The Father : Part 6

The Family and it's Members
by Anna Garlin Spencer

(Page 9 of 22)

The idealization of womanhood by man, which seems never to have made him uneasy in claiming control of her person or estate, has embodied itself in the artist's pictures of Truth and Justice, and Knowledge and Charity, in feminine forms. These bear witness to the fact that even when men were most insistent upon father-rights they were moulded by intimate companionship with women in the home to some appreciation of the value of feminine personality.

While, therefore, the moral discipline which came to the mother in the old order of the family, led her to understand the value of personality, and the need of ever-increasing effort to make the individual lives within the family circle comfortable, happy and good, the moral discipline of the patriarchal father led toward an increasing conquest of nature, of other men, and of all the social forces, in the interest of his own family group. This led at last to his impersonation of many ideals in the "eternal womanly that leads us on."

The Higher Ideal of Fatherhood. - Throughout this many-sided discipline of marriage and parenthood there has been growing an ideal of fatherhood so noble and so tender that it has easily become the central thought in many religions.

The "Heaven-father" is an old picture. The Father in Heaven persists in the effort to bring the Supreme near to the human heart. A law of obedience unquestioned, a rule of conduct making an actual Way of Life, a power unlimited and yet a loving-kindness that marks the sparrow's fall and has regard for the prodigal as for the upright son - surely there must have been uncounted fathers of goodness and wisdom passing praise to have made the name the easiest one by which to call the Divine!

Meanwhile, the average life has been working, often unconsciously, toward a condition in which the patriarchal father is out of drawing with his own industry, his own political system, and his own theology. To-day we give the wives and potential wives contract-power, private ownership of property, opportunity for economic independence, vocational training, entrance to all higher educational institutions, adult responsibility under the law, and the franchise on equal terms with men.

In the light of these accomplished facts vain is the effort of such writers as Devoe, in his Studies in Family Life, to show that "the Christian family" still makes women "subject" and holds "all goods in common" in the husband's name.

Incomplete Adjustment and Equality of Rights in the Family. - There is, however, great confusion of mind as to the extent of change in the father-office which the new independence of wives and mothers should effect. Take, for example, the matter of the financial responsibility of the husband and father. If a married woman has independent property, shall she not be liable as well as her husband for the support of the children? If so, what becomes of the suits at law against "Family Deserters" heretofore applied alone to husbands and fathers? A study of this class of offenders under the law, published in 1904, shows that in New York alone something over $100,000 was collected in one year in "alimony from men, two-thirds of whom were deserting husbands." In these cases the duty of providing financially for wife and child pursued the husbands and fathers after they had run away from home. In the 591 cases of "Family Deserters" especially studied two-thirds were men and one-third women, showing not only that the law deals more severely with men than with women, even when women are held to be responsible for any sort of family support, but that desertion is for the most part a masculine offense. If it can be shown that fathers are or should be relieved from the age-long financial responsibilities of family support, will the showing in "Family Desertion" be different?

There seems to be a consensus of opinion that in present conditions that family is likely to be in the best economic condition, in which the chief, if not the entire, income is supplied by the husband and father, leaving the wife and mother to be specially responsible for the translation of that income in terms of family comfort. That is admirably indicated in Mrs. Hinman Abel's book, Successful Family Life on the Moderate Income. Does that condition still carry with it the sole economic responsibility of the husband and father for the wife as well as for the children? Or shall the phrase now beginning to be used in laws passed against family desertion apply to the wife only when it is proved she is "in necessitous circumstances" without her husband's provision? For the children the newer laws say "him" or "her" when providing penalties for "any person," either father or mother, "who wilfully neglects or refuses to provide for the support and maintenance of minor children."

The claim, then, of the wife seems to be increasingly one of either invalid "conditions," or "necessitous circumstances," or "lack of other means of support," when defaulting husbands are brought to court; and the claim of children upon parents is increasingly extended from father to mother whenever there are means at hand from either to supply the children's needs.

In respect to the "choice of domicile," always the right of the husband and father, there is little change in law; but the strong movement to secure to women independent nationality, in place of automatic following of the nationality of their husbands, will, if carried out, make the supreme choice (that of the country to which one shall pledge allegiance) a legal right of women as of men. That in itself would make some confusion in cases where international marriages give separate national interest.

In respect to man's responsibility for national defense in the interest of home and native land, he is alone conscripted to-day, as of old, for fighting service on the battle-field, but all manner of social demands, almost as imperative as a governmental draft, now call women to special service in war time. In peace, the taxes know no sex, and the rules of the business game are not amenable to chivalry.

In the matter of professional and vocational training and opportunity, men and women are largely on an equal footing, in the United States, at least. And apparently for the first time in human history a man and a woman, both eminent in their line of work, may seriously ask which of the two earns the larger salary, and hence it may be which of the two can do more toward family support.

Copyright, 1923 by J.B. Lippincott Company

About the Author

Anna Garlin Spencer (1851-1931) was an American educator, feminist, and Unitarian minister. Born in Attleboro, MA, she married the Rev. William H. Spencer in 1878. She was a leader in the women's suffrage and peace movements. In 1891 she became the first woman ordained as a minister in the state of Rhode Island.