were an episode like lighting a cigarette, or whistling a tune.
Suppose whenever a man lit a cigarette, a towering genie arose from
the rings of smoke and followed him everywhere as a huge slave.
Suppose whenever a man whistled a tune he "drew an angel down"
and had to walk about forever with a seraph on a string.
These catastrophic images are but faint parallels to the earthquake
consequences that Nature has attached to sex; and it is perfectly
plain at the beginning that a man cannot be a free lover;
he is either a traitor or a tied man. The second element that creates
the family is that its consequences, though colossal, are gradual;
the cigarette produces a baby giant, the song only an infant seraph.
Thence arises the necessity for some prolonged system of co-operation;
and thence arises the family in its full educational sense.

It may be said that this institution of the home is the one
anarchist institution. That is to say, it is older than law,
and stands outside the State. By its nature it is refreshed
or corrupted by indefinable forces of custom or kinship.
This is not to be understood as meaning that the State has no
authority over families; that State authority is invoked and ought
to be invoked in many abnormal cases. But in most normal cases
of family joys and sorrows, the State has no mode of entry.
It is not so much that the law should not interfere, as that
the law cannot. Just as there are fields too far off for law,
so there are fields too near; as a man may see the North Pole
before he sees his own backbone. Small and near matters
escape control at least as much as vast and remote ones;
and the real pains and pleasures of the family form a strong
instance of this. If a baby cries for the moon, the policeman
cannot procure the moon--but neither can he stop the baby.