it is nevertheless evident that the instability of the family must be
regarded as the greatest of our social problems to-day.

Summary Regarding the Influence of Industrial Conditions upon the
Present Instability of the Family.--As we have already seen, the
development of modern industry is one of the chief causes of the decay
of modern family life. Certain aspects of our industrialism, such as the
labor of women and children in factories, the growth of cities, and the
loss of the home through the slum and the tenement, the higher standards
of living and comfort, and the resulting higher age of marriage,--all of
these have had, to a certain extent at least, a disastrous effect upon
the family. Some of these things, like the growth of cities, seem
inseparable from modern industrial development. The problem must be,
therefore, how to overcome the evil effect of these tendencies in
industry upon the home. 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,