Abstract
THE “Family” is a subject of far greater extent than most persons may think. Its importance to society enormous, though, like the air we breathe, it attracts little attention. The variety in the constitution family life in different places and at different times extraordinary. Its peculiarity in any given case the result of many influences, including long-standing tradition, economic causes, natural instincts, and legislation on succession of property. The author has given a valuable résumé of facts and opinions derived from more than thirty writers of note, and she has blended them into a pleasant and readable volume which will open out new and wide vistas of interest to most of those who study it. She says that the history of the Family “is a great work waiting for a great scholar.” It is no disparagement this book to add that she speaks truly; only it seems to the writer of this notice that a still more important requisite than scholarship is a more enlightened statistical treatment of the subject than it has for the most part yet received.
The Family.
By Helen Bosanquet. Pp. vii + 344. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1906.) Price 8s. 6d. net.
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G., F. The Family . Nature 75, 78 (1906). https://doi.org/10.1038/075078a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/075078a0