doubt prior in time and more fundamental,--more important in human
association. We shall, therefore, study very briefly the origin and
development of the family as a human institution in order to illustrate
some of the principles of social evolution in general. But before we can
take up the question of the origin of the family it will be well for us
to see just what the function of this institution is in the human
society of the present, in order to justify the assertion just made that
it is the most important and fundamental institution of humanity.

The Family the Primary Social Institution.--Let us note first of all
that in society, as it exists at present, the family is the simplest
group capable of maintaining itself. It is, therefore, we may say, the
primary social structure. Because it contains both sexes and all ages it
is capable of reproducing itself, and so of reproducing society. For the
same reason it contains practically all social relations in miniature.
It has therefore often been called, and rightly, "the social microcosm".
The relations of superiority, subordination, and equality, which enter
so largely into the structure of all social institutions, are especially
clearly illustrated in the family in the relations of parents to
children, of children to parents, of parents to each other, and of
children to one another. Comte, for this reason, claimed that the family
was the unit of social organization, not the individual. However this
may be, it is evident that families do enter, as units, very largely
into our social and industrial life. While the tendency may be to make
the individual the unit of modern society, it is nevertheless true that
the family remains the simplest social structure in society, and from
it, in some sense, all other social relations whatsoever are evolved.

_The Family Differs from All Other Social Institutions_, however,
in two respects: First, its members have their places fixed in the