The monasteries and convents, which have existed in all ages, have been maintained solely by the annihilation of that peculiar affection on which the separate family is based. The Shaker families, in which the two sexes are not entirely dissociated, can yet only maintain their union by forbidding and preventing the growth of personal affection other than that of a spiritual character. And this, in fact, is not personal in the sense of individual, but ever a manifestation of universal affection. Spite of the speculations of hopeful bachelors and aesthetic spinsters, there is somewhat in the marriage bond which is found to counteract the universal nature of the affections to a degree tending at least to make considerable pause, before they can be blended into one harmony.
The general condition of married persons at this time is some evidence of the existence of such doubt in their minds. Were they as convinced as the unmarried of the beauty and truth of associate life, the demonstration would be now presented. But might it not be enforced that the two family ideas really neutralize one another? It is not quite certain that the human heart cannot be set in two places; that man cannot worship at two altars? It is only the determination to do what parents consider the best for themselves and their families, which renders the o'er populous world such a wilderness of selfhood as it is. Destroy this feeling, they say, and you prohibit every motive for exertion. Much truth is there in this affirmation. For to them no other motive remains, nor indeed to any one else, save that of the universal good, which does not permit the building up of supposed self-good, and, therefore, forecloses all possibility of an individual family.
These observations, of course, equally apply to all the associative attempts, now attracting so much public attention; and perhaps most especially to such as have more of Fourier's designs than are observable at Brook Farm. The slight allusion in all the writers of the "Phalansterian" class, to the subject of marriage, is rather remarkable. They are acute and eloquent in deploring woman's oppressed and degraded position in past and present times, but are almost silent as to the future. In the meanwhile, it is gratifying to observe the success which in some departments attend every effort, and that Brook Farm is likely to become comparatively eminent in the highly important and praiseworthy attempts to render labor of the hands more dignified and noble, and mental education more free and loveful. C. L.