Page:Alexandra Kollontai - Communism and the Family (1920).djvu/5

 from what we are accustomed to behold to-day. There was a time when only one form of family was considered normal, namely, the genetic family; that is to say, a family, with an old mother at its head, around whom; were grouped, in common life and common work, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. The patriarchal family was also once considerered the sole norm;: it was presided over by a father-master whose will was law for all the other members of the family; even in our days, such peasant families may still be found in Russian villages. In fact, in those places the morals and the family laws are not those of the city worker; in the country there still are a large number of customs no longer found in the family of a city proletarian. The form of the family, its customs, vary according to race. There are peoples, such as, for instance, the Turks, Arabs, Persians, among whom it is permitted by law for a husband to, have many wives. There have been, and there still are at present, tribes which tolerate the contrary custom of permitting a wife to have several husbands. The habitual morality of the present-day man permits him to demand of a young girl that she remain a virgin until legitimate marriage; but there were tribes among whom the woman, on the contrary, made it a matter of pride to have had many lovers, decorating her arms and legs with rings to, indicate their number. … Such practices, which could not but astonish us, practices which we might even qualify as immoral, are found among other peoples to have the sanction of holiness, peoples who in their turn consider our laws and customs to be "sinful." Therefore there is no reason for our becoming terrified at the fact that the family is undergoing a modification, that