The family / by Helen Bosanquet.

  • Bosanquet, Helen Dendy, 1860-1925.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The family / by Helen Bosanquet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    4 THE EAMILY PART and the duties of children were almost exclusively predominant ; but to-day more would be found to emphasise the rights of children and duties of parents, while not a few treat the relationship of duty or responsibility between parents and children at all as obsolete. But apart from these ambiguities, in our simplest conception of the Family, we find it susceptible of the widest divergences of interpretation. In extent it has varied, and still varies, from signifying just one pair and their offspring to including all the genera¬ tions which have sprung from any one known or reputed ancestor. In practice almost any degree between these two extremes may be found as con¬ stituting the accepted Family. It is a matter of very differing custom, even in different parts of the same country, how nearly related a cousin must be in order to be accounted of the same Family ; while probably as individuals we should assume a different attitude according as his claim was to be entered on the pedigree, or admitted into the family circle. And how largely this question of the extent of the family relationship is one of human convention we learn still more emphatically from history, when we find that there have been times when only those descending through males were accounted of the Family, while yet again there have been other times when only those descending from the females were recognised. The purpose of the Family, as conceived by those