline of this chapter, their significance for purposes of social research, and more particularly, of research in the field of child problems. Speaking generally, the effect has been to extend greatly the

CHILD WELFARE MOVEMENT

49

range and diversity of the research tasks in this field. That this is true can be proved both by the actual amount of such research work done or undertaken in the past twenty years, or in the challenging variety of the problems remaining unattacked. What the nature of these changes in the character of research in child welfare have been, and seem destined to be, will be briefly summarized. ι. There is the continuing redefining of old problems. The development of the child welfare movement has been cumulative. New types of activity have not displaced but have been added to previous stages. This is an important fact to emphasize here, because it means that the older problems of earlier types of activity are not miraculously dissolved by the appearance of new methods of approach. They remain to challenge us, being often seen in a new light by new insights recently acquired. For example, new insight into the effects of home life upon the personality development of the child has redefined many of the problems involved in the placement of children in foster homes. Or, emphasis upon social security programs for parents raises questions of financial endowments tied up in institutional programs. Or, the raising of the age of child labor and compulsory school attendance propounds new problems in parent-child relationships. In other words, the various phases of any large social movement, such as that pertaining to children, are so interrelated that the introduction of any new development tends to have reverberations all along the line, with the consequent result that old problems must be faced and probed anew. 1. The democratization of the child welfare movement has extended the range of research problems until they are coterminous with the domain of childhood. Once our movement concerns the welfare of all children, our basic research task comes to be an understanding of the conditions and processes involved in the development of all childhood. This means, of course, a multitude of specific tasks, but all of them derive meaning and take their place in the pattern of this fundamental quest. Such, of course, has come to be the basic objective of the older, more established sciences, dealing with other forms of organic life.

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD T h e horticulturist, the forester, the stock breeder, each has available now a good deal of very useful, scientifically sound information about the development of the forms of life in which they are interested; but it just is true that we know more about growing an orchid or achieving a Derby winner than we do about the formation of a human personality. It is true, of course, that the latter is unconceivably more complex and difficult; but it is also true that too long we have left child development to those interested in the learning process or some specialized phase of some particular group of children. It is imperative that there be developed a social science of childhood: a broad grasp of the problems involved in their life and development as human personalities in social situations of rapidly changing complexity. In the applied aspects of Sociology, for example, is there any logical reason to single out crime, poverty, race relations, and the family, as distinct specialties, and ignore the province of childhood, comprising as it does one-third of the total population? 3. T h e intensification of the child welfare movement calls for a refinement of the problems to be faced by research workers and a deepening of their quest. Much of the insight into child development gained in recent years has tended to shift attention from obvious overt factors long recognized to those more obscure, wreaking their significance through hidden subtleties. Much of the recent probing has been a going beneath the surface, deep down into the inner springs of conduct and of human relationships. This is the kind of research which calls for deft craftsmanship rather than a drive for surface data, for delicate overtones of interpretation rather than obvious inferences from ponderous statistical tables. 4. T h e realization that children's problems must be considered in relation to their larger social setting is bringing in its train tasks for the research student of still other kinds. It already seems clear that, unless efforts to promote the welfare of children through activities of this type are to be anything more than a buckshot-fired-at-random sort of thing, studies of a rather specific nature must be made showing how social situations concretely effect children. Just what, for example, are the things in

CHILD WELFARE MOVEMENT a community which promote delinquency tendencies in youth? Is it enough to say that a neighborhood is bad, or immoral, or vicious? Or does one have to go on to try to identify the specific features in the community which are of causal significance? Progress in scientific understanding results from the discovery of definite and precise relationships, not from easy assumptions of vague connections. Another set of research problems, thus far virtually untouched, has to do with the cultural adjustment of the child. How does the child adjust to its culture, using that word in the sense that sociologists use it; what agencies and mechanisms are important here? This is something of the utmost importance, particularly in view of the child problems of cultural conflict so much emphasized in certain quarters; this is something far different, and a good deal more comprehensive, than the agencies and processes involved in the child's formal education and training to overt observances. Finally, how does progress in the promotion of general social well-being affect other child problems; in fact, how does progress in any one phase of the child welfare movement affect other phases? How does greater family security affect the problems of the care of dependent children? What does the reduction of infant mortality mean for the birth control movement? How does the small family system affect parent-child relationships and the demands for community recreation? Perhaps enough has been said about the range and depth of the research problems awaiting the student of the social problems of childhood, and of the necessity of venturing into virgin fields and following new leads. Perhaps, also, enough has been said to justify the inclusion of the studies which follow in this volume. While these studies are of marriage and the family, their significance for child welfare should be obvious, on the basis of what has been said in this chapter. It is perhaps peculiarly fitting that the first publication of an organization devoted to the scientific study of the problems of child helping should be devoted so largely to the subject of marriage selection, for is it not there and thus that the problems of the child begin?

52

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

A basic challenge of childhood is its current continuance. Each year more than two million babies are born alive in the United States. A third (34.2 per cent in 1 9 3 6 ) of these babies are first children, a fifth (22.2 per cent) are second children, and seven out of ten (69.9 per cent) are first, second, or third children. Almost half (44.4 per cent in 1 9 3 6 ) of the mothers of these babies born each year in the United States are under twenty-five years of age, and not quite half (49.8 per cent) of the fathers are under thirty. What else do we know about these parents, the home and family situations which they create? At what age did these parents marry? What age combinations and age differentials prevailingly obtain among them? W h o m does who r n r r y ? What nationality and nativity backgrounds are combined in the homes where these babies are born, what occupational backgrounds and experiences, what intellectual levels, what previous marital experiences? If the family is the conditioning cradle of the child's personality, as recent studies emphasize so overwhelm! then these are things which we shall have to know, and whose pervasive significance we shall have to understand. T h e basic social data about the parents are, by and large, the indices of the cultural units which are their home and family situations. W h a t this means is that an early step in the scientific approach to child problems coincides with the study of the field of marriage selection, which is an early step in the scientific study of marriage problems. T h e following six studies are presented, then, as background studies, both for the more scientific appraisal of problems of children and of the family.

Part II

SELECTED PROBLEMS OF MARRIAGE

CHAPTER T H E

A G E

F A C T O R

III IN

M A R R I A G E *

THE ages of persons marrying and the disparity between their ages are matters of very great importance in the study of the problems of family and child welfare. Common observation has long and invariably noted such facts in the families of friends and associates j common gossip has attempted constantly to assess their significance in family relations; yet scientific analyses have but cursorily attended the subject. A study pointing in this direction and attempting to add to our not too abundant scientific literature on this subject, would seem, therefore, to have some justification. SOME ASPECTS OF ITS IMPORTANCE

1. Preparation for marriage is a favorite topic for current discussion. Public schools are giving foundation courses for it, especially in the larger cities; colleges and universities are planning more mature discussions at a higher age level; individual clergymen organize discussion groups; the radio recognizes it as a field of exploitation. T h e age of those marrying would seem to be a factor of basic importance in the intelligent planning of such programs of preparation, for obviously it would matter a great deal if half of those marrying were under twenty-two, or were over thirty, years of age. 2. A g e of marriage, with its relationship to the age of probable parenthood, has some influence upon the birth rate, for it determines not only the span of child-bearing years but also the exposure to the more fertile and the less fertile years. Further* Parts of this chapter appeared as an article in the American Journal of Sociology, published by the University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. The article appeared in the January, 1933, issue. Permission to reprint here has been obtained from the publisher.

55

56

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

more, because the age of marriage sets the space between successive generations, it tends to influence thus the rate of growth of population over a long period of time. T h e time interval between marriage and the birth of the first child has not been studied as extensively as it needs to be. M o r e studies are needed of the kind published recently by Christensen. 1 H i s study covered 2,725 couples in which a first child was born within four years of the date of marriage, providing that this first child was not both premature and stillborn. Of the total number, 1,670 cases were found which met these specifications. In over half of these cases, 57.8 per cent, it was found that first births occurred before the parents celebrated their first wedding anniversary, and nine out of ten, 89.4 per cent, before the second anniversary. 3. This, in turn, suggests the significance of data on age at marriage to those interested in the problems of birth control. Not only the scope of this movement, but the details of its administration, must be guided by groups of facts, such as those about age, which characterize the marrying population. With three-fourths of the families in this country favoring birth control, according to recent polls of public opinion, and with the idea of planned parenthood more and more in the air, a planned birth control movement, developed on the scientific study of the needs for it, becomes more and more operative. 4. T h e age of marriage through its relation to the age of parenthood affects directly also the problems of infant, and probably maternal, mortality. An English report 2 on "Fertility of M a r r i a g e " points out that when "the effects of varying social status and size of family have been as far as possible eliminated, the relation of child mortality to mother's age is broadly one of 1

Harold T . Christensen, " T h e Time-Interval Between Marriage of Parents

and the Birth of Their First Child in Utah County, Utah." The Journal

of Sociology,

pp. 5 1 8 - 5 2 6 . Consult also Edgar Sydenstricker, in the Millbank Quarterly 2

Bulletin,

American

University of Chicago Press, Chicago, January,

1939,

Memorial

Fund

January, 1 9 3 2 , pp. 1 7 - 3 2 .

Census of England and Wales ( 1 9 1 1 ) X I I I , Part II, L I X , as quoted by

Frank W. Notestein, " A g e At Marriage and Social Class," American Sociology,

University of Chicago Press, Chicago, July, 1 9 3 1 , p. 22.

Journal

of

THE AGE FACTOR

57

simple increase of mortality with increase of age." This conclusion is quite different from that found in the United States, and formulated on the basis of the well-known studies made by the Federal Children's Bureau. These studies, as analyzed by Woodbury, show ( i ) that the infant mortality rate is higher among mothers under eighteen years of age than for any age group until the forty-fifth year is reached; ( 2 ) that after eighteen, the rate decreases until the years between twenty-five and twentynine are reached, after which it rises again. 3 5. T o what extent does marriage occur before an adequate preparation has been made for the economic establishment and maintenance of a family; to what extent after the material necessities of life seem to be more assured? The ages of persons marrying, particularly the ages of men, may serve as a rough index of economic adequacy for marriage. Perhaps in an overwhelming proportion of cases marriages under a given age are made on the proverbial shoe string; in a somewhat lower percentage of cases would this be true five years later in the lives of those marrying. These given ages would vary, of course, from one economic class to another. This economic age of marriage is of particular importance when considered in connection with the biological age of marriage, by which is meant the time when sex impulses become strong and when the capacity to produce and bear children develops. A great many of the problems of modern marriage and of modern youth grow out of the disparity between the time when marriage is biologically possible and the time when, under the conditions of modern life, it becomes economically feasible. A n added fact to be noted here is that these facts vary from one race and nationality group to another. This is particularly important in a country with so cosmopolitan a population as has the United States. One can see, for example, boys and girls of southeast European stocks, sexually mature at nine and ten years of age, who live in sections of this country where school attendance is required up to the eighteenth year! ' Robert M. Woodbury, "Child and Infant Mortality," Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1930, Volume III, p. 388.

MARRIAGE AND THE

58

CHILD

6. Akin to the relationship of the economic and biological ages for marriage is the problem of the disparity between the biological and the social ages for marriage. By social age for marriage is meant the time in life when young people are prepared reasonably for the social responsibilities of marriage and a family. Such responsibilities, and the consequent age involved, would vary from one class to another, but there can be no doubt that both responsibilities and age increase with the intricacies of our civilization. In a society so complex as that of our modern urban order, more and more preparation is needed to handle adequately the problems of married life, other than those of its economic maintenance. This is an almost unexplored field for social research. 7. Age in years is also a rough index of emotional development which is, of course, a very important factor in marriage and family relations. Furthermore, the age differential in marriage has been interpreted recently by students of psychiatric persuasion as being symptomatic of emotional maturity. Hollingworth, for example, in discussing the subject of psychological weaning of children from parents, writes: Another manifestation of the unweaned condition is the choice of a very much older person as a marital partner. T h e boy who is still emotionally dominated by the parental relationship is liable to fall in love with a woman old enough to be his mother, while the girl is attracted to men of her parents' age rather than to her contemporaries. Marriages founded on such discrepancies of age are not likely to proceed happily because the mate relationship differs fundamentally from the parent-child relationship and cannot be forced into the pattern of the latter. 4

8. T h e difference in age between persons marrying is emphasized by various groups of professional students. Gynecologists, for example, speak at length about its importance as a factor in sex relationships, which in turn colors a great many aspects of the marital relationship. H e r e is a group of facts assiduously 4

Leta S. Holling-worth, The Psychology

Company, New York, 1928, p. 53.

of the Adolescent, D. Appleton and

THE AGE FACTOR

59

covered up by persons directly involved, but if half of what professional groups dealing with the intimate problems of family tell us is true, age and age differentials in marriage are of very great and basic importance. This emphasis of gynecologists corresponds with that of sociologists and social workers, who have come quite generally to regard disparity in age as a causative role in the creation of family tensions and maladjustments, certain students going so far as to set up a definite age for both parties and a particular age combination as being most likely to lead to marital happiness. It would not seem necessary to belabor the point that whatever influences family life influences directly and proportionately the problems of child welfare. 9. What effect do age at marriage and the age differential have upon that socio-psychic unity which we call the family situation? How do these two sets of facts affect parental attitudes? In the refinement of our understanding of the conditioning factors in the development of a child's personality, how important is the fact, assuming other circumstances to be equal, that the parents of one child were married when they were twenty and twentytwo years old, respectively, and the parents of the next were thirty-three and fifty-six, respectively? General recognition of the importance of this fact exists: systematic investigation of its specific implications is somewhat lacking. 10. The most obvious aspect of the significance of age data in marriage is to raise the question of their relationship to such overt forms of family maladjustment as divorce, desertion, separation, and the like. There is considerable belief, and some evidence, that early marriages tend to break up more readily than do those contracted at a more mature age. Age differentials have been emphasized in particular as a basic factor in family disintegration.6 Obviously, careful scientific work in these matters requires a knowledge of basic facts about age at marriage in general. At 5

Hornell Hart and Wilmer Shields, "Happiness in Relation to Age in Marriage," Journal of Social Hygiene, New York, October, 1926, pp. 403-408.

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

6o

what ages are marriages consummated? W h a t are the extent and frequency of age differences between the contracting parties in the general run of marriages? Until these facts are known about a sufficiently large number of consecutive marriages, the importance of age factors in specific family problems cannot be determined. For example, to point out that a given age differential is found in a certain proportion of cases of divorce, desertion, or separation, indicates nothing about its importance unless a comparison is made with the percentage of all marriages in which such a differential exists. SOME STUDIES OF T H E AGE FACTOR

Reference to the age factor is frequent in the literature on marriage, and particularly in discussion of the specific subject of selection in marriage. Rather infrequent, on the other hand, are factual studies of actual data involved. O f these, attention might here be called to the studies by Ogburn; 6 Notestein; 7 Duncan, McClure, Salisbury, and Simmons, 8 the reports on marriage statistics of the State of New York, 9 and the studies of Richmond and Hall. 1 0 D r . Ogburn, who is professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, confines himself to an analysis of the census data on marriage. H e shows that, so far as age is concerned, there has been from 1890 to 1930 a marked increase of those married in the lower age groups. For example, in 1890, only fifty out of 6

W i l l i a m F. O g b u r n and Ernst R . Groves, American

Relationships,

Henry Holt and C o m p a n y , N e w Y o r k ,

"Recent Changes in M a r r i a g e , " American

Journal

Marriage

and

1928; W . F.

of Sociology,

Family Ogburn,

Chicago, No-

vember, 1935, pp. 285-299. 7

Frank

Journal 8

W.

Notestein,

of Sociology,

"Age

At

Marriage

and

Social

Class,"

American

July, 1 9 3 1 , pp. 22-49.

Otis D . Duncan, with John H . M c C l u r e , James Salisbury, and Richard H.

Simmons, " T h e Factor of A g e in M a r r i a g e , " American

Journal

of

Sociology,

January, 1934, pp. 469-483. 9

A n n u a l Reports, Department of H e a l t h , State of N e w Y o r k , Division of

V i t a l Statistics, A l b a n y , N . Y . 10

M a r y Richmond and Fred S. H a l l , Child

Foundation, N e w Y o r k ,

1925.

Marriages,

T h e Russell

Sage

T H E AGE FACTOR

61

every thousand young persons between fifteen and twenty years of age were reported as married; while in 1930 there were seventy-two. H e shows further that, comparing 1890 and 1930, the increase has been greater for women than for men in the age group under twenty, but is greater for men in the age groups between twenty and thirty-four years. It is significant to add, however, that this tendency to marry under twenty is definitely slowing up. Breaking up the trend into ten-year periods, there appears a definite reversal since 1920. In 1930, there were two fewer married youths per one thousand between the ages fifteen to nineteen years than in 1920. Mr. Notestein's study is concerned with the relation between age of marriage and social status, and is based on records obtained from the 1910 census schedules concerning age, duration of marriage, and occupation of husband, for urban and rural women of native white parentage. The women were grouped into six urban and three rural classes on the basis of the husband's occupation. The study included 17,876 women who married between 1900 and 1905. T h e conclusions were: ( 1 ) women of the urban population married later than those of the rural, but the women of the three lowest urban classes married earlier than those of the highest rural class; (2) for both the urban and rural classes age at marriage increases with rising social status, and the increase is largest between the classes differing most in social status; (3) the age at marriage for certain classes is lower than that of the most nearly comparable English classes; (4) the direct relation of age at marriage and social status accounts in part for the inverse relation between the fertility and social status of the classes.11 A S T U D Y O F T H E A G E F A C T O R IN M A R R I A G E IN P H I L A D E L P H I A

T o supplement the various other published studies have presented data on age at marriage, it was decided to such information for the marriages consummated in one politan city for one calendar year. The city chosen was 11

Notestein, of. cil., p. 22.

which gather metroPhila-

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

62

delphia, the third largest city in the U n i t e d States. T h e year selected was 1 9 3 1 , and the total number of marriages for which information on age was secured was 13,499. T h e data utilized were obtained f r o m marriage license applications in which one or both of the applicants were residents of Philadelphia. Because many residents of Philadelphia go into neighboring counties to apply f o r their marriage licenses, the records of these counties were examined for such licenses, and

1,281 such cases were

found. It is not contended, of course, that information was secured for all Philadelphians w h o obtained their

marriage

licenses outside of Philadelphia County during the year 1931, but there is good reason to believe that the total for which information was secured includes all but a v e r y small percentage of the marriages in which one or both persons were residents of Philadelphia.

Reliability of Age Data Something needs to be said concerning the reliability of the information given by the applicants w h e n applying for marriage licenses. T h a t a certain number, for v a r y i n g reasons, misrepresent their ages, will be generally a g r e e d ; as to the proportion of those doing so, and the degree of misrepresentation, no one knows. It might not be amiss to point out that error, like truth, has its relative aspects. In other words, is the amount or degree of error in a study of the ages of applicants for marriage licenses apt to be larger and more serious than is f o u n d in general in dealing with large masses of social phenomena? B y way of answer, it is interesting to note here that the most severe criticism of this study was made to the author by a social scientist w h o deals objectively with data obtained through questionnaires distributed to youths of school age. M u c h of the information he has sought has to do with their attitudes. T h e question might logically be posed then: which is the more reliable, information on age given by persons about to be married or information given in questionnaires concerning attitudes by

THE AGE FACTOR

63

young persons who may not have formed consciously such attitudes? A g e is an objective fact, known to the person; deviations from fact would therefore be those primarily due to conscious misrepresentation. Attitudes, especially of young persons, are subjective, often not consciously known, in addition to the fact that they may also be consciously misrepresented. Then, too, all age data are subject to the element of error, resulting from deliberate misrepresentation. This would be particularly true of the age statistics of the population as reported by the United States Census Bureau. There does not seem to be any legitimate reason to suppose that persons of all ages, questioned in the prosaic routine of a census enumeration, are any more truthful than are persons, mostly young persons, when questioned under oath and under the romantic stimulus of imminent marriage. N o r is one justified in assuming that some strange truth-winnowing alchemy occurs when data are tabulated and published by a bureau of the Government. One is inclined to conclude that the element of error in the ages reported in the present study is not large, both because of the similarity of the results obtained to what one would expect and also to those shown in other studies. Probably it is safe to say that falsification among those in the lower age groups tends to take the form of giving an age above the true one, while in the advanced age groups, the reverse is more likely to happen. In the tabulations presented, the information given by the applicant is utilized. This introduces an element of error, the importance of which is not known. Facts of the Study T h e total number of marriage licenses from which information on age was secured is 1 3 , 4 4 9 . Concerning these marriages, data on the three following points are presented: (a) age at marriage, (b) the age differential, and (c) the mean age of mates married by persons at each designated age. a) A base table was set up showing the number of marriages at each age, for both sexes, up to the seventieth year, the number

64

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

of marriages in each age combination, and the totals for each year, by sexes. 12 Table I shows the number of men and women marrying during the year, grouped by three-year periods, together with the percentage which each group constitutes of the entire number. TABLE

I.

NUMBER

MARRYING,

A N D P E R C E N T A G E S OF M E N

GROUPED

BY T H R E E - Y E A R

Number Age Period Men

14-16 17-19 20-22 23-25 26-28 29-31 32-34 35-37 38-40 41-43 44-46 47-49 50-52 53-55 56^-58 59-61 62-64 65-67 68-70, etc

Women

3 194 З.015 3.353 2,355 1.444 870 605 449 265 231

163

AGE

AND

Percentage — Men *

2.253 4.559 2,726

1 4 22.4 24.9

1.335 741 392

17-5 10.8

353 246 193 152

WOMEN

PERIODS

6-5 4-5 3-3 2.0 ΐ·7 I .2 I .I 0.8

68 62

99 84 51 37 26

38

17

41 38

II

12

0.5 0.5 0.3 0.3 03

13.449

13.449

100.0

163 I46 109

of

Total —

Women

1.2 16.8 33-9 20.3 9 9 5-5 2.9 2.6 1.8 1 4 I. I 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.4 0.2 O. I O.I O. I

100.0

* Less than .01 per cent.

b) A second group of distinctive facts gathered in this study have to do with the difference in years between persons granted marriage licenses. This is referred to as the age differential. Table I I shows the number and percentage of marriages in each of the differentials encountered in the study. 12

U n f o r t u n a t e l y the n a t u r e o f this t a b l e m a d e its r e p r o d u c t i o n

impracticable.

THE AGE FACTOR TABLE II.

65

T O T A L N U M B E R OF M A R R I A G E S SHOWINO

DIFFERENCES

OF A G E B E T W E E N P A R T I E S , N U M B E R AND P E R C E N T A G E S

Years

Number

Per Cent

Same Age

1,421

10.5

Men older by years: ι 2

1,691 1,624

12.6 12.ι

3 4 5 6

1,624 1,250 999 781

12.ι 9.4 7-4 J.8

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

537 467 ЗЗ8 330 225 176 116

40 3-5 2.5 2.4 1.7 1.3 0.9

14 15 16 >7 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

»5 87 62 47 43 36 25 12 22 13 9 IO 4 6 4 2 8 1 3 2

-9 -6 .5 -3 -3 -3 .2 * .2 0-1 * * *

Women older by years: ι 2 3 4

* *

*

0

о о ° ι 528 284 '89 104

* 3-9 2.1 1-4 0.8

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

66

TABLE

Years

II—Continued

Number

5

90

7

44

9

13

10 11 12

9 14 6

13

6

15 16 17 18 19 20

ι 3 I о о О

21

О

6

Per Cent

•7

40

8

•3 •3

.ι

21

14

3

22

О

23 24 2? 26 27 28 29

О О I О о

Same age M e n older Women older Total

0.1

О

I ι,421 10,670 1.358

10.5 79

4

10. ι

13.449

c) Finally, in tabulating the data, it seemed important to determine the mean age of mates which men and women marry at each age. In other words, what is the mean age of women whom men marry when they are 20, or 21, or 22? This information is given in Table I I I .

THE AGE FACTOR TABLE III.

MEAN

AGE o r

MATES

BY D E S I G N A T E D

YEARS

Mean Age of Women Marrying Men

Mean Age of Men Marrying Women

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 4° 41 42 43 44 45 46

16.7 171 17.3 18.7 19.2 19.7 20.6 21. ι 21.7 22.2 22.9 23.2 24.1 24.4 24.8 25.6 26.7 27.1 28.3 28.5 29.4 29.9 3··2 3ΐ·6 32-7 34 5 35-2 Збо 36.7 35-5 38.0

23.0 170 22.4 22.3 23.0 23.2 23.9 24.2 25.4 26.3 27.8 28.3 29-3 30.6 31.8 32.3 33.7 34.6 36.0 35.7 38.1 38.3 39.0 41.7 43° 42-8 44-6 44-2 43.9 43.6 47-5 47-8 48.4

47 48

37 4 40.1

48.8 51.8

49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

403 41-3 41-3 43-5 43 о 45-7 43-6 44.7 45-6 47 9 52.6

507 567 55-5 550 55.8 55 9 55 9 6o. 2 57-1 58.9 61. ι

Designated Age

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

68

TABLE

Designated Age

III—Continued

Mean Age oj Women Marrying Men

Mean Age oj Men Marrying Women

50.2

60.0

53 3 516 50-3 554 49-4 54 8 57-6 55-0 590

60.8

60 61 62 63 64

65 66 67 68

69

63 4 69.J 64.0 69.6 67.0 68.7 72.0

655 736

60.5

70, e t c

T H E CONCLUSIONS OF T H E S T U D Y

O n the basis of the foregoing data, the following conclusions may be made. ι. Marriage is undertaken primarily by persons in their early twenties. Several aspects of the data emphasize this fact. One of these is the proportion of marriages in which both bride and groom fall within these age limits. W h e n the original data are thus classified, the results are as follows: Per Cent Both Both Both Both Both Both Both

20 years 21 years 22 years 23 years 24 years 25 years 26 years

or or or or or or or

under under under under under under under

2.2 11.8 21.9 30 .9 39 -2 46. 5 53.3

In other words, stating the results in general terms, in one out of eight marriages, both of the contracting parties are 21 years of age or under; in one out of five, 22 or under; in one out of three, 23 or under; in two out of five, 24 or under; and in approximately one out of two, 25 or under. A second group of data significant in this connection consists of the age combinations of greatest frequency. T h e five found most often, arranged in the order of frequency, are as shown in

THE AGE FACTOR

69

Table IV. It will be noticed that eight of the ten ages involved in these five combinations fall between 21 and 23 years, inclusive, and that none exceeds 23. TABLE I V .

AGE COMBINATIONS IN MARRIAGE, BY ORDER OF FREQUENCY

Combination

Male 22 and female 21 MALE MALE MALE MALE

21 23 21 21

AND AND AND AND

TABLE V .

FEMALE FEMALE FEMALE FEMALE

21 21 18 19

3· 4· 5· 6. 7. 8.

9· 10. II.

12. 13· 14.

15·

Per Cent

520

3.8

409 358 318 271

3.0 2.6 2.3 2.0

PREVAILING AGE DIFFERENTIALS, BY ORDER OF FREQUENCY

Age Disparity I. 2.

Number

Man one year older Man two years older Man three years older Same age Man four years older Man five years older Man six years older Man seven years older Woman one year older Man eight years older Man nine years older Man ten years older Woman two years older Man eleven years older Woman three years older

Number

1.624 1.624

1,42« I.2JO 999 781 537 528 467

ЗЗ8 ЗЗО 284 225 189

Percentage oj Total 12.6 12.1 12.1 10.j

9-4 7-4 5-8 4.0

3 9 3-5 2-5 24

2.1 i-7 i-4

Finally, the distribution of age by each sex, singly, may be considered. From Table I, it will be seen that 54.2 per cent of the brides and 47.3 per cent of the grooms fall within the sixyear period, twenty to twenty-five, inclusive. 2. Women marry at an earlier age than men. This is evident throughout the study. From Table I, it will be seen that while but ι .4 per cent of the grooms are under twenty years, 18 per cent of all women marrying reported their ages under this year. Including the next three-year period, it is found that while 23.8 per cent of the men are under twenty-three years, 51.9 per cent of the women fall within those years. If still another three-year

7о

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

period be added, i.e., including up to the end of the twentyfifth year, it will be found that half of the men (48.7 per cent) and three-fourths of the women (72.2 per cent) are less than twenty-six years of age. 3. In about one-tenth of the marriages (10.5 per cent) the contracting parties are of the same age. Of these, as has been noted, 409, or more than one-fourth (28.7 per cent), are twentyone years old. Almost 29 per cent of the men marrying at twenty-one, and 17 per cent of the women marrying at that age, find mates of the same age as themselves. 4. In another tenth ( ю л per cent) of all the marriages during the year, the woman was older than the man. In a few cases, the differential in years is very considerable. For example, in one case, it amounts to twenty-nine years, in another the bride is twenty-five years older than her husband. In most cases, however, as shown in Table I I , the difference is less than six years. O f the 1,358 cases where the woman is older, in 38.9 per cent, the difference is one year; in 20.9 per cent, it is two years; in 88 per cent, it is five years or less. 5. In four out of five marriages (79.4 per cent) the man is older than the woman. In these cases, the age differential is greater and more evenly distributed than when the woman is older. In one case, the difference is thirty-eight years; in a total of forty-one cases, the difference is twenty-five or more years. O f the 10,670 marriages in which the groom reports an age above that of the bride, in 15.8 per cent, the difference is one year; in 15.2 per cent, it is two years; in another 15.2 per cent, it is three years. In two-thirds of these cases (67.3 per cent) the difference is five or less years. 6. Arranging the prevailing age differentials on the basis of their frequency, Table V gives the fifteen found most often, arranged in the order of their numerical importance. 7. Comparing the mean age of mates with each designated year of the opposite sex, it will be found that there is a marked difference between the sexes. Table I I I and Figure 4 show that the difference between the age of men at each designated year and mean age of the women they marry increases as men grow

THE

AGE

FACTOR

71

older. In other words, as men grow older, they tend to marry women increasingly younger than they are. On the other hand (cf. Figure 5) comparing the mean age of grooms with the age of the brides, by designated years, the difference after the first few years tends to remain fairly constant until about the fortieth year, after which it tends to decrease, albeit with marked fluctuations. 8. Gynecologists often designate some particular age differential as being most favorable for sex compatibility in the marriage relationship. Van de Velde, in a widely read book, has suggested recently that "the man should be not less than five, or more than seven, years the senior."13 From Table II, it will be seen that 17.2 per cent, or about one out of six, of the marriages of the present study fall within these prescribed limits. Continuing, he writes: " I would retain thirty as the desirable age for marriage in men, and raise that of girls from twenty to twentythree or twenty-five." 14 Of the total included in this study, 146, or slightly more than one out of each hundred marriages, meet this condition. 9. It has been charged repeatedly in recent years that economic pressure is forcing a large proportion of young girls to marry men much older than themselves, and that this is a common cause of divorce or other family maladjustment. By way of example, former Judge Bartlett, of the Reno, Nevada, courts is quoted: O u r m o d e r n s t a n d a r d of living puts such a p r e m i u m u p o n a h u s b a n d ' s e a r n i n g p o w e r t h a t f e w girls can hope t o m a r r y a h u s b a n d n e a r their o w n age w i t h o u t f a c i n g a grievous sacrifice. If the girl is a t t r a c t i v e a n d w o r l d l y wise she is a l w a y s t e m p t e d to w a i t f o r a n older m a n w h o can g i v e her more. T h e b o y s she has p l a y e d a n d p e t t e d with are just b e g i n n i n g their business careers. O n l y t h o s e f e w w h o s e p a r e n t s c a n help s u p p o r t the n e w l y m a r r i e d couple are f r e e t o p a y serious court t o their sweethearts. T h e older m a n , w i t h the reserve and poise his m a t u r i t y

has

Т . H. Van de Velde, Ideal Marriage (New York: Covici, Friede, 1930), p. 274. 18

uIbid.

72

MARRIAGE AND THE

CHILD

given him, is the one toward whom the girl is urged to cast her line. She quite readily sees the advantages of more money and she is doubtless impressed b y the dignity of his bearing as compared with her boyish beaux. But she goes to him only with a wistful glance over her shoulder toward the youth t h a t she is forswearing. And when her first marital trials come along she is prone to throw herself childishly down on the bed and weep for the gayety of her youth t h a t she pitifully feels is gone. This disparity of marriage age that is so often forced upon our girls by economic urge is one of the commonest bases of divorce. I t is an evil t h a t a high standard of living must bring in its train so long as young men cannot earn enough t o reach it early. T h e r e is no sign at the moment t h a t they will, in our time at least. T h e a d j u s t m e n t must come, I think, and is coming, f r o m the other direction. Girls are earning money on their account to help their young m e n ; and they are also in a few cases, at least, learning temperamentally to a d j u s t themselves t o the s t a n d a r d t h a t their young men can afford. 1 5 It is interesting to note that in 1931, a year of marked economic depression, there was a total of

1,029 marriages, or

slightly less than 8 per cent, in which the groom was more than ten years older than the bride, and that in 310 marriages, or 2 per cent of the total, the difference in favor of the male was more than fifteen years. COMPARISON W I T H OTHER STUDIES

There are three groups of data, similar in scope and method of compilation in a number of ways, with which the facts of the Philadelphia study may be compared. One of these is a study of 10,465 marriage license records in Payne County, Oklahoma, covering the years 1895 to 1932, inclusive. 16 Another study is issued by the N e w Y o r k State Department of Health. It covers the years 1919-1924, and includes 142,066 marriages for N e w 15

George A. Bartlett, Men, Women and Conflict; New York: G. P. Put-

nam's Sons, I 93 I, pp. 2II-2I2. 16

Duncan, et al., of. cit.

THE AGE FACTOR

73

York State, exclusive of New York City. The third study is the report from the same source for the same area of 69,802 marriages in 1936. They will be referred to henceforth as the Oklahoma, the 1919-1924 New York, and the 1936 New York, studies. It will be observed that one of these four studies, the Philadelphia one, covers a metropolitan area; the two New York studies represent the up-state area of an eastern state, the earlier one covering five lush post-war years, the second a depression year; and the Oklahoma study presents data for a western state, over a thirty-seven-year period, which includes its pioneer period. Again, it is significant to point out that while Philadelphia is a large city, the Oklahoma study represents a rural area, and New York State, exclusive of New York City, an urban-rural combination in the ratio of about three to two. ι. Because of the particular importance of early marriage in social studies, the percentages of all marriages which fall into the early age groupings are first presented. Table VI gives the comparable percentages for the four studies. TABLE V I .

PERCENTAGE OF PERSONS

MARRYING,

IN E A R L Y A G E PERIOD, IN FOUR STUDIES

Percentage of Men and Women Marrying Age Period

Philadelphia

New York

1919-1924 New York 1936 Oklahoma 1895-1932

Men

Women

Men

Women

Men

Women

Men

Women

14-16 17-19 20-22

(a) 1.4 "•4

1.2 16.8 33-9

(a) 2.J 22.3

1.9 23.6 24.8

(a) 1.8 (b)

1.6 16.6 (b)

(a) 5-6 32.6

7-4 403 23.5

Total

23.8

JI.9

24.8

J0.3

38.2

71.2

(a) Less than one-tenth of one per cent. (b) Not available in comparable form.

The differences and similarities between these four studies are striking. There is a higher percentage of early marriages in New York State than in the City of Philadelphia, higher in the period 1919-1924 than in 1936, and highest by far in Oklahoma

M A R R I A G E AND T H E C H I L D

74

through the years. Yet all agree in showing that a very large proportion of persons marrying do so in the early years. Of all girls marrying, 18 per cent of the Philadelphia women, 25.5 per cent of the 1919-1924 New York women, 18.2 per cent of the 1936 New York women, and 47.7 per cent of the Oklahoma women were less than twenty years of age slightly more than half of the Philadelphia and New York State women, and almost three-fourths of the Oklahoma women, were under twenty-three years. Of the men marrying in Philadelphia and New York, about a quarter, and in Oklahoma almost two-fifths were under twenty-three years of age. In addition to the foregoing data, the New York State report on marriages in 1936 includes a table on ages of grooms and brides contracting first marriages. There were 56,746 marriages in this series. Of the women making first marriages, 1.9 per cent were under seventeen years of age, 21.8 under twenty, and 59.2 under twenty-three years. Of the men making first marriages, 2.3 per cent were under twenty, and 28.6 per cent were under twenty-three years of age. A second way to approach the data on early marriage is to present the proportion in which both of the contracting parties fall within given age groups. This was shown for Philadelphia, and Table V I I compares some percentages of that study with those of the New York and Oklahoma studies. TABLE

VII.

PERCENTAGE GIVEN

20 21 22 23 24

years years years years years

'93' or or or or or

under.. under.. under.. under.. under..

WITH

G R O U P , IN F O U R

Philadelphia

Age Group

Both Both Both Both Both

OF M A R R I A G E S

AGE

2.2 11.8 21.9 309 392

MEN

AND W O M E N

IN

STUDIES

New York 192/

New

York

'936

3 4 12.7 20.0 27.9

3-2 (a) (a) (a)

35-8

38-4

Oklahoma 'S95-'932

9 3 254 36-4 45-5 53 6

(a) Less than one-tenth of one per cent.

It will be observed that the Philadelphia and New York studies again agree in general, but that the Oklahoma data display a

THE AGE FACTOR

75

much higher proportion of marriages in which both parties are quite young. 2. Another group of data in these studies which may be compared have to do with the relative ages of brides and grooms. Table V I I I shows the percentages of marriages in which both parties are the same age, in which the bride is older, and in which the groom is older. Here again there is more similarity between the Philadelphia and New York studies, than between these and the Oklahoma one. TABLE V I I I .

R E L A T I V E A G E S OF G R O O M S AND B R I D E S , IN F O U R

Age Relationship Same Age Bride older Groom older

Philadelphia 1931

New York /9/9-/924

New York 1936

10.5 10.1 79.4

91 157 75·2

9-9 14.2 75-9

STUDIES

Oklahoma 1895-1932 7.0 7-3 «5-7

The New York report for 1936 presents data on the variations in these proportions which exist between different nationality groups, which suggest a possible explanation of differences between different parts of the country, and which suggest, too, a field for possible study. "Among the several racial groups," we are told, "the highest proportion of brides who were of the same age as the grooms was recorded in the Irish group (13.4), and the lowest proportion among the brides of the Austrian grooms (7.5). The proportion of brides who were younger than the grooms ranged from a minimum of 62.3 in the Scandinavian group to a maximum of 77.2 in the group of brides of Russian grooms." 17 3. Another interesting comparison is that of the age combinations most frequently found. Table I X presents the data for Philadelphia again; that of New York State for the years 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, and 1936, each tabulated separately; and that for Oklahoma, 1895-1932. The table is arranged in two sections to bring out the similarities between two groups of data. In 17

New Y o r k State Annual Report, Department of Health, 1936, of.

p. cix.

cit.,

76

MARRIAGE AND T H E CHILD

Philadelphia in 1 9 3 1 and in N e w York in 1936, the most frequent age combinations are, with one exception, in the twenty-one to twenty-three year limit, for both sexes. In the earlier N e w York State series, 1921 to 1924, and for Oklahoma, the most TABLE I X A.

F O U R M O S T F R E Q U E N T A G E COMBINATIONS IN

Philadelphia, 1931 Age Combination Order

Male Male Male Male

22 21 23 21

and and and and

female female female female

... ... ... ...

21. . . 21. . . 21. . . 18

New York State, 1936

Percentage of Total Marriages

ι 2 3 4

Order

I 2

38 3.0 2.6 2.3

Total of the above

3 4

2-3 12.0

В

New York State 9'

Order Male Male Male Male Male

21, 21, 21, 22, 23,

female female female female female

18 19 20 18 18

Total of the above

1922

] 2

Age Combinations

1 2 3 4

Percentage oj Total Marriages 3-7 3-3 2.7

II.7

TABLE I X

MARRIAGE

Oklahoma

1923

1924

1895-1932

Per Order Ier Order Ier Order Order Cent Cent Cent Cent Cent 2 •9 2 .2 I .6 I •4 8 .1

ι 2

3-1 2.2

ι 2

36 2.4

ι 2

3-8 2.7

3 4

ΐ·7 1.5

3 4

Ϊ·8 1-7

4 3

1.7 1.8

8-5

95

10.0

ι 3 (a) 2 4

6.3 3-i (a) 3-2 19 14-5

(a) Not given.

frequent combinations are at lower age levels, and with a slightly increased age differential. Also, it will be noted that in the Philadelphia and the New York 1936 series, more marriages are "bunched" in the four most frequent combinations than in the earlier New York series, possibly because of the postponement of marriages to a later date during the depression years. In Oklahoma, there is a pronounced "bunching" at the lower level,

THE AGE FACTOR

77

especially in the twenty-one- and eighteen-year combination. This particular age combination has been for years, and undoubtedly remains in many parts of the country, the popular and conventional age for rural youth to marry. This fact, and the difference in the case of urban youth, are clearly shown when the 1936 data on first marriages in New York State are broken down into two groups. Among urban marriages the most frequently found age combination is that of the twenty-two-year-old man and the twenty-one-year-old woman, whereas among rural youth the male twenty-one and female eighteen combination stands clearly ahead. 4. One other comparison is possible and that concerns the age differential. Table X presents the data for the four studies being compared. Careful analysis of this table reveals significant differences, especially if one keeps in mind the three types of areas represented and the particular periods of time covered. It will be noticed, to begin with, that the most frequently occurring age differential in Philadelphia and in 1936 in New York State is one year (the percentages are 12.6 and 1 1 . 5 ) , while earlier in New York and Oklahoma the highest percentage is the threeyear differential ( 1 1 . 2 and 13.7, respectively). Similarly the percentages of marriages where the couples are of the same age is higher in Philadelphia and recently in New York (10.5 and 9.9) than in the earlier New York and Oklahoma series (9.1 and 7.0). Again, if the percentage of marriages in which the couples are of the same age, or those in which the age differential is one year, are added, the totals for Philadelphia, 1931, and New York State, 1936, are 27.0 and 26.5, respectively, while for New York State, 1919-1924, and for Oklahoma, 1895-1932, the totals are 23.8 and 16.5. Combining all marriages where the age differential is three years and less, the total percentages are 54.7 in Philadelphia, 53.8 in New York, in 1936, 51.0 in New York in 1919-1924, and 45.0 in Oklahoma. On the whole, then, it would seem that the most frequently

78

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

Table X.

P e r c e n t a g e D i s t r i b u t i o n o r M a r r i a c e s by A g e

Differentials

Percentage oj All Marriages Age Differential

M a n older by years ι year ι years 3 years 4 years 5 years 6 years 7 years 8 years 9 years ι о years II years 12 years 13 years 14 years 15 years and over W o m a n older by years I year 2 years 3 years 4 years 5 years 6 years 7 years 8 years 9 years 10 years Same age

Philadelphia '93'

I I .6 12 . I 12 . I 9 4 7· 4 5 8 4 0 3 5 2. 5 2. 4 I 7 I .3 0. 9 0. 9 2. 9 3 9 2. I I •4 0 .8 0 •7 0 •3 0 •3 0. I 0. I 0 •4 10 •5

New York State '936

New York State '9'9-l924

Oklahoma lS95-J932

11 •5 11 3 11 . I 8 9 7· 2 S- 6

9 •5 10 •4 I I .2 8 •7 7 2 5· 8

8-7 10.4

4- 3 3· 3 1. 5 1. 1 I .6 1. 3 I .0 0. 8

4-7 3 7 2. 9 2. 6 I .8 I ,3 1.I 0 8 3 6

5-2 41 3 3 32 2.0 1.6

5 .2 3 •4 2 .2 I •5 I .0 0 •7 0 •5 0 3 0 .2 0 .8 9. I

2.8

3· 3 5. 1 3 .0 I •9 I •3 0 •9 0 •5 0 •4 0 •3 0.2 0 6 9 9

13-7 10.7 7-9 7.2

1-4 I.I 5-4

i-7 0.9 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.06 0.03 70

found types of marriage, so far as age and age combinations are concerned, in a metropolitan center like Philadelphia and in N e w Y o r k State in more recent years, are found at a higher age level than in the cases of the earlier series in N e w Y o r k and in Oklahoma. Standing out quite clearly is the fact that the age differential is markedly less in Philadelphia and, more recently, in N e w York. That is to say, there is developing a greater uniformity on the whole between the ages of husbands and wives in the more recent tabulations. It would seem that marriage, too, tends to become standardized as time goes on.

CHAPTER

IV

RESIDENTIAL PROPINQUITY AS A FACTOR IN MARRIAGE* T H E PROBLEM STATED

T o WHAT extent do persons living today in our metropolitan centers of population find their matrimonial mates within the immediate neighborhood of their homes? In view of all that has been said in recent years about the passing of the neighborhood in our larger cities, and the widening of the social horizon of the city dweller, is mere proximity in point of space a factor in marriage selection? T o what extent do the constant and repeated contacts of the neighborhood, in the drug stores, the local service stores, the churches, the street corners, etc., lead to more romantic relationships? Do the early social contacts at the neighborhood school continue and mature into the more intimate relationships of marriage? T o what extent, in other words, is residential propinquity a selective factor in marriage? The general importance of such selective factors in marriage as race, language, economic status, religious affiliation, and social position has long been recognized, even if concrete data on their relative r6le have for the most part been lacking. Specific studies of the role of occupational propinquity and of race and nationality differences have been made in recent years.1 So far as the writer knows, no previous analysis of the role of residential propinquity in a large modern city has been made. * Parts of this chapter appeared as an article by the author in the American Journal of Sociology, Volume XXXVIII, No. 2, September, 1932, pp. 219-224, and are reproduced here by courtesy of the University of Chicago Press. 1 Donald M. Marvin, Occupational Propinquity As A Factor In Marriage Selection, University of Pennsylvania thesis, 1918. See also, Julius Draschler, Democracy and Assimilation, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1920. More extended reference is made to both of these studies in subsequent chapters of this volume. 79

8o

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD T H E PHILADELPHIA STUDY: ( A )

METHODOLOGY

T o throw light on this problem a study was made in Philadelphia in 1931 of five thousand consecutive marriage licenses in which one or both applicants were residents of Philadelphia. T h e study began with the license applications of January 2, 1931, and continued during the first five months of the year. T h e method followed in the study was simple. From each application, the addresses of the residences declared by both parties as that occupied before marriage was taken. T h e street distance between the residences was then measured on a map of the City of Philadelphia and tabulated in terms of city blocks. In all but one kind of case, the distance was measured from front door to front door. This one exception covered those cases, not many in number, where the rear of the two dwellings involved faced each other within the same block. These were tabulated as being less than a block apart. T h e block utilized as a unit of measure was one as determined by the intersection of main streets, not alleys or halfway streets. F o r purposes of this study, a main street was one by which the numbering of houses changed in hundreds, as from 800 to 900, or 3300 to 3400. T h e length of such blocks is not constant in the street plan of Philadelphia. Most of the license data were gathered from the Marriage License Bureau in Philadelphia County. However, since many Philadelphians go to nearby towns, such as Media, Pa., Norristown, Pa., Elkton, M d . , W e s t Chester, Pa., and Chestertown, M d . , to secure their marriage licenses, these also were included. T H E P H I L A D E L P H I A S T U D Y : ( в ) ITS FINDINGS

T h e facts about the distances between the residences of the contracting parties in these five thousand consecutive marriages are presented in tabular form in Tables X I and X I I . Table X I shows the distribution of these marriages by numbers of blocks separating the residences of the contracting parties before marriage, with percentages; Table X I I shows the distribution cumulatively, both by totals and percentages.

RESIDENTIAL PROPINQUITY

81

It is not possible in the present study to determine the number of cases among the five thousand included in which the parties to the marriage, living some considerable distance apart at the time of the application for the license, formerly lived nearer to each other. On the basis of what is known about the mobility of city dwellers, there is reason to think that the number is considerable. TABLE

XI.

DISTRIBUTION

BY RESIDENTIAL

OF

FIVE

PROPINQUITY

THOUSAND BEFORE

Number of Blocks Apart

Number oj Cases

Same address Same block but not same address One to two blocks Two to three blocks Three to four blocks Four to five blocks Five to six blocks Six to seven blocks Seven to eight blocks Eight to nine blocks Nine to ten blocks Ten to fifteen blocks Fifteen to twenty blocks More than twenty blocks One in city; one out

TABLE

XII.

DISTRIBUTION,

CUMULATIVELY,

Same address Within one block or less Within two blocks or less Within three blocks or less Within four blocks or less Within five blocks or less Within six blocks or less Within seven blocks or less Within eight blocks or less Within nine blocks or less Within ten blocks or less Within fifteen blocks or less Within twenty blocks or less

Per Cent

632

12.64

227

4·ί4 6.o8

304

4.20

I5S 151 "9 91 80

OF

FIVE

BY RESIDENTIAL PROPINQUITY B E F O R E

Number of Blocks Apart

MARRIAGES

MARRIAGE

3-Ю 3-02 2.38

1.82 1.60

68 79

136

284

5.68

197 1513

30.26

890

17.80

THOUSAND

I.J8

3 94

MARRIAGES

MARRIAGE

Number of Cases

Per Cent

632

12.64

8J9

17.18

1163

23.26

1373

27.46

1528

30.56 33i8 35-96 37-78 39 38

>679 1798 1889 1968

2037

40.74

2116

42.32 48.00

2597

Jl-94

82

MARRIAGE AND T H E CHILD

From these two tables the following conclusions may be made: ι . In 632 or 12.64 P e r c e n t the total number of marriages, or one in every eight, the applicants were living at the same address at the time the application was made. 2. Adding those cases in which the applicants resided within a block of each other, but not at the same address, it will be seen that 17.18 per cent, or one in every six, lived less than a block from each other. 3. Approximately one out of four, or 23.26 per cent, lived within two blocks or less, of each other. 4. A third of all the couples, 33.58 per cent, lived within five blocks or less, of each other. 5. In but 890 of the five thousand cases, or 17.8 per cent, one of the contracting parties resided out of the city at the time of the application. Again, it is not known in how many of these cases both persons formerly resided in Philadelphia. 6. The percentage of marriages decreases steadily and markedly as the distance between the residences of the contracting parties increases. The present study shows a large proportion of marriages between persons living very near to each other. Outstanding, too, is the marked decline in the percentage of marriages as the distances between the contracting parties increase. This decline is even more striking in view of the fact that the area included in each successive circumscribing belt becomes larger and hence, under normal circumstances, includes, other factors being equal, a large number of marriageable persons. While it is impossible, on the basis of the present data, to isolate the importance of proximity of residence from other selective factors such as similarity of economic status, race, occupational propinquity, cultural similarities, etc., all of which may be operative in a given neighborhood or community, it would seem not unreasonable to conclude that residential propinquity, per se, is an important part of the story of marriage selection. Cupid may have wings, but apparently they are not adapted for long flights. In the event that further researches support the findings of

RESIDENTIAL PROPINQUITY

83

the present one, it might be possible to formulate a law of propinquity in marriage which would read somewhat as follows: the possibility of two -persons marrying each other, other things being equal, varies inversely with the distance between their residences. One additional phase of the study concerned itself with the 632 couples, or 12.6 per cent (one out of eight), where both parties to the application gave the same address, indicating that they were living at the same address prior to their marriage. The first thought to suggest itself is that these addresses might be those of apartment and rooming houses. A partial check of such addresses was made accordingly, and this showed that, while a few of them were cases of such kinds, most of the residences indicated were private homes. The ages of these couples were tabulated and compared with the results of another study now in process of completion and covering all of the marriages of the same period. This shows that the group under consideration is somewhat older than the general run of marriages of Philadelphians consummated during the same period. It was found that 78 of the 632 women in these marriages, where both parties gave the same address, were between 18 and 25 years of age, inclusive, and 77 of the 632 men were between 21 and 28, inclusive. This is a percentage of 12. Of all of the marriages for which license applications were made during the first six months in 1931 in which one or both applicants were Philadelphians, 68 per cent of the women were between 18 and 25 years, inclusive, and 63 per cent of the men were between 21 and 28, inclusive. T H E P H I L A D E L P H I A S T U D Y : ( c ) T H E BACKGROUND OF RESIDENTIAL M O B I L I T Y

In attempting to assess the significance of the facts of residential propinquity in marriage just presented, one must consider them against the background of population mobility. To say, for example, that in two out of every five marriages, the couple lived less than a mile apart before their marriage, means one

84

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

thing in a staid and isolated small town where the overwhelming proportion of persons retain the same residences year after year, and quite another thing in the " G o l d Coast" of a large city where the entire population may turn over once every twelve months. Obviously, a high percentage of residential propinquity in marriage in a highly mobile population takes on more meaning than a similar percentage in an area with a stable population. H o w mobile, residentially, is the population of Philadelphia? Fortunately for our purposes, data on this point are available for Philadelphia for the general period of our marriage study. T h e Real Property Inventory, made as a Works project in Philadelphia in the spring of 1934, presented data on the duration of tenancy. W h i l e taken for a different purpose, this data may be accepted, in general terms, as an index of residential mobility. It showed that i r . 3 per cent of the household units in Philadelphia had occupied their abodes for less than a year, and 26.8 per cent for less than two years. O n l y 40.3 per cent had occupied their residences for eight years or longer. Considered against a background of rapid turnover of population, as indicated by the above data, the percentage of propinquitous marriages shown in our study takes on added significance. T H E P H I L A D E L P H I A S T U D Y : ( D ) QUESTIONS RAISED

It is the stimulating reward of research that it tends to raise more questions than it answers. Certainly such is the case in the present study, for while it furnishes concrete data on the facts of residential propinquity, it raises many other questions. ( ι ) T o what extent are these marriages between neighboring brides and grooms confined within the natural social areas of our cities? A certain school of sociologists, known as social ecologists, has identified in recent years the processes of selective distribution that are going on in our changing American cities. A m o n g the results of their studies has been the identification of so-called natural social areas. These natural social areas have been variously defined, but the basic idea in all the definitions is that of an area in which there has emerged, or is in process of emerging,

RESIDENTIAL PROPINQUITY

85

chiefly through the unplanned processes of social growth, a distinctive unity accepted with reference to that area—a unity tersely identifying and in a sense describing it. Such unity may be racial, religious, functional, moral, economic, or cultural. The point raised here is this: to what extent is the role of residential propinquity in marriage confined to such natural social areas, especially those in which the concentration of specific attributes are those of particular importance in marriage selection? T o what extent does residential propinquity disregard the lines of such areas? Is residential propinquity just another name for racial or nationality or religious or economic status selection, or does it operate beyond or in addition to these factors? (2) T o what extent are closely propinquitous marriages found predominantly in certain racial or nationality groups, such as among Negroes and Italians; or within closely living religious groups, such as Jews; or within a linguistic group, such as a colony of but slightly assimilated Ukrainians? One is led particularly to ponder the importance of Negro marriages in our statistics. One-ninth of the population of Philadelphia was Negro in 1930, and migration into the city from the southern states has been extensive for a number of years. Many of these Negro migrants are young, in the marriageable years and, residentially speaking, are thrown closely together by the exigencies of Negro segregation within the confines of the city. That such considerations play a role in propinquitous marriages is evidentj how important they can be has not yet been determined. (3) It is interesting, and possibly significant, to raise the question of the relation of age to propinquity. The one phase of this relationship investigated in our study was in the case of those persons living at the same address before marriage. This showed a significant difference from the general age distribution of those marrying during the period studied. From this it seems reasonable to conclude that other variations in the percentage of propinquitous marriages may be correlated, with deviations from the commonly found marrying ages. This relationship needs to

86

MARRIAGE AND THE

CHILD

be further investigated, and to him who can read as he runs, the findings may throw some light on the mores of matrimony. ( 4 ) One very important question to raise is this: Does economic status have any effect upon residential propinquity in marriage? Simply stated, are the poor more likely to marry within the block than the well-to-do? Does cruising distance in courtship increase with a rise in economic status? This would seem to be a pertinent question for research and could be answered rather definitely by selecting several definite economic areas in a city and observing over a period of years the extent to which residential propinquity seems to operate as a factor in marriage. OTHER STUDIES OF P R O P I N Q U I T Y OF R E S I D E N C E B E F O R E MARRIAGE

The New Haven

Study

As this manuscript was about to go to the publisher, Professor Davie, of Y a l e University, and D r . R u b y J . Reeves, of Texas State College for W o m e n , reported on a similar study for N e w H a v e n , Conn. 2 This study includes a total of 935 cases, also for the year 1 9 3 1 . Since the authors were kind enough to follow the distance-range-scheme of the Philadelphia study, it is possible to compare the results of the two cities. Tables X I I I and X I V present the information for both the Philadelphia and the N e w H a v e n studies. A s Davie and Reeves point out, There is a generally similar distribution in the two cities, with a large proportion of marriages between persons living very near to each other. . . . It is quite remarkable that in each city 51 per cent of all the cases fall within the twenty-block radius. . . . Although proportionately more of the premarital addresses of Philadelphians than of New Haveners are located close together, an 2

Maurice R. Davie and Ruby J o Reeves, "Propinquity of Residence Before

Marriage," 510-518.

American

Journal

of Sociology,

Chicago, January,

1939,

pp.

RESIDENTIAL PROPINQUITY TABLE X I I I .

DISTRIBUTION

BEFORE

or

MARRIAGES

M A R R I A G E IN N E W

87

BY R E S I D E N T I A L

PROPINQUITY

H A V E N AND P H I L A D E L P H I A ,

Number of Cases

1931

Per Cent

Number of Blocks Apart Philadelphia Same address Same block but not same address One to two blocks T w o to three blocks Three to four b l o c k s . . . . Four to five blocks Five to six blocks Six to seven blocks Seven to eight blocks Eight to nine b l o c k s . . . . Nine to ten blocks T e n to fifteen b l o c k s . . . . Fifteen to twenty blocks. More than twenty blocks One in city, one out Total

TABLE

XIV.

New Haven

Philadelphia

New Haven

632

60

12.64

6.42

227

28 44 ЗО 33 28

4-54 6.08 4.20 3-Ю 3-02 2-38 I.82 ι .60 I 36 ι.58 5.68

197 ι.513 890

71 67 265 190

3-94 30.26 17.80

3.00 4.70 3.20 3-52 3.00 2.67 3.20 3 00 1 -93 '•93 7-59 717 28.34 20.33

5,000

935

100.00

100.00

304 210 155 15« 119 91 80 68 79 284

DISTRIBUTION,

25 ЗО 28 18 18

CUMULATIVELY,

OP M A R R I A G E S

BY

RESIDENTIAL

P R O P I N Q U I T Y B E F O R E M A R R I A G E IN N E W H A V E N A N D P H I L A D E L P H I A ,

Number of Cases

1931

Per Cent

Number of Blocks Apart New Haven

Philadelphia

632

60

12.64

6.42

859 1,163 1.373 1,528 1,679 1,798 1,889 1,968

88 132 162

17.18 23.26 27.46 ЗО.56 33 58 35 Φ 37-7» 39 38 40-74 42-32 48.00

9.42 14.12

32.71 34 64 36.57 44.16

51-94

51 33

Philadelphia Same address Within: One block or l e s s . . . . T w o blocks or l e s s . . . Three blocks or less.. Four blocks or less... Five blocks or less. . . Six blocks or l e s s . . . . Seven blocks or less.. Eight blocks or less.. Nine blocks or less... Ten blocks or less Fifteen blocks or less. T w e n t y blocks or less

2,037 2,116 2,400 2,597

195 223 248 278 306 324 З42 413 480

New Haven

1732 20.84 23 84 26.51 29.71

88

MARRIAGE AND THE

CHILD

almost identical pattern emerges in the two cities when twenty blocks or more intervene between the two addresses. 3

T h e points of variance, it will be noted, are slight. As summarized by Davie and Reeves, they are as follows: ι . The proportion of couples whose premarital addresses were less than three blocks apart was greater for Philadelphia than for New Haven. Especially marked in the former city-was the frequency of couples who lived at the same address before marriage (12.64 P e r cent as contrasted with 6.42 per cent)—the only striking difference disclosed. 2. Applicants who resided in the ranges from three to twenty blocks apart were proportionately more numerous in New Haven than in Philadelphia. 3. T h e proportion of spouses who resided more than twenty blocks apart was higher in Philadelphia than in New Haven. 4. Proportionately more of the applicants in New Haven than in Philadelphia consisted of couples in which one of the parties lived outside the city.4 A significant respect in which the New Haven study goes beyond the Philadelphia study is in its investigation of the relationship of natural social areas and propinquitous marriages, the importance of which as a research topic has already been emphasized. A total of 597 couples or 1 , 1 9 4 individuals are tabulated with reference to residence in twenty-two natural social areas in the city of New Haven. Their conclusions on this point follow: One of the most interesting situations disclosed by this analysis is that in 43.4 per cent of the cases the marriage-contracting parties lived in the same area. This is especially significant in view of the small size of most of the areas. T h e y range in maximum distance from four to thirty-two blocks (only two areas show a maximum distance range of twenty or more blocks), and they average about eleven blocks. If to these cases are added those of individuals marrying within like areas (30.2 per cent), then nearly threequarters (73.6 per cent) of all persons marrying within the city 8

Ibid., pp. 5 1 2 - 5 1 3 .

* Ibid., p.

511.

RESIDENTIAL

89

PROPINQUITY

chose mates residing in the same type of neighborhood. Practically no intermarriage

(3.9 per cent) occurred between areas far re-

moved in social, economic, and cultural traits. 5

The Genesee County, N. Y., Study In his studies of Genesee, a farming county in western New York State, D r . W . A . Anderson, of Cornell University, has thrown some light on the birthplace of husbands as related to birthplace of wives, which may be compared with the preceding data on propinquity in urban centers. It should be noted that his data, in addition to being for a rural group, is for husbands and wives who established their families, on the average, about twenty to twenty-five years ago, when conditions of travel were different from those of today. His findings, significant for our purposes here, follow. ι . T h e husband in each of 584 families reported the township of present residence as the place of his birth. In 34 per cent of the families, the wife also was born in the township of present residence. 2. In 32 per cent of these families, the wife was born in a bordering township, so that 66 per cent of the men living in the township of their birth married women who were born in the township of present residence or in a bordering one. 3. Of more than a thousand husbands who were born in Genesee County, 62 per cent of them were married to wives who had been born in the same county; and, in addition, 23 per cent of them to women born in an adjoining county.9 S I G N I F I C A N C E OF RESIDENTIAL P R O P I N Q U I T Y B E F O R E M A R R I A G E

T h e studies summarized in this chapter—one made in a large metropolitan center, one in a medium sized university city, and one in the open country—show the predominant importance of residential propinquity as a factor in marriage selection. While ЧЬИ., p. 8

Si

7.

W . A . Anderson, " M o b i l i t y of Rural Families," T h e Cornell University

Agricultural pp. 19-20.

Experiment

Station, Ithaca, New

York,

Bulletin

607,

19341

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

90

various phases of the operation of this factor remain to be clarified, its basic role seems clearly established. Of what importance is it that persons marrying find their mates so largely within the neighborhoods and areas in which they live? Does the importance of the factor of

residential

propinquity have any meaning f o r the person and for society? I. It has meaning for parents. T h e data in chapter I I I on the age factor in marriage show that 18 to 25 are, par excellence, the marrying years. T h e studies summarized in chapter I V show that they select predominantly their mates in the vicinity of their homes. T h e significance of these two groups of facts in combination seems clear. T h e y mean that parents, in their selection of the neighborhood or area in which they live during the years preceding the marriage of their children have a great deal to do with the selection of the mates which their children marry. H e r e is an illustration of the newer type of function and responsibility which challenges the modern parent. It has been emphasized elsewhere by the author 7 that, while certain traditional functions of the family have been declining, new functions and responsibilities are assuming basic importance in the complex life of our contemporary society. T h e s e are functions of selecting, advising, counseling, managing, administering, and supervising in the affairs of its members. T h e family of earlier centuries had definite duties, arbitrarily imposed by a relatively simple and definite social o r d e r ; the modern f a m i l y has opportunities in the manipulation of an infinitely wider range of choices. T h e challenging role of parents in the selection of their children's marital partners is an illustration in point. T i m e was when parents made these selections as one of their traditional rights, and children dutifully acquiesced. I n certain groups, this custom has lingered into the years of yesterday. " D e a r e s t

Parents,"

writes a Polish immigrant boy in America to his parents in E u r o p e , under date of N o v e m b e r 1 1 , 1 9 0 2 , "please do not be angry with me f o r what I shall write. I write you that it is hard 7

James H. S. Bossard, Social

Change

and Social Problems,

Brothers, New York, Revised edition, 1938, pp. 606-613.

Harper and

RESIDENTIAL PROPINQUITY

91

to live alone, so please find some girl for me, but an orderly [honest] one, for in America there is not even one single orderly Polish girl. . . . (December 21st, 1902) I thank you kindly for your letter, for it was happy. As to the girl, although I don't know her, my companion, who knows her, says she is stately and pretty, and I believe him, as well as you my parents."8 Children in most American homes today select their own mates. This much is evident. But the modern parents, standing quietly in the background, can influence even if not coerce. They do select the area in which they live. And it is within this area that their children are prone, within the percentages revealed in this chapter, to find their mates. 2. It compounds the cultural heritage of the chili. More and more are students of our urban life becoming aware of the selective and distributive forces, many of them as subtle as they are powerful, which make the modern city a mosaic of cultural areas. Now, from the studies on residential propinquity, we see that the natives and products of these areas tend to a large extent to intermarry. The inevitable result is the compounding of the cultural heritage of the children born in these families. Small wonder is it that students of behavior, like Dr. Plant, insist that the youth with which they deal in their clinics is little more than a section or a part of the community in which he or she lives. What the urban ecologists insist is that the cultural area molds the social type. What our studies on residential propinquity show is that these social types tend to intermarry. What our conclusion is is that thus the cultural stamp is compounded and confirmed. 3. It has eugenic significance. Perhaps everything that has been said concerning the cultural significance of propinquitous marriages may be said for their eugenic importance. Whatever tends to increase the marriage of like with like tends to compound the biological as well as the 8

W . I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant, Alfred A.

Knopf, Inc., New York, 1927, Volume II, pp. 259.

92

MARRIAGE AND T H E CHILD

cultural heritage. This general statement is made here, in part as a conclusion, in part as a challenge to be verified or disproved by further studies and analyses. Involved in such studies are not only a further refinement of the role of residential propinquity, but also the role and eugenic significance of such factors in marriage selection as occupation, intelligence, etc., to which we turn in the next chapter.

CHAPTER

V

NATIONALITY AND NATIVITY AS FACTORS IN MARRIAGE ι. L I N E U P a hundred persons representative of the population of the United States and, on the basis of the 1930 Census, fiftyseven will be native-born white persons of native-born white parentage, twenty-one will be native-born white of foreign-born or mixed parentage, eleven will be foreign-born white, and eleven will be colored, chiefly Negro. Among the thirty-two who are foreign-born or native-born with foreign parentage, many different nationalities will be represented. (The Census lists some fifty different nationalities as constituting our foreign white stock. In 1930, there were twenty-nine different nationalities contributing more than 100,000 to this element in our population, sixteen contributing more than 500,000, eleven contributing more than one million, and four numbering in excess of three millions each.) With such a cosmopolitan population, and with our traditional boast of America as the great melting pot in which many diverse cultures and groups are to be fused into the American of tomorrow, it is obvious and inevitable that there should be many marriages between the different nationalities and nativities in our population. 2. Analyze the scientific literature on the modern family, and whatever the differences in approach and in terminology, there will be found an emphasis upon the importance of cultural similarities and dissimilarities as a factor in the success or failure of marriage. Various indices of culture have been used, and can be used justifiably. Among these would be nationality and nativity classes, one indicating the specific cultural background, the other the relative place or time in the movement from newly admitted alien to absorption into the older native stock. In other words, two lines of thought, one proceeding from an 93

MARRIAGE AND THE CHILD

94

interest in the national assimilative process and the other from the study of marital success or failure, converge to crown the subject of nationality and nativity with importance as a factor in marriage. In view of this fact, one is somewhat at a loss to understand the relative lack of attention that has been given to the subject, both in the statistics of marriage and in the analysis of family factors and situations. W h a t makes this omission even

more

glaring is that the subject of marriage and the family has been dealt with so largely by sociologists who, as is w e l l known, have been particularly preoccupied in recent years with culture and its role in sociological analysis. T h i s omission, too, serves to illustrate the larger fact of the relative lack of the scientific study of marriage in this country. " M a r r i a g e statistics," as W a l t e r W i l c o x points out, "is the least developed branch of American vital statistics. . . .

In no other

advanced country are the marriage statistics as incomplete and as unsatisfactory as in the U n i t e d States." 1 In this chapter, it would seem significant, then: first, to outline briefly certain specific values of a study of the facts of intermarriage; and, second, to indicate some available sources of information and to summarize their more important Values of the Study of

findings.

Intermarriage

A compilation and analysis of the facts of intermarriage between different nationalities and nativity groups has many values, three of which are selected for brief consideration at this point. ι . M a r r i a g e being so peculiarly intimate a relationship, intermarriage is a severely realistic index of the social distance between distinct groups and peoples within an area. T h e statistics of intermarriage furnish perhaps the most concrete measurable data on the relations of population groups and elements to each other. T h e fewer the intermarriages, the more intense the cultural or racial consciousness, the stronger the feeling of group solidarity, 1

Walter F. W i l c o x , Introduction

to the Vital Statistics of the United

1900 to /930, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, p. 82.

States, 1933,

NATIONALITY AND NATIVITY

95

and the higher the feeling of antipathy or prejudice against it; on the other hand, the higher the rate of intermarriage, the greater the degree of social acceptance between the population groups or elements involved. W h a t has just been said must not be interpreted to mean that the rate of intermarriage is wholly due to the degree of social acceptance or social distance, because other factors such as residential distribution, propinquity, relative proportion between the sexes, etc., enter in to affect the rate. Nevertheless, after due allowance is made for other factors, it is our contention that the facts of intermarriage can tell us much about the attitudes of groups and classes toward each other. 2. T h e study of intermarriage aids us in building up an understanding of the structure and functioning of family life, as well as of the selective factors upon which it rests customarily. W h a t are the prevailing cultural combinations in marriage as indicated by nationality and nativity crossings? W h a t percentage of marriages are old native stock mating with old native stock? W h a t percentage are foreign-born Italians, let us say, mating with each other? W h a t proportion of marriages involve a crossing of nationality or nativity lines, or both? T o what extent is cultural similarity, as evidenced by nationality and nativity, a factor in marriage selection? O n l y by building up the picture of factual material of this sort do we come to understand the character and complexity of marriage and family life; only as this picture has been built up do we find ourselves in a position to analyze scientifically the significance of deviations from this control background. 3. In the study of personality problems, particularly those of children, much has been said in recent years of the cultural or sociological approach. 2 T h i s approach follows the late Charles Cooley in seeing "the self as a social product," in emphasizing that behavior represents a definition of the situation in which one finds oneself. Because of its prior, consistent, and comprehensive role in soliciting and conditioning the responses of the young, family situations are considered of outstanding impor2 Ernst W. Burgess, " T h e Cultural Approach to the Study of Personality," Mental Hygiene, April, 1930, pp. 307-325.

96

MARRIAGE AND THE

CHILD

tance in this approach, and the cultural minutiae and the cultural pattern and values of the family become of primary concern. Proceeding on this basis, then, what is the significance of the fact that Cecilia Riley's mother was born in Sicily and her father's grandfather migrated many years ago f r o m C o r k County, Ireland? H o w prevalent are such combinations? W h a t are the cultural similarities, contrasts, and conflicts in such a home because of the nationality and nativity backgrounds which are combined? Progress in the scientific study of child problems through this cultural approach involves a careful analysis of the meaning and frequency of such situations. T H E DRASCHLER STUDY OF N E W Y O R K C I T Y

A study of intermarriage in N e w Y o r k City was made a number of years ago by the late D r . Julius Draschler. A total of 100,000 original marriage records were tabulated by him covering the years 1908-1912. A m o n g his conclusions the f o l l o w i n g are presented as constituting the substance of his

findings.3

ι . In general, one out of seven marriages represents an intermarriage. T h e exact percentage was 13.59 (10,835

intermar-

riages out of 79,704 marriages). A n intermarriage is defined as a marriage "between two persons of distinct national, religious, or racial descent, the nationality of the father being taken as the nationality of the c h i l d . " T h e term was further liberally interpreted to include " a l l cases where either the fathers or the mothers of the parties of the intermarriage were of the same nationality." T h a t is to say, the marriage of a groom with an Irish father and an Italian mother, and a bride whose father was G e r m a n and whose mother was Italian, was termed an intermarriage, (p. 2 5 1 ) 2. Intermarriages tend to occur within identical generations. T h a t is to say, the first generation tends to intermarry with the first, and the second generation with the second. A l m o s t threefourths ( 7 4 per cent) of the intermarriages are intra-generation marriages. 3

Julius Draschler, Democracy

and Assimilation,

New Y o r k , 1920. Consult particularly Chapter V.

the Macmillan

Company,

NATIONALITY AND NATIVITY

97

3. T h e proportion of intermarriage between persons of different generations decreases as the interval between the generations increases. 4. In the second generation, both sexes intermarry about three times as often as in the first generation. It is to be noted, however, that in the second generation there is a striking decrease in the number of nationalities with which individuals of the second generation intermarry. 5. T h e lower the ratio of intermarriage in the first generation, the greater the tendency for the ratio to be high in the second generation. 6. T h e ratio of intermarriage is slightly higher for men than for women. 7. T h e various nationalities intermarry at different ratios. O f the large numerical groups included, Jews and Negroes are lowest in the scale, Italians are next, the Irish are higher than the Italians, and the Northern, Northwestern, and some Central European peoples are highest. I N T E R M A R R I A G E IN N E W Y O R K STATE

T h e one outstanding source of data on the facts of intermarriage through the years is to be found in the annual reports of the New Y o r k State Board of Health. These reports include annually the marriage statistics of the State of N e w Y o r k , exclusive of N e w York City. T h e statistics presented include the recorded and resident marriage rates, ages of grooms by ages of brides, the previous conjugal condition of persons marrying, and their nativity and country of birth. This latter item of information pertaining to nativity and nationality is what we are particularly concerned with here, and fortunately, for purposes of further study, the data are so adequately presented in these reports as to show the existing combinations in all the marriages consummated in N e w York. T h e extent to which this data may be considered as representative can be gathered from the following facts about the population of N e w York State, exclusive of N e w Y o r k City. T h e population in 1930 was more than five and a half million

98

M A R R I A G E AND T H E C H I L D

(5,657,620). Considering the nativity of this population, slightly more than half (52.5 per cent) was native-born white of nativeborn white parentage, 30 per cent was native-born white of foreign-born or mixed parentage, 15.9 per cent was foreign-born white, and 1.6 per cent comprise Negroes and other colors. Because the composition of the white population is sufficiently representative of the composition of the white population of the United States, an analysis of the data on intermarriage in New York for a single year is presented here as indicative perhaps of the facts of intermarriage in the country as a whole. The year selected is 1936, the last one for which published figures are available at the present writing. The total number of white marriages in that year in New York, exclusive of New York City, was 68,196, and the distribution between rural and urban areas was almost even. The Meaning of Intermarriage Every statistical project must begin by defining adequately its unit of count. Failure to do so is careless craftsmanship, and invites the label of a worthless task. Intermarriage is a very broad term. Generically it includes any marriage between persons of two diverse groups, so that one might speak of intermarriage between families, clans, tribes, classes, races, colors, creeds, and the like. In recent sociological literature, however, the term has come to be applied largely in this country especially to marriage in which distinct population groups are combined. Even more particularly has it come to mean inter-nationality or inter-nativity, or inter-race or interreligious combinations. It is in this general restricted meaning that the term is used in this chapter, and since the data cited subsequently are of white marriages, and since the New York reports give no information on religious differences, these two aspects are dropped from further discussion in this chapter. Restricting ourselves to nativity and nationality, further precision is necessary. Thinking only of these two, an intermarriage may be (a) a marriage between different nativity groups, such

NATIONALITY AND NATIVITY

99

as a foreign-born groom marrying a native-born bride of nativeborn parents; (b) a marriage between different nationalities in the same nativity class, such as a groom born in Poland marrying a bride born in Denmark; and (c) a marriage which crosses both nativity and nationality lines. For the sake of clarity, the particular variety of intermarriage considered at any time in the remainder of this chapter will be specified. The Extent of Intermarriage

Keeping in mind the distinctions which have just been made, an analysis of the 68,196 white marriages recorded in N e w Y o r k State, exclusive of New Y o r k City, in 1936, reveal the following facts: ι . T w o out of every five marriages (37.8 per cent) were internativity marriages, and three out of every five (62.2 per cent) were intranativity marriages. 2. T h e internativity marriages were marriages chiefly between the native-born white of native-born parentage and the nativeborn white of foreign-born or mixed parentage. Expressed in terms of percentage of all marriages, 26.5 per cent were marriages combining these two nativities, 6.6 per cent were marriages between foreign-born and native-born of foreign or mixed parentage, and 4.7 per cent combined the foreign-born and the native-born of native parentage. 3. T h e intranativity marriages, comprising 62.2 per cent of all marriages, were principally marriages in which both parties were native-born of native-born parents (39.1 per cent); those in which both parties were native-born of foreign or mixed parentage constituted 19.9 per cent of all marriages; and 3.2 per cent were marriages with both parties foreign-born. It might be separately stated, for the sake of emphasis, that two out of five (39.x per cent) were marriages in which both parties were native-born white of native-born white parentage. 4. Adding to the internativity marriages those which combined different nationalities within the same nativity group, the result obtained equals almost half of the total number of mar-

100

M A R R I A G E AND T H E C H I L D

riages. Of 64,880 marriages for which all the necessary information was available, 48.7 per cent crossed either a nativity or a nationality line, or both. 5. T h e complement of the fact just presented is that 5 1 . 3 per cent were marriages in which both parties were of the same nativity in the case of the native-born white of native-born white parentage, and in the case of those of foreign white stock, were of the same nativity and the same nationality. Most of these, of course, are marriages of native-born whites of native parents among themselves. Breaking down the 5 1 . 3 per cent into its main subdivisions, 41 per cent of the 64,880 were marriages of the old native stock within its nativity, 8 per cent were marriages within the second generation and within the same nationality, and the remainder 2.3 per cent were marriages within the foreign-born nativity and within the same nationality.

Some Questions and Answers About Intermarriage Thus far data on intermarriage have been presented from the standpoint of their relative proportion in the total number of white marriages in the state. Our summary now turns to a series of selected aspects of intermarriage, viewed from other angles. T o clarify their presentation, these aspects will be presented in question and answer form.

I. What proportion of the men and women in each nativity group marry within that group, and what percentage cross the nativity line? Do diferent nativity groups vary in this respect? Do men and women di-ffer in this respect? Table X V presents the answer to these questions in statistical form for the State of New York, exclusive of New York City, for the year 1936. This table shows: (a) T h e tendency of the old native stock, i.e., the native-born whites of native-born white parents, to marry among themselves. The percentages are 72.7 and 7.1 for men and women, respectively. (b) The tendency of the native-born with one parent native-

NATIONALITY AND N A T I V I T Y

101

born and one parent foreign-born, i.e., three-quarters old native stock, to marry into the old native stock. The percentages here are 55.2 and 51.0, respectively. (c) The tendency of the native-born of foreign parentage to marry within their own nativity group. The percentages for men and women, respectively, are 50.4 and 49.0. (d) A similar tendency, but somewhat less so, especially among men, among the foreign-born. Only a third of the foreign-born men marrying (32.6 per cent) and half of the foreign-born women marrying (43.9 per cent) married within their nativity group. The difference between the percentages of men and women is due undoubtedly to the sex distribution among the foreign-born, the preponderance of men forcing them to marry, if they are to marry at all, outside of their groups. If the percentages of marriages with native-born of foreign-born parents are added, the totals are 65.5 and 65.6, respectively. T A B L E X V . M A R R I A G E S , ACCORDING TO N A T I V I T Y o r BRIDES AND GROOMS, BY P E R C E N T o r EACH GROUP, N E W Y O R K STATE, EXCLUSIVE o r N E W Y O R K C I T Y , 1 9 3 6

A Nativity of Brides—by Per Cent

Tolal

Nativity of Стоош

Nwnber^

N a t i v e - b o r n of n a t i v e - b o m parents 36,693 Native-born of mixed parentage 7,194 N a t i v e - b o r n of foreign parents 17,218 Foreign b o m 6,950

Native-Born of Native Parents

Natm-Bornof Mixed Parentage

Native-Born of Foreign Parentage

ForeignBorn

72.7

10.1

13.4

j.6

55·»

140

35-3

5-4

31.7 26.8

11.3 8.5

50.4 32.9

6.3 32.6

В Nativity of Grooms—by Per Cent Nativity of Brides

N a t i v e - b o r n of native-born parents 38,044 N a t i v e - b o r n of mixed parentage 7,261 N a t i v e - b o r n of foreign parents 17,733 Foreign-born parents 5,003

Native-Born of Native Parents

Native-Born of Mixed Parentage

Native-Born of foreign Parentage

ForeignBorn

70.1

10.5

14.3

4.8

5X.O

139

эб.д

8.z

279 264

10.2 7.9

49.0 21.7

12.8 43.9

102

MARRIAGE AND T H E CHILD

(e) The tendency of women to marry outside of their nativity class more so than the men. Table X V shows that a larger percentage of women marry outside of their nativity class among the native-born of native-born parents, the native-born with one foreign-born parent, and the native-born with both parents foreign-born. Only among the foreign-born is the order reversed, due, one is led to suspect, to the preponderance of men among the foreign-born. 2. To what extent do the different nationality groufs marry into the old native stock? How is this rate of intermarriage affected in each nationality group by nativity changes, i.e., do the Austrian and Polish of the second generation marry into the old native stock more often than the first generation and if so, how much oftenor? Do men or women, of the various nationality groufs, m-arry oftener into the old native stock? Do the nationalities group themselves in any way on the basis of the percentage of intermarriage with the native-born of native parents? Table X V I has been arranged from materials published in the New York State reports. It shows the percentage of men and women marrying in each of three nativity classes, of ten separate nationalities, who marry into the native-born white of nativeborn white parents. In the form in which the data are presented, the answer to these questions is clearly revealed. Considered carefully, this table is a remarkable study in social distance, as revealed by the statistics of life's most intimate relationship. Among the conclusions to be drawn from this table are the following: (a) The extent of intermarriage with the old native stock varies directly in each nationality group with the length of residence in the United States, as measured in terms of nativity changes. The percentages are lowest in each nationality, and for both sexes, in the first generation; they rise in each nationality and in both sexes, in the second generation, i.e., among those born here of foreign-born parents; and they are markedly higher if only one parent is of foreign extraction. (b) The percentage of intermarriage with the old native stock varies considerably from one nationality group to another. It is

N A T I O N A L I T Y AND N A T I V I T Y TABLE X V I . INTERMARRIAGE WITH THE NATIVE-BORN WHITE OF NATIVE-BORN WHITE PARENTS, BY NATIONALITY, NATIVITY AND SEX, NEW YORK STATE, 1936 Per Cent Marry ing Native-Born Whites of Native-Bom White Parents Nationalit

Forei η Born

Male Group A

Austria 25.1 Hungary 25.9 Italy 11.9 Poland 9-4 Russia 9.8 ; roup В Canada 41.1 Denmark, Norw а у and Sweden 29.2 England, Scot1 a η d and Wales 41.4 Germany 27.1 Ireland 26.8

Native-Born of Foreign-Born Parents

Native-Born of Mixed Parentage

Female

Male

Female

Male

Female

13-4

29.6 29.9

29.4 28.7

43-1 35-7 34-3

42-5 43-3

18.2

5.8

12.6

7-9

21.3

15-3

18.1

11.9

24.8 25.0

18.5

19.4

24.0 26.6

17-4

40.2

52.0

47-4

63.8

58.6

23-9

52-4

47.0

64.2

58.9

37-9

55-8

56.7

62.1

60.6 56.4

48.7

56.7

20.9 21.J

51.1 49.0

43-9

57-6

S 4-9

lowest in each nativity class for the Russians, and highest for the Canadian and English groups. In the case of the Russians, the situation is affected by religious as well as nationality differences, many of the Russian migrants into the United States for a number of years being Jewish. (c) Cultural similarities and dissimilarities are important factors in marriage selection. From one point of view this is the meaning of the increase of intermarriage shown in each nativity included in Table X V I , with each change in nativity. Even more striking confirmation of the role of cultural factors is found in the way in which the nationalities group themselves. In Table X V I , Group A includes the nationalities which have come out of the southeastern European cultural background, while Group В is made up of the northwestern European cultural groups. Each of these groups in turn clearly subdivide themselves, seemingly on the basis of the degree of cultural differences: In Group A , for example, Austria and Hungary adhere

io4

M A R R I A G E AND T H E C H I L D

to one pattern of percentages and percentage changes ·, Italy, Poland, and Russia to another. Similarly in Group В the British groups, Canada, England, Scotland, and Wales, culturally most similar to the old native stock of up-state New York, show relatively high percentages of intermarriage with that stock in each nativity class. Particularly to be noticed is the high rate of such intermarriage in the first generation, being about 40 per cent for both groups and both sexes. (d) In most of the specific nationality and nativity groups men are more prone than women to marry into the old native stock. Of the thirty pairs of percentages on a sex basis included in Table X V I , it will be noticed that in only five of them does the percentage for women exceed that of men. Three of these are found in the three nativity classes of the Polish group, so that Poland is a clear-cut exception to the generalization just made. The fact that women of the foreign white stock marry into the old native stock less frequently than the men is all the more striking in view of the conclusion drawn from Table X V that women show a slightly greater tendency to marry out of their nativity class than do men. 3. Whom do the foreign-born marry? To what extent do they marry among themselves, within their own nationality, within their own nativity class, or into their own nationality grou-p in the next nativity class? Are there any outstanding differences between men and women in these respects? In 1936 there were 6,950 foreign-born men and 5,003 foreignborn women who were married in up-state New York. Complete information for the nationality and nativity selections of the respective brides and grooms are given for the ten leading nationalities. Table X V I I and Table X V I I I present the information for these groups, necessary to answer the questions raised above. (a) To what extent do foreign-born marry within their own nationality and nativity, that is to say, to what extent, for example, do Italian-born men marry Italian-born women in the State of New York? This was the first of the questions raised above. Taking the ten nationalities listed in Table X V I I , it is found

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