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This book deals in Part I. with what, according to the author, the family ought to be, in Part II. with obstacles to its normal functioning, and in Part III. with what society can do to make it function better. The social and individual advantages of monogamy and the evils of its alternatives are paraded with a sustained enthusiasm only marred by one curious slip of the pen—'the "New Morality" (Free Love) will continue, as it always has, to leave in its wake nothing but human happiness (sic !) and inefficiency' (p. 13). Mr. Popenoe, having decided that the family must be monogamous, proceeds to consider it in great detail. The partners must be of suitable age, and free from congenital complaints; the social sanctions must be adequate, the children numerous, especially if their quality is good, and the influence of the parents upon each other and upon their children must make for concord and utility. As injurious to his ideal he disapproves alike of celibacy and of incontinence, of easy divorce and prostitution, of the rich who propagate too little and of the poor who propagate too much.
Analysts study individuals and the conditions that unfit some of them for normal life; Mr. Popenoe is not interested in individuals—his care is for the State. Analysts have observed, for example, that prolonged continence before marriage is sometimes among the factors which hinder