318
bounds; in bourgeois marriage, as
Denis de Rougemont wittily ob–
served, every woman had a hus–
band and desired a lover; the great
Continental novels of the nine–
teenth century, Tolstoy's
Anna K a–
renina,
Flaubert's
Madame Bovary,
with their geometry of adultery,
pointed up this paradox. The
growth of romanticism, the high
premium on individual attachment
and free choice, the translation of
passion into secular and carnal
terms-all worked against the sys–
tem of "dynastic" marriage. The
emancipation of women meant, in
one sense, the disappearance of one
of the stable aspects of bourgeois
society.
If
women could marry
freely, crossing class lines if they
so desired, then the economic en–
terprise with which the "dynastic"
marriage was intertwined would
lose some of its staying power.
But there are also reasons more
indigenous to the nature of the
economic system for the mode of
family capitalism having given
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27
way. Some are general: the de–
cline of the extended family or
clan narrowed the choice of heirs
competent to manage the enter–
prise; the increasing importance of
professional techniques placed a
high premium on
skill
rather than
blood relationships. In the United
States one can point to even more
specific factors. The break-up of
family capitalism carne, roughly,
around the turn of the century,
when American industry, having
over-extended itself, underwent a
succession of crises. At this point,
the bankers, with their control of
the money and credit market,
stepped in and reorganized and
took control of many of the coun–
try's leading enterprises. The great
mergers at the turn of the century,
typified by the formation of United
States Steel, marked the emergence
of "finance capitalism" in
this
country.
By their intervention, the invest–
ment bankers, in effect, tore up
the social roots of the capitalist
order. By installing professional
managers-with no proprietary
stakes in the enterprise, therefore
unable to pass along their power
automatically to their sons, and ac–
countable to outside controllers–
the bankers effected a radical sepa–
ration of property and family. The
"young men from the provinces,"
passing through the classrooms of
the Harvard Business School, now
had an avenue by which to ascend
to
high social as well as economic
