On the other hand,
I do believe in the family; therefore I would mend the family
as I would mend a chair; and I will never deny for a moment that
the modern family is a chair that wants mending. But here comes
in the essential point about the mass of modern advanced sociologists.
Here are two institutions that have always been fundamental with mankind,
the family and the state. Anarchists, I believe, disbelieve in both.
It is quite unfair to say that Socialists believe in the state,
but do not believe in the family; thousands of Socialists believe
more in the family than any Tory. But it is true to say that while
anarchists would end both, Socialists are specially engaged in mending
(that is, strengthening and renewing) the state; and they are
not specially engaged in strengthening and renewing the family.
They are not doing anything to define the functions of father, mother,
and child, as such; they are not tightening the machine up again;
they are not blackening in again the fading lines of the old drawing.
With the state they are doing this; they are sharpening its machinery,
they are blackening in its black dogmatic lines, they are making mere
government in every way stronger and in some ways harsher than before.
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