Domestic affairs

“ To regard our family affairs with all the interest due to our family and our national affairs with all the interest due to our nation—this is to fitly discharge our duty, and to be guided by public considerations. ”

“ DOMESTIC RELATIONS, a term used to express the legal relations subsisting between the various units that comprise the family or domestic group. Those units which go to build up the domestic structure of modern society are parent, child, husband, wife, master and servant. ”

“ Here is an example of news which is of the utmost possible importance to the commonwealth, and to each of us individually. To understand why a vast domestic dispute has arisen is the very first necessity for a sound civic judgment. ”

“ In domestic relations we have to guard against the shock of the discontents, the ambitions, the interests, and the exuberant, and therefore sometimes irregular, impulses of opinion or of action which are the natural product of the present political elevation, the self-reliance, and the restless spirit of enterprise of the people of the United States. ”

“ Prominent in the residuum of state power, as pointed out above, is the right of a state to deal with the marriage relations of its citizens and to pursue its chosen domestic policy of public morality in that connection. ”

“ If, as Lecky states, "pure domestic life" is amongst the 'strongest' of those forces that bear a nation onward to improvement, the private life of one that would mould the thoughts, guide the energies and thus shape the destinies of a nation is a public concern. ”

“ When any one acknowledges a moral governor of the world; perceives that domestic and social relations are perpetually operating and seem intended to operate, to retain and direct men in the path of duty ”

“ These positions and relationships not only enrich him with certain privileges and invest him with certain rights, but they also make certain demands on him and imply certain duties. Thus, in a man's domestic relationships, as a son or brother or husband or father, he finds that certain duties pertain to him. ”

“ As we turn from a review of our foreign relations to the contemplation of our national financial situation we are immediately aware that we approach a subject of domestic concern more important than any other that can engage our attention, and one at present in such a perplexing and delicate predicament as to require prompt and wise treatment. ”

“ Judging from facts of existing law, and analogies of other social movements, we may arrive at the conclusion that, just as in political control the overmastering impulse of growth is in the direction of the greatest possible freedom of the individual, consistent with social cohesion, so in domestic control the irresistible movement is in the direction of the most perfect legal equality of the married partners, consistent with family unity. ”

“ When, in the domestic relations, we meet with such varieties of law, of custom, of sentiment, of belief, thus indicated by a few examples which might be indefinitely multiplied, it may be imagined how multitudinous are the seeming incongruities presented among the social relations at large. ”

“ Not so with marriage. The relation once formed, the law steps in and holds the parties to various obligations and liabilities. It is an institution, in the maintenance of which in its purity the public is deeply interested, for it is the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress.' 125 U.S. 210, 31 L. ed. ”

“ Besides, matters relating to inheritance, marriage, and other kindred affairs are often discussed in our popular assemblies. Here, where all the citizens know each other, no distinction is made between public and private business. ”

“ Next to this I should place Government, understanding this word in its widest sense, as embracing the terms on which man agrees to live with his fellow man and with woman, family, therefore, as well as society ties. This includes the legal standards of duty, the rules of relationship and descent, the rights of property and the customs of commerce, the institutions of castes, classes and rulers, and those international relations on which depend war and peace. ”

“ Individuals of the family ceasing to work together exclusively in their unlike relations to one another, and coming to work together under like relations to state authority and to enemies, the public coöperation and subordination grew at the expense of the family cooperation and subordination. ”

“ She has a husband, to whose peculiar tastes and habits she must accommodate herself; she has children whose health she must guard, whose physical constitutions she must study and develop, whose temper and habits she must regulate, whose principles she must form, whose pursuits she must guide. She has constantly changing domestics, with all varieties of temper and habits, whom she must govern, instruct, and direct; she is required to regulate the finances of the domestic state, and constantly to adapt expenditures to the means and to the relative claims of each department. ”

“ And, as implying the directness of the alleged connections, I may here add an instance showing that in the same society the domestic relations in the militant part retain the militant character, while the domestic relations in the industrial part are beginning to assume the industrial character. ”

“ The universal neglect by domestic servants of their employer's interests, wherever these are not protected by some fixed rule, is matter of common remark; unless where long continuance in the same service, and reciprocal good offices, have produced either personal attachment, or some feeling of a common interest. ”

“ In view of the high and responsible duties which we owe to ourselves and to mankind, I trust you may be able at your present session to approach the adjustment of the only domestic question which seriously threatens, or probably ever can threaten, to disturb the harmony and successful operations of our system. ”

“ To conduct a successful establishment, to be a spokesman, an administrator, an employer of labour and converser on subjects, let alone a citizen and a tax-payer, was to have an existence abounding in relations and to be subject to the law that a relation, however imperfectly human or social, is at the worst a matter that can only be described as delicate. ”

“ The bill being read, sir John BARNARD spoke thus:—Sir, there cannot be brought before this house any questions more difficult in themselves, more entangled with a multiplicity of relations, or more perplexed with an endless diversity of circumstances, than those which relate to commercial affairs; affairs on which the most experienced often disagree, and on which the most sagacious may deceive themselves with erroneous conjectures. ”

“ No other phase of human association is so many-sided, so fundamental, so pregnant for the future. For this reason we may properly begin our study by an examination of a phenomenon which directly concerns the stability of the domestic institution—viz., divorce. What are the facts as to its distribution in France? ”

“ The question how to improve the present condition of domestic service is, however, not a hopeless one, but the answer to it must be based on an examination of the historical and economic principles underlying the subject. ”

“ If you marry as a concession to the government, because you don’t want to ruin your business or have your wife insulted, the government will divorce you—and on the concession basis: but you pay for both the concessions. ”

“ The treatment and conduct of domestics depend on causes which lie far deeper than the principles and tempers of particular servants and masters, as may be seen by a glance at domestic service in England, Scotland, and Ireland. ”

“ Unions in polite society, where forms are observed, laws obeyed and customs followed, but where the moving impulse is sordid, where the marriage is for money or for social position, do they, too, not drift toward mutual hate and abhorrence, to divorce or death? ”

“ There are other cases in which the prudence and forethought, which perhaps might not be exercised by the people themselves, are exercised by the state for their benefit; marriage not being permitted until the contracting parties can show that they have the prospect of a comfortable support. ”

“ Thus, when they hear us talking to, and advising one another about the Order, Distribution, and Contrivance of Household Affairs, about the Regulation of the Family, the Government of Children and Servants, the provident management of a Kitchin, and the decent ordering of a Table, the suitable Matching and convenient disposition of Furniture, and the like, they condemn us for impertinence. Yet they may be pleased to consider, that as the affairs of the World are now divided betwixt us, the Domestick are our share, and out of which we are rarely suffer'd to interpose our Sense. ”

“ Their employers are appointed by God, as the rulers and overseers of the family, and those they hire are under [101] obligation to obey, in all matters relating to family work, just as a citizen is under obligations to obey rulers, when they administer the laws of the state. The master and mistress of a family are rulers of their house, just as magistrates are rulers of the people.
A gentleman of the highest standing for wealth, intelligence, and honour, obeys his rulers in all points where they have a right to direct, whether the laws are good or bad, whether the rulers are wise or foolish. ”

“ The one knows that there is a profession to push, a business to extend; or parliamentary influence, or county patronage, or votes, or office, to be got: position, berths, favours, profit. The other’s thoughts run upon husbands and settlements, wives and dowries. Worthless for their ostensible purpose of daily bringing human beings into pleasurable relations with each other, these cumbrous appliances of our social intercourse are now perseveringly kept in action with a view to the pecuniary and matrimonial results which they indirectly produce. ”

“ It is simply that in such a society the government, in dealing with the family, deals with something almost as permanent and self-renewing as itself. There can be a continuous family policy, like a continuous foreign policy. In peasant countries the family fights, it may almost be said that the farm fights. ”

“ There must be the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, teacher and pupil, employer and employed, each involving the relative duties of subordination. The superior, in certain particulars, is to direct, and the inferior is to yield obedience. Society could never go forward, harmoniously, nor could any craft or profession be successfully pursued, unless these superior and subordinate relations be instituted and sustained. ”

“ From the moment that a nation espouses the particular interests of one family, she is compelled to intervene in a multitude of matters which but for this would be to her a matter of utmost indifference. ”

“ The relations of social life, and the duties resulting from them, must be the same at all times and in all nations: some petty differences may be, indeed, produced, by forms of government or arbitrary customs ”

“ There will be special reason why those who have had special concerns together in this world, in their state of probation, and whose mutual affairs will be then to be tried and judged, should especially be set in one another’s view. Thus we may suppose that rulers and subjects, earthly judges and those whom they have judged, neighbors who have had mutual converse, dealings and contests, heads of families and their children and servants, shall then meet, and in a peculiar distinction be set together. And especially will it be thus with ministers and their people. ”

“ Let us now take the two leading products of human association, the Family and the State. What constitutes the State other than the sentiment of obedience by which a multitude of men collect together under the authority of a chief? ”

“ To talk with intelligent, clever, thinking men and women, who know the secret history of all the famous international marriages, as well as the high contracting parties, who will relate the price paid for the husband, and who the intermediary was, and how much commission he or she received, is to make you turn faint and sick at the mere thought, especially if you happen to come from a country where they once fought to abolish the buying and selling of human beings. ”

“ In the formation of governments, the manner in which the common interest shall be embodied and represented is a matter of conventional arrangement; but in the family an influence more potent than that of contracts and conventionalities, and which everywhere underlies humanity, has indicated that the husband shall fill the necessity which exists for a head. ”

“ Day after day we read of the sensational divorce cases, but there is not one line of the tens of thousands of happy marriages upon which no cloud of discord ever falls. Day after day we read of the scandals of municipal government, but how often do we remember the great army of municipal officials who do their whole duty devotedly, courageously, unselfishly? ”

“ Each of the twain shall be master of his own person and of his property, of his work and of his mode of life; the union shall in each especial case be arranged by the agreement of the individuals, and the law shall decide only the rights and duties of the husband and wife in regard to the children. ”

“ The extended intercourse between individuals, which the formation of the state renders possible, leads to new complications in their dealings with each other, and with it to new forms of right, especially in regard to property ”

“ Monsieur le comte is without relations; it will be many years before your heirs attain their majority; no conflict of interests is, therefore, to be feared. A mother-in-law and a son-in-law placed in such relations will form a household of united interests. ”

“ Living together, each wished that the other should contribute more towards keeping up the household in as much royal state as could be had for the money. Each also wished the other to send away the confidential servants that other most wished to keep, and neither would yield. ”

“ The 75 family and the state, the bond of father and son, the bond of mother and son, the bond of citizenship, these are each and all, one as much as another, powers rightfully claiming human allegiance. ”