The causes of this slow process of breaking up accumulated, according to the particular centre and to social degrees. In one place primogenitureship began to take to itself privileges; in another the paternal power lessened the mother’s authority over her daughters; everywhere there was a tendency towards emancipation, and, finally, in our own day, at the two poles of society, family conditions have become almost artificial. The home peace is troubled, and even where there is no rupture between the husband and wife, there is mental friction between parents and children, between brothers and sisters, through the clash of opinion, mutual intolerance, and the collision of personal interests; it is rarely that harmony prevails in the household. It must be said that the reasons for marriage are not the same as they were in the old days, when the bond was indissoluble, based on the instinct of ownership, on the government of a community. Besides, the marriage for love, the only one worthy of respect, has destroyed the original idea of the association, and, unable to guarantee its own continuance, calls for an adjustment of responsibilities by means of the law, so that the man shall no longer be the brutal master, and the woman--though she be more moral, more virtuous, and more temperate than he--humiliated and degraded. It has been said that it is enough for a woman to be beautiful and to be a mother. That is altogether absurd nonsense. The woman has a right to the complete development of her faculties, a right to bring into play all the resources of her being. Noble women have proved that, quite apart from maternity, they are fit to walk in the immortal footsteps of heroes, artists and thinkers, and every day we see women [Illustration: THE INFANTA EULALIA _Photograph by Baumann, Munich._] becoming, in talent, energy, and patient determination, rivals of scientists, poets, and all who devote themselves to enterprise in the world of mind. But, it may be said, such claims are contrary to the idea of the family. Not at all. The family, essentially modified, each member subject to the determinism of thought and ensuring the observance of mutual rights and duties, will only become a more beautiful institution than before, its children born of sincere love and no longer the product of undesirable or questionable unions based upon the interests of the strongest. THE COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE OF WOMAN To this question squarely put: “Why does a man arrogate to himself the right to live as he chooses, and why should a woman submit to a prohibitive moral code?”--men answer that in marriage the virtue of the wife and the legitimacy of her children are absolutely and supremely essential.