“But allow me to tell you that there are many more bad features in your marriage system, besides those which I have already mentioned, not only between the male and female, but between the parent and child also. From historical knowledge and from the conduct of your present savage, you know that petty tribes are very antagonistic and usually at war with each other; that an individual of such a tribe, who is confined to his limited tribal territory, has little, if any, lofty humanitarian feelings for his fellowmen outside of his own tribe. Your small families have much the same effect on an adult, and even more so on children. The child is thrown in social contact only with a few brothers and sisters, if it has any, and with a few of its very nearest neighbors. This state of things gives a feeble opportunity for the development of broad and deep social feelings, and a lack of these feelings produces these petty antagonisms, strifes, negligence and jealousies, of which there still exists so much on earth. A large family, wide and close association and co-operation, aided by splendid intercommunication, as we have them on Mars, unfold these higher and nobler faculties of man, but especially of the child. Thus the pettiness, engendered by man on earth, is, no doubt, largely due to your jealous marriage system and your small families; these have, in my opinion, also been the cause of your parental narrowness and jealousy; for, as a rule, a parent here, from what I can see, finds as yet little pleasure in helping to nurse and care for your helpless children, unless they happen to be their parents. “With natural and highly developed parental functions, a father loves a child more as _a child_; a mother loves it more as _my_ child. Thus a father, under freedom, finds more pleasure in and is best fitted for providing for the _general_ wants of _children_; while the mother, furnishing the nourishment for the infant, is best fitted to provide the _particular_ wants of _her_ child. Under these conditions all children, in all places, find fathers and mothers; and the pleasurable feelings, resulting from the administration of parental cares, is, in the case of man, the same as in the case of other organisms, ultimately the only incentive which prompts a parent to act toward the offspring.