This social principle, we
may note, rests upon a deeper psychological principle, that old habits
are usually not replaced by new habits without an intervening period of
confusion and uncertainty. In other words, in the transition from the
old habit to the new habit there is much opportunity for disorganization
and disintegration. It is exactly so in human society, because social
institutions are but expressions of habit.
Now, the old semipatriarchal type of the family, which prevailed down to
the beginning of the nineteenth century, the type of the family which we
might perhaps properly call the monarchical type, has been disappearing
for the past one hundred years,--is in fact already practically extinct,
at least in America, but we have not yet built up a new type of the
family to take its place. The old semipatriarchal family of our
forefathers has gone, but no new type of the family has yet become
general. A democratic type of the family in harmony with our democratic
civilization must be evolved.
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