Note 564 — Chapter VI · [168] DISCUSSION OF KINSHIP
Reading edition
The importance of the emotional character of parental kinship has already been theoretically studied. Prof. K. Buecher (loc. cit., p. 19) represents the primitive parents as selfish, heartless, with no love or attachment for the child, and draws important conclusions from this. Dr. Steinmetz has subjected this assumption to a thorough criticism; taking his stand on a rich collection of ethnological data, he shows that this assumption is without any ground; he fully acknowledges the importance in sociological researches of behaviour, treatment and emotional attitude in the parental relation. Compare his important article in Zeitschr. f. Soziologie, i. pp. 608 sqq., and Ethnologische Studien, ii. pp. 186 sqq.