(2) Monogamy secures the superior care of children in at least two
respects. First, it very greatly decreases mortality in children,
because under monogamy both husband and wife unite in their care. Again,
monogamy secures the superior upbringing and, therefore, the superior
socialization of the child. In the monogamous family much greater
attention can be given to the training of children by both parents. In
other forms of the family not only is the death rate higher among
children, but from the point of view of modern civilization, at least,
they are inferiorly socialized.

(3) The monogamic family alone produces affections and emotions of the
higher type. It is only in the monogamic family that the highest type of
altruistic affection can be cultivated. It is difficult to understand,
for example, how anything like unselfish affection between husband and
wife can exist under polygyny. Under monogamy, husband and wife are
called upon to sacrifice selfish desires in the mutual care of children.
Monogamy is, therefore, fitted as a form of the family to foster
altruism in the highest degree, and, as we have seen, the higher the
type of altruism produced by the family life, the higher the type of the
social life generally, other things being equal. It is especially to the
credit of monogamy that it has created fatherhood in the fullest sense
of the term, and therefore taught the male element in human society the
value of service and self-sacrifice. Under polygynous conditions the
father cannot devote himself to any extent to his children or to any one
wife, since he is really the head of several households, and therefore,
as we have already noted, fatherhood in the fullest sense scarcely
exists under polygyny.

(4) Under monogamy, moreover, all family relationships are more definite