Show THE AMERICAN FAMILY A lato late number of the medical record contains somo some doleful but truthful remarks on the change in in tho the aby physical organization of american men and women and the decadence of famil family clife life among them As the people of the united states just now appear to be greatly worked up as to the tile matrimonial institutions I of the latter days saints and aredith are with rare unanimity pouring a flood af abuse on the family system odthe of the ai cormons mormons Mor mons it may not bo be amiss for us to sec see what they have to say of themselves and the efficacy or inefficacy cacy of their modes of matrimony perhaps they then will be able to find an application of the parable odthe of the beam in their own and the mote in their neighbors eye the subject of american family life has been studied for many years by several medical men of a philosophical aph ical bend of mind among them is dr N nathan athan alien allen who presented the tile result of ilia his researches and investigations very directly in an article entitled the N new c wen england 11 family As the new now eng eug lander is the primeval stock of the modern A american nie rican an and il is ati still I I I el claimed aim to bo be his type physically intellectually ly and morally what we find true of him may well be taken as a reflex odthe of the it is asserted by social philosophers that the objects of the institution of the family arc are threefold the propagation cf of the race the preservation of chastity and mutual lie help I P and company all these are creditable objects and though they do not embrace the full purpose of divine providence as to matrimony they are comprised in it all the worse therefore for those who fail to fulfill these conditions as is stated positively to be the case in the american family capeci especially ally in cultured churchgoing church going moral new E england this decadence of tile american family has been going on for a century and ita present effects through the inexorable causal form intensified causes for still worse effects in tho the future it is generally known that the productivity of the new england C family is far less than it was in colonial days tho the birthrate lias has been steadily declining until now it is below that of any european country except ear effeminate france the causes for this deplorable fact arc are not only to be sought for in the shocking prevalence of abortion and prevention of conception both of which murderous practices have become frightfully fashionable sterility has been eon produced in a considerable degree through the unwise tendency of the age toward a one sided intellectual cultivation and undue and artificial develop ment of nervous tissue the increase of nervous development at the expense of the muscular part odthe of the system is accompanied by a decrease de creaso in fertility which gradually leads to absolute sterility anether another ether additional cause of the diminishing ini inis shing bing birthrate is the delay of young people in marrying marriages at advanced age prove as a rule less fruitful than unions en I I I I into in the alij indro time tim e of I I life As to the preservation katoll of chastity the second great object of ortho tho family there wo we are undoubtedly it le adly confronted by a most marked deterioration the appalling frequency of divorces has previously been pointed out in these column columns when we took occasion to comment on the shocking revelations made by alev bacon it will be remembered that statistics furnish incontrovertible evide evidence hee that divorces formerly almost an impossibility have now become so frequent that they number about one to every twelve marriages iu in new now england E while the ratio among arnom the foreign born population cf of whose illiteracy and ss immorality there is so much prating alig C in in certain quarters is between forty and fifty that chastity is less preserved in modern matrimony than it formerly was becomes painfully evident through the fact that adultery forms about one third of the causes for divorce and here we also meet another evil consequence of late marriages in in as far as they leave many more of bath both sexes expose exposed i I to temptation te nip tation and thus widen the avenues to licentiousness As regards the tile third object of marriage a mutual help till and company our author in the hew new englander alleges the decrease in tho number of marriage the mode of life and business by which men are kept away from their homes turning curnin g their whole energies in every diorec tion except making the homes of their families pleasant and cheerful to the modern business mans home is but too often only the place to cat eat and sleep not the old fl fireside reside where the fatlich reaches the acme of happiness and quaffs the cup of bli bliss IM III in i the loving association and company of a I faithful wife and fond children it is also asserted that new E england ng women are losing their love and home to sum suni up all these charges charge against modern marriage in one sweeping arraignment the family life odthe of the american of today to day oc curs more rarely begins later in life ia with fewer is accompanied with less happiness and less fidelity tim is the caso case as presented by themselves by people who declaim dec a I early and often against A mormon lormon marriage we close with shake 1111 hamlet amlet look here bere upon tins this picture and on this |