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Android
for Absolute
Beginners
Getting Started with Mobile Apps
Development Using the Android Java SDK
—
Grant Allen
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Android for Absolute
Beginners
Getting Started with Mobile Apps
Development Using the Android Java SDK
Grant Allen
WOW! eBook
www.wowebook.org
Android for Absolute Beginners: Getting Started with Mobile Apps Development
Using the Android Java SDK
Grant Allen
LONDON, UK
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To all the aspiring new Android developers in the world,
may you have fun while you learn to build new and wonderful applications!
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Table of Contents
About the Author�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xv
About the Technical Reviewer�������������������������������������������������������������������������������xvii
Acknowledgments��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xix
Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xxi
■
■Part I: Get Android, Get Started���������������������������������������������������������� 1
■
■Chapter 1: Introducing Android����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 3
Working with Android: The Best Parts������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 3
Working with Android: The Challenges����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 5
Understanding Android’s Heritage and How It Affects You����������������������������������������������� 6
Understanding Android’s Future��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 9
What to Expect for the Rest of This Book������������������������������������������������������������������������� 9
Detailing More of the Remaining Chapters��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 9
■
■Chapter 2: Introducing Android Studio���������������������������������������������������������������� 13
Understanding What Is Meant by Integrated Development Environment, or IDE������������ 13
The History and Provenance of Android Studio�������������������������������������������������������������� 14
Downloading the Android Studio Installer for Your Platform���������������������������������������������������������������� 14
Working with Android Studio Versions�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 15
Understanding How Android Studio and the Android SDK Work Together�������������������������������������������� 16
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■Chapter 3: Your First Android Application, Already!�������������������������������������������� 33
Creating Your First Android Virtual Device���������������������������������������������������������������������� 33
Creating Your First Android Application, Already!����������������������������������������������������������� 41
Getting Your First Code Written������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 46
Getting Ready to Run Your Application������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 48
Installing (Additional) SDK Packages���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 50
Running Your Application���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 52
■
■Chapter 4: Exploring Your First Project��������������������������������������������������������������� 55
Viewing the Whole Android Project Structure���������������������������������������������������������������� 55
Working with Manifests������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 56
Jiving with Java������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 58
Getting Resourceful with Resources���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 58
Building Everything with Gradle Files��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 60
Summary������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 64
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■Chapter 5: Android Studio In-Depth��������������������������������������������������������������������� 65
Starting with the Project Explorer���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 65
Getting Comfortable Switching Project Explorer Views������������������������������������������������������������������������ 66
Using the Project Explorer Context Menu��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 68
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■Part II: Get the Android Development Know-how��������������������������� 103
■
■Chapter 7: Introducing Java for Android Development������������������������������������� 105
Java, Java, Everywhere������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 106
Android’s Java Time Warp������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 107
Using a JDK Installation for Learning Java����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 107
Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 116
■
■Chapter 8: Introducing XML for Android Development�������������������������������������� 117
Getting Started with XML��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 117
XML Version and Encoding����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 118
XML Elements������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 118
XML Attributes������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 120
XML Values����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 121
XML Namespaces������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 122
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Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 130
■
■Chapter 9: Exploring Android Concepts: Core UI Widgets��������������������������������� 131
Everything Starts with View����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 131
Key Methods Derived from View��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 132
Key Attributes and Properties Derived from View������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 132
Introducing the Core UI Widgets in Android������������������������������������������������������������������ 132
Labeling Things with TextView����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 133
Buttoning the Perfect UI��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 138
Getting the Picture with ImageView and ImageButton����������������������������������������������������������������������� 142
Editing and Inputting Text with EditText���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 144
Checking Out the CheckBox��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 147
Switching It Up with a Switch������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 150
Choosing Things with Radio Buttons�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 153
Mastering XML-Based Layouts with Java Logic: The Best of Both Worlds!������������������ 177
Connecting XML Layout Definition in Java Code�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 178
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■Chapter 11: Understanding Activities���������������������������������������������������������������� 183
Delving into the Android Activity Lifecycle������������������������������������������������������������������� 183
Understanding Activity Lifecycle Callback Methods��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 185
Appreciating the Objectives of the Activity Lifecycle�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 189
■
■Part III: Get Sophisticated��������������������������������������������������������������� 207
■
■Chapter 13: Working with Sound, Audio, and Music for Android���������������������� 209
Playing Back Audio������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 209
Choosing Your Audio Approach����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 209
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Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 231
■
■Chapter 14: Working with Video and Movies for Android���������������������������������� 233
Playing Back Video������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 233
Designing a VideoView-Based Layout������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 234
Controlling Video Playback in Your Code�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 236
Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 249
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■Chapter 15: Introducing Notifications��������������������������������������������������������������� 251
Configuring Notifications���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 251
Customizing Notifications with the Notification Object���������������������������������������������������������������������� 252
Adding Icons for Notifications������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 255
Introducing Notification Channels in API Level 26������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 256
■
■Part IV: Get Together����������������������������������������������������������������������� 275
■
■Chapter 17: Understanding Intents, Events, and Receivers������������������������������� 277
Introducing Android Intents������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 277
Understanding Intent Behavior����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 278
Understanding Intent Routing������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 280
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Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 290
■
■Chapter 18: Introducing Android Services�������������������������������������������������������� 291
Services Background��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 291
Using WorkManager as an Alternative to Services����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 292
Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 304
■
■Chapter 19: Working with Files in Android�������������������������������������������������������� 305
Using Assets and Raw Files����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 305
Populating Lists from Resource Files������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 306
Working with Files from the File System�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 310
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Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 322
■
■Chapter 20: Working with Databases in Android����������������������������������������������� 323
Working with SQLite: The World’s Most Popular Database!����������������������������������������� 323
Quickly Learning SQLite for Android Development������������������������������������������������������� 324
Creating SQLite Databases for Your Applications������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 325
Introducing the SQLiteExample Application���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 326
Creating a Database-Driven Activity��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 330
Choosing Query Approaches for SQLite and Android�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 333
Managing Results from Queries with Cursors������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 335
Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 343
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■Index ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 345
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About the Author
Grant Allen, PhD, has worked in the technology field for over 20 years, as a CTO,
entrepreneur, and emerging technology expert. After successful startup exits and a decade
at Google, Grant’s focus is now mentoring and coaching startups and hi-tech companies
on building great teams and great technology. He is a frequent speaker on topics such as
big data, mobile ecosystems, Android, wearables, IoT, disruptive innovation, and more.
Grant has a PhD in computer science based on research he performed while at Google and
an MBA specializing in technology management, and he is the author of seven books on
various mobile platform and data technology topics.
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association which could not exist in a group ruled by individual
inclination.
During the development of the family, we may expect to find that
the males will seek to hold their rights, and that the women of the
group will exert their influence more and more in breaking these
down; and this is precisely what we do find. And for this reason the
clan system, which developed from these solitary hostile families,
must be considered as a feminine creation, which had special
relation to motherhood.
The sexual egoism by which one male, through his strength and
seniority, held marital rights over all the females of his group had to
be struck at its roots. In other words, the solitary despot had to
learn to tolerate the association of other adult males.
It is impossible for me here to follow step by step the means
whereby this change was brought about. I would, however, assert
my strong belief that it was the mothers, acting in the interests of
their children, who tamed the jealous desires and domesticated the
males. The adult sons, instead of being driven from the home by the
father, were permitted to remain as members of the family group
and to bring in young wives captured from other families. At a later
stage, daughters received husbands, young males from other
groups, who came first as temporary lovers, visiting their brides by
night, but afterwards remained with them as permanent guests in
the home of the mother. Under these new conditions, the marital
rights of the male members were restricted and confined. A system
of taboos was established, which, as time advanced, was greatly
strengthened by the use of sacred totem marks, and became of
inexorable strictness.
In this way peace was established, and association between the
jealous fighting males was made possible.
Here, then, are the reasons which led to the formation of the
maternal family and the communal clan. It depended, in the first
place, on the development of mutual aid between mother and
offspring, based on the much closer relationship of the children to
their mothers than to the father. As soon as the women of the
family-group by combination were able to outwit and curb the
jealous rule of the father, the matriarchal clan developed from the
primitive patriarchal family.
The contrast between the family and clan seems to me of great
importance. Individual relationships became of less importance; the
clan did not consist of groups of families but of individuals. I have
stated that the sexual relationships between the young people
began with the reception by the daughters of temporary lovers in
the clan-home. A connection thus formed would tend under
favourable circumstances to be continued and would be perpetuated
as a marriage. Thus it came to be the custom for the husband to live
temporarily or permanently in the wife’s home and among her
kindred. Here he was compelled to work for the general good; he
was without property or any recognised rights in the clan; he was
not permitted a separate home, and was left with no—or very little—
control over his wife and none over the children of the marriage. He
occupied, indeed, the position of a more or less permanent guest in
the maternal hut or tent.
Under such an organisation the family—the first group of the
father, wives and children—is swallowed up in the larger clan. The
male has no position of mastery over the female. As time goes on,
the clan becomes more and more a free association for mutual
protection, ruled over by the ablest and most capable members. Not
only does the father not stand out as a principal person from the
background of the familial clan; he has not even any recognised
domestic rights in connection with his own wife and children. This
restriction of the husband and father was clearly dependent on the
form of marriage.
The later modifications of the communal clan and the social
customs that grew up, in most cases—and always, I believe, in the
complete maternal form—were favourable to the authority of the
mothers. Kinship was reckoned through the mother, the totem name
was taken from her, since in this way alone could the undivided
family be maintained. The continuity of the clan thus depending on
the women they were placed in a position of importance; the mother
was at least the nominal head of the household, shaping the destiny
of the clan through the aid of her kindred.
All the members of such a compound family were responsible for
the offences of any individual member; and in the same way the
clan exacted blood vengeance or compensation collectively for any
offence committed against its members. But the men belonged to
their own clans, that is, to the clans of their mothers; they did not
belong to and had no rights in the clan of which their wife and
children were members. As husbands and fathers they were without
power. This is very important. The woman’s closest male relation
was not her husband, but her brother, who acted as father to her
children.
A pure type of matriarchal family fully preserved is rare. There are
scattered tribes in different parts of the world where descent is still
reckoned through the mother. Some features favourable to women
are found in one community, some in another. The sexual
relationships, in particular, are interesting. The girl is frequently the
wooer of the man, and in certain cases she or her mother imposes
the conditions of the marriage. After marriage, the free provisions
for divorce (often more favourable to the wife than to the husband)
are, perhaps, of even greater significance.
There are many traces of discipline exercised in the bringing up of
children and more or less systematic training of boys in endurance,
speed, courage, etc. This task falls to the mother’s brother. The
daughters are instructed by the mothers and the matrons of the
tribe in all that concerns their duties as wives and mothers.
The woman is subject to the authority of her eldest brother, and
sometimes as well to that of her other brothers, her uncles and male
relations. But descent being reckoned in the female line, and the fact
that she is the conduit by which property passes to and from the
men, gives the woman a position of very considerable, though
varying, importance.
In all cases the power of the wife is clearly dependent on the
maternal form of marriage. I must insist upon this. Where this
custom of the husband living in the home of the wife was practised
for any long period, the women often established their own claims
and all property was held by them; conditions which, under
favourable circumstances, developed into what may literally be called
a matriarchate. Elder women among some tribes are the heads of
kinsfolk, they even have a seat or voice in the tribal council, and
there have been exceptional cases of female tribal chiefs. Religion is
in some periods in the hands of women, and goddesses are more
reverenced than gods. Here is certain proof of the favourable
influence mother-descent may exercise on the authority held by
women. In all circumstances the children’s position was dependent
on the mother and her kindred.
Such a system of inheritance may be briefly summarised as
mother-right.
Other forms of marriage are found; indeed, every possible
experiment in family and sexual association has been tried and is still
practised among barbarous races, often with very little reference to
those moral ideas to which we are accustomed. It is, however, very
necessary to remember that monogamy is frequent and indeed usual
under the maternal system. When the husband lives with his wife in
a dependent position to her family, he can do so only in the case of
one woman. For this reason polygamy is much less deeply rooted
under the conditions in which the communal life of the compound
family is developed than in the single patriarchal family. Polygamy is
an indication, if not always a proof, of the subordination of women
to the headship of the husband. In the complete maternal family it is
never common and is even prohibited.
It was quite otherwise with polyandry, and though less usual than
monogamy, this form of association is in some cases connected with
the conditions of the maternal clan. I do not believe it can be
regarded as due to a licentious view of the sexual relations, but
arose as an expression of the communism which was characteristic
of such an organisation.
The whole subject of primitive sexual relationships—which, of
course, involves the family, the position of woman and the welfare of
the children—is a very wide and complicated one. If I differ on
several important points from learned authorities, whose knowledge
and research far exceed my own, I do so only after great hesitation,
and because I must. Almost invariably the writers on these questions
are men, and perhaps for this reason the position of women has not
received the attention that it claims. My own studies have convinced
me that in the early beginnings of the human family women
exercised a more direct and stronger influence than is usually
believed. This is no fanciful idea of my own, as I claim to have
proved in my earlier book,[66] where it was possible to bring forward
in detail the evidence I have collected on the subject.
But even in this brief summary enough has been said to give in
rough outline some picture of the family under the conditions of the
maternal communal clan. We have marked the steady strengthening
of the tie between the mother and the child, with the corresponding
movement in the opposite direction in regard to the father’s position
in the family. All the chances for success in parenthood rested with
the mother, rather than with the father. The male was driven out
from the holy circle of the family. This degradation of fatherhood is a
fact that must be kept before our attention.[67]
There is, however, another side to the matter. In the face of what
we have established, it must, I think, be accepted that women held
considerable power in this period of mother-descent and under the
maternal form of marriage. The mother was dominant in the family
in this second stage of its development. This is still denied by some
authorities. There are many facts of the early power of women
which the great world does not know.
How, then, are we to come to a decision? Shall we look back to
the maternal stage as the golden period of the family wherein were
realised conditions of free motherhood, which even to-day have not
been established? It is a question very difficult to answer, and we
must not in any haste rush into mistakes. And unfortunately the
limitation of my space can allow only the briefest consideration of
the matter.
We find that the mother-age was a transitional stage in the history
of the growth of society, and we can trace the stages of its gradual
decline. There is nothing to show that the customs of maternal
communism, dependent on descent traced in the female line and the
maternal form of marriage, have ever been permanently maintained
in any progressive society. The enlarged family of the maternal clan
is thus proved to have been a less stable social system than the
patriarchal single family which again succeeded it, or it would not
have perished in the struggle with it. I think this must be accepted.
Within the large and undivided group-family of the clan, the
restricted family became gradually re-established by a reassertion of
domestic interests. In proportion as the family gained in importance
(which would arise as the struggle for existence lessened and the
need of association was less imperative) the interests of the
individual members would become separated from the group to
which they belonged. As society advanced and personal property
began to be acquired, each man would aim at gaining a more
exclusive right over his wife and children; he would not willingly
submit to the bondage of the maternal form of marriage.
We find the husband and father moving towards the position of a
fully acknowledged legal parent by a system of buying off his wife
and her children from their clan-group. Then the payment of a bride-
price was claimed from the bridegroom by the bride’s relations, and
an act of purchase was accounted essential before marriage; it was,
however, regarded as a condition, not so much of the marriage itself,
but of the transference of the wife to the home of the husband and
of the children to his kindred. The change was, of course, effected
slowly; often we find the two forms of marriage—the maternal form
and the purchase-marriage—occurring side by side. What, however,
is certain is that the purchase-marriage in the struggle was the one
which prevailed.
This reversal in the form of the marriage brought about a
corresponding reversal in the position of the woman in the sexual
relationship. This is so plain. As the patriarchate developed, and men
began to gain individual possession of their children by the purchase
of their mothers, the father became the dominant power in the
family. Women no longer are the transmitters of property and of the
family name, but are themselves property passing from the hands of
their kindred to those of a husband. As purchased wives, they reside
in the husband’s house and among his kin, where they occupy the
same position of disadvantage in the family as the husband and
father had done under the maternal marriage. The protection of her
own kindred was the source of the wife’s privileged position. This
now was lost. The change was not brought about without a struggle,
and for long the old customs contended with the new. But step by
step the man became the father-master in the home.
It is, however, very necessary to remember that this reversal in
the marriage custom may well have been brought about as much by
the desire of the women as by the action of the men. I believe that
the change to the individual family must have been regarded
favourably by primitive women. An arrangement which would give a
closer relationship in marriage and the protection of a husband for
herself and her children may well have been preferred by the wife to
the position of subjection in which she was frequently placed to the
authority of her brother and her own relatives. Nor do I think it
unlikely that she, quite as strongly as the man, may have desired to
live apart from her mother and her kindred in her husband’s home.
We have to remember that the reassertion of the father within the
family-group was a necessary step, and one that had to be taken.
The mother is bound to the family by her children in a much closer
way than the man ever can be bound. And for this reason any
conditions which separate the father from the home and liberate him
from his responsibilities to his children are certain not to act in the
direction of progress. The male needs to be held to the family. This
is a fact much too often forgotten.
The social clan organised around the mothers carried mankind a
long way—a way the length of which we are only beginning to
realise. But it could not carry mankind forward to the closer family
ties and family life from which so much was afterwards to develop.
The clan system was essential to the conditions of primitive life,
owing to the fierce struggle to exist, and it could then limit and
interfere with the family on every side. But as soon as life was
easier, men wanted to establish a home with wife and children and
to enjoy the possession of property. And women wanted this too. It
was not possible for the family to be permanently absorbed. I must
insist upon this again. The individual family—that is, the trinity
composed of father, mother and child—is the older and the more
lasting institution.
I affirm, further, that of the two forms of the family, the individual
limited form is the one that is the more natural and happy. Special
circumstances may make necessary the enlarged social family, but
such conditions are not really a step forward.
With all the evils and restrictions that father-right and the
individual family-group may, throughout the ages, have brought to
women, we have got to remember that the woman owes the
individual relationship in love and the protection of the man for
herself and her children to the patriarchal system. The father’s right
in his children (which, unlike the right of the mother, was not
founded upon kinship, but rested on the quite different and insecure
basis of property) had to be re-established. Without this being done,
the family in its fairness and complete development was impossible.
The survival value of the patriarchal family consists in the additional
gain to the children of the father’s to the mother’s care. I do not
think this gain can ever safely be lost.
PART IV
MOTHERHOOD AND THE
RELATIONSHIPS OF THE SEXES
“For the great majority of mankind at least it can be held that life
resolves itself quite simply and obviously into three cardinal phases.
There is a period of youth and preparation, a great insurgence of
emotion and enterprise centring about the passion of Love; and a
third period in which, arising amidst the warmth and stir of the
second, interweaving indeed with the second, the care and love of
offspring becomes the central interest in life.… Looking at this with a
primary regard to its broadest aspect, life is seen essentially as a
matter of reproduction; first a growth and training to that end, then
commonly mating and actual physical reproduction, and finally the
consummation of these things in parental nurture and education.
Love, Home and Children, these are the heart-words of life.”—H. G.
Wells.
CHAPTER VIII
THE FAMILY AND THE HOME
“The ideal which the mother and wife makes for herself, the manner in which
she understands duty and life, contain the fate of the community.”—Amiel’s
Journal.
There are some who hold that the family rests on a trembling
quicksand, and state that its supporters are compelled to weave a
network of lies to sustain its foundation. We hear much wild talk,
and a great deal is said about the restrictions imposed by the family,
and very little about its duties and its joys. There is, and I think its
existence must be faced, a growing tide of discontent which would
seem to render the stability of the home more and more precarious
—the faint-hearted cry to us that everything is coming to an end. It
is not so, but rather, everything is about to be renewed.
Institutions as vital to life as the family will continue. From the
most distant period of life, among the animals as among mankind,
the history of the family has been a long series of regenerations. We
have found witness to this again and again in the past records of
pre-human and primitive human parenthood. And, indeed, the most
important result we have gained from our long inquiry is the
abundant proof it has furnished of the indestructible character of the
family.
Wherever the individual family (the lasting union of the male with
the female for the protection of the young) has been departed from
for some other and perhaps freer form of sexual association a return
has followed. Special conditions have called forth experiments, new
family arrangements, but in no case have they become universal and
permanent. We cannot argue against all that the past teaches us.
And assuredly the history of the family turns into foolishness many
reforms that, in our blindness, we are seeking to-day. We believe
they will bring progress and freedom to women. But what sure
ground have we for such a belief? In truth we have much to learn.
Institutions have this in common with rivers, they do not readily
flow backwards. If they sometimes seem to retro-grade, it is
generally only a mere appearance, and though tributary streams
break away in experimental courses the main river flows on. You will
see what I mean by this. The changes that will take place, and have
for long been taking place, have been changes not affecting the
fundamental qualities in the ideal of the family—its permanence, the
fidelity of its partners in thought and deed, its sentiments and its
obligations of joyous sacrifice in united parental care. Attacks have
altered (and it is well that they have altered) the dominance of the
male. The patriarchal customs of proprietary ownership are gradually
disappearing both for the wife and for the children. The family has
broadened. The feeling of hostility to the outer world, the self-
centredness—much that limited the family is being changed. But the
idea of the family, and its value as one of the most essential forms of
social life, remains unaffected.
And mark this: No ideals whatever have been produced by even
the most progressive and enlightened persons to replace the family
group.
The wild reforms contemplated by some among us, who talk, but
fortunately do not act, are fog and nonsense.
The home, in particular, has been spoken of with contempt. Thus,
Bernard Shaw, who in the reforms he advocates fails so frequently to
see the real human needs of life, cries: “Home is the girls’ prison and
the woman’s workhouse.” Again, W. L. George in Women and To-
morrow (a “To-morrow” which, by the way, I trust I may never live
to see) states: “The home is the enemy of Woman. Purporting to be
her protector, it is her oppressor. It is her fortress, but she does not
live in the state apartments, she lives in a dungeon.”
Mr. H. G. Wells, in a much more recent utterance, wherein he
professes to forecast “What is Coming,” speaks even more strongly,
and all the present conditions are estimated. He states: “Now, to be
married is an incident in a woman’s career, as in a man’s.” (The
italics are mine.) “There is not the same necessity of that household,
not the same close tie; the married woman remains partially a
freewoman and assimilates herself to the freewoman. There is an
increasing disposition to group solitary children and to delegate their
care to specially qualified people; and this is likely to increase,
because the high earning power of young women will incline them to
entrust their children to others.”
And again, at the conclusion of his article on “The War and
Women,” Mr. Wells sums up the situation as follows: “To sum all that
has gone before, this war is accelerating rather than deflecting the
stream of tendency, and is bringing us rapidly to a state of affairs in
which women will be much more definitely independent of their
sexual status, much less hampered in their self-development and
much more nearly equal to men than has ever been known before in
the whole history of mankind.”
Now, if these two late pronouncements of Mr. Wells are compared
with what he wrote a few years back, with the quotation from
Mankind in the Making which I have placed before this section of my
book because it so well expresses my own views, I think the harm
that of late years has been working is strongly evident; harm that is
incredibly active in our consciousness.[68]
Such talk of my sex as “freewomen” and of a liberation from the
sexual life, as if that could be possible, fills me with impatience. I
would not wait to notice it did I not believe that the hurt done to
women had been deep and far-reaching. It has increased for them
the difficulty of unifying life. And this uncertainty of desire is, as I
believe, the modern disease which has worked such havoc in the
souls of women. I would like to silence all useless, impious negators;
those who, seeking to be clever, really are blinkered, and unable to
see the results that would follow from their destructions. The error in
all these outcries is the error of blindness, of getting into a condition
of confused intellectual excitement, and because some women are
dissatisfied and have been unhappy, saying, therefore, and usually
with passion, that they would be more satisfied if all the sex were
freed from its own duties. As if freedom were ever gained by
running away. The intellectual reformer is so very far from
understanding the real human needs. There is, for instance, a
significant omission in the quotations I have given—no mention is
made of the results of all this to the child, and no suggestion is
offered except that it should be trained and cared for by experts and
apart from its parents. The home is to go because it restricts the
liberty of women and will hinder their earning power, as if this were
all that had to be considered. I can hardly find a more striking
example of how far the apparently simple and elemental things
escape the attention of the intellectual reformer.
In the society in which we are living, the only use that can be
made of modern progressive teaching about the family—the only
ounces of practice to be derived from pounds of precept—will lead,
as I believe, to a very undesirable course of action. The programme
for the abolition of the home has been outlined for us by reformers
of both sexes. Communal houses and kitchens, and the intervention
of armies of experts, are to solve the problems which now keep
women tied in the individual home. The parents are to be
supplanted by “born educators.” Successive institutions are planned
for the bottle-period, kindergarten, school age, and so on. The
children are to stand on visiting relations to the individual home and
their parents, while their bodies and souls are to be cared for by
specialists. And we are asked to believe that this will be a gain to the
child! “It is the trained hand that the baby needs, not mere blood
relationship … personal love is too hot an atmosphere for the young
soul.”[69]
Now, if I wanted a general term to express the state of mind of
these reformers, I do seriously think the word inhuman would be as
near to it as any. Some people talk as if there were no emotional
quality to decide these questions; they are dry-minded and quite
unable to grasp the true values in life.
And the essence of all such folly is an insupportable egoism. The
whole argument against the home is based on the claim of woman
to lead an independent life. Independent of what? It is not easy to
answer. It is asserted that the ideal of the home as the special care
of woman has tied her to material things; it is urged that her
emancipation from the fetish of the home is essential for her soul’s
freedom. The feminists ask us to make the wage-earning woman our
ideal, instead of regarding her, as I do, as the unfortunate victim of
industrial life and industrial ideals—and this is a very dangerous
attitude and one which cannot fail to affect very seriously the fate of
the home in the future. It is this that causes me such grave fear. The
ideals that we set before us do exercise an influence greater than we
know.
Now, I am not much moved by this modern cry for liberty. What is
this freedom for which women have been clamouring? In what
tyranny are they held other than that in which their womanhood
holds them? Is the new liberty to be found as sweated workers? Will
it come even now when women’s industrial work is being sought for
and well paid? Can it ever come from the fevered effort to live the
same lives as men live and do the same work that men do?
But this kind of view is of a most superficial sort, and one that,
comparatively speaking, is new. Before the coming of industrialism
the ideals of women were far different and were centred in the
home. The family was then firmly established on the patriarchal
system.
I have just read a Russian book[70] which gives a perfect picture
of the patriarchal home. The scene is described by a child: the head
of the house has died and the new male-head comes from the
death-bed. He is thus received by the women of the house—