There is no reason for believing that such evil
effects cannot be overcome, although the problem is a difficult one. Our
aim should be, not to stop industrial development, but to guide it and
control it in the interest of the higher development of the family. That
this is entirely feasible may already be seen from what has been
accomplished in the way of regulating the labor of women and children
and in the way of providing better conditions in the homes of the
working population.
There is, however, nothing in evidence in the causes of increasing
divorce in the United States which warrants the belief that American
industrial development is alone responsible for the increasing
instability of our family life. The industrial development of America is
less peculiar in many ways than its political and social development.
Divorce and instability of the family, as we have seen, characterize the
American people more than any other civilized population. This fact,
then, cannot be explained entirely in terms of American industrial
development, but we must look also, as has already been emphasized, to
certain peculiarities in American character, American institutions, and
American ideas and ideals.
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