Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/376

 accord with the most celebrated of modern sociologists, Herbert Spencer, who is not very bold, however, on these delicate points. "In primitive phases," he says, "while permanent monogamy was developing, union in the name of the law—that is, originally, the act of purchase—was accounted the essential part of the marriage, and union in the name of affection was not essential. In the present day union in the name of the law is considered the most important, and union by affection as less important. A time will come when union by affection will be considered the most important, and union in the name of the law the least important, and men will hold in reprobation those conjugal unions in which union by affection is dissolved." Montaigne once wrote: "We have thought to make our marriage tie stronger by taking away all means of dissolving it; but the more we have tightened the constraint, so much the more have we relaxed and detracted from the bond of will and affection."

It is therefore probable that a future more or less distant will inaugurate the régime of monogamic unions, freely contracted, and, at need, freely dissolved by simple mutual consent, as is already the case with divorces in various European countries—at Geneva, in Belgium, in Roumania, etc., and with separation in Italy. In these divorces of the future, the community will only intervene in order to safe-*guard that which is of vital interest to it—the fate and the education of the children. But this evolution in the manner of understanding and practising marriage will operate slowly, for it supposes an entire corresponding revolution in public opinion; moreover, it requires as a corollary, profound modifications in the social organism. The régime of liberty in marriage and the disintegration of our actual familial type are only possible on condition that the State or the district, in a great number of cases, is ready to assume the rôle of guardian and educator of children; but, before it can take on itself these important functions, it must have considerable resources at its disposal which to-day are wanting. In our present régime, the family, however defective it may be, still constitutes the