In all civilizations inequalities of wealth arise, and make possible social privileges differing from the common practices of the general population. Under such circumstances we always find social types at variance with established conceptions of right, and human nature showing itself in many cases unspeakably repulsive when free from any economic restraint. This is perhaps, the effect of a freedom from restraint which is made possible by great wealth. The only restraint then is public opinion or religious precepts; the former is easily swayed by the powerful and wealthy, and the latter often admits of a tolerance not shown to the masses of the people. In industrial communities where no great inequalities of wealth exist, the marriage relation tends toward monogamy. Even where western civilization has made little impression on social institutions, great and conscious inequalities do not often exist between the sexes, and woman’s position is not a degraded one. All the important factors entering into economic life, tending to create serious distinctions--social, political and industrial--between men and men, between the rich and the poor, tend to differentiate status between men and women. Women are most degraded in the marriage relations where they are economically the weakest; where they personally control the least wealth. The few who are more fortunately situated are not sufficiently numerous to make any impressive protest even if they desired to do so. In a society where the few dictate to the many because of their financial strength, in a society marked by inequalities originating in predatory exploitation, we find in a greater or less degree moral discrepancies with the prevailing conception of right and wrong. Normal industrial life tends to promote a normal moral life, and to develop ideals most conducive to a steady progress. When the family represented an exclusive economic unit with little dependence upon the outside world, it was of economic importance to both men and women to marry, and thus lay the foundation for household prosperity. Wife and children were never a luxury to the poor man, but of real economic value. This fact is apparent in new countries where the form of industry must be necessarily domestic. Women have been shipped in large numbers to new colonies to marry the settlers. In practically all cases the women went voluntarily for they too appreciated the importance of obtaining for themselves a place in homes where so much of the social and economic life of the time centered. These unions, primarily economic resulted often in family groups containing much of the ideal.