GUMMERE, _Germanic Origins._






CHAPTER VII


THE PROBLEM OF THE MODERN FAMILY

Passing over the changes which affected the family during the Middle
Ages and the still more striking changes which came through the
Reformation, we must now devote ourselves to the study of the problems
of the family as it exists at present. The religious theory of the
family which prevailed during the Middle Ages, but which was more or
less undermined by the Reformation, gave away entirely in those great
social changes which ushered in the nineteenth century. Again, the view
that marriage was a private contract came to prevail among the mass of
the people, and even to be embodied in a great many of the constitutions
and laws of the nineteenth century. At the same time profound economic
changes tended largely to individualize society, and these were
reflected in the democratic movement toward forms of popular government,
which have tended on the whole to make the individual the political
unit. The nineteenth century was, then, in all respects a period of
great social change and unrest. Moreover, the growth of wealth has
favored, in certain classes at least, lower moral standards and
increasing laxity in family relationships. Thus it happens that we find