The equality which logic had established between the sexes dissolved the family tie.

It was impossible for law to dictate the conditions on which two free and equal individuals should live together, merely because they differed in sex.

All the State could do it did; it insisted on a provision for the children.

But when parental affection was extinguished, such provision could only be secured by handing over the infant and its portion to the guardianship of the State.

As children were troublesome and noisy, the practice of giving them up to public officers to be brought up in vast nurseries regulated on the strictest scientific principles became the general rule, and was soon regarded as a duty; what was at first almost openly avowed selfishness soon justifying and glorifying itself on the ground that the children were better off under the care of those whose undivided attention was given to them, and in establishments where everything was regulated with sole regard to their welfare, than they could be at home.