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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Marriage and family the basis of a strong society?
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
I was at a wedding the other day, and the phrase was used that "marriage and the family is the basis of a strong society". I was unsure at the time, and the more I think of it, the more I worry about this.
The problem is that this would imply that singles and those who are not in "families" - generally meaning one man one woman and children - are not part of our society.
I am also concerned that the "insular" nature of this - a family looking after itself - is not the core basis of our society. It is the relationships and engagements across all sorts of connections that makes our society strong. It is neighbours and families and singles and school-gate-groups and tai-chi classes and writing groups that make society strong. It is people who are prepared to help others, support the down-and-out, stock and help at food banks, volunteer at shelters, make society work despite the efforts of some people to destroy it.
I do think that family and marriage are important. But I think I would understand these terms is much wider terms - committed relationships of all sorts are important. But they are only part of the interaction of relationships that make for a strong society.
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Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I was at a wedding the other day, and the phrase was used that "marriage and the family is the basis of a strong society". I was unsure at the time, and the more I think of it, the more I worry about this.
The problem is that this would imply that singles and those who are not in "families" - generally meaning one man one woman and children - are not part of our society.
I think the idea is that families once provided the basic unit of care, moral instruction and support which would enable both individuals and communities to function well, and hence create strong societies. So it wasn't an attempt to exclude single people, since single people themselves were nurtured and formed by families.
It seems obvious that the importance of the family in Britain has declined with the growth of state support and individualism, and heterosexual marriage is now more of an optional celebration of romantic love and less of a rite of passage on the way to founding a strong family.
Perhaps when conducting weddings clergymen feel they must insist that strong heterosexual marriages and families still matter to society at large, but I suspect that few of their listeners are likely to take it very seriously, unless they're folk who lead a sheltered life. Ordinary people, even churchgoers, realise that society is different now.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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PaulBC
Shipmate
# 13712
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Posted
I know, from experience in many parts of the church in North America if you are single and not in missions there is something dreadfully wrong with you. A paralell to if you don't have a happy slappy smile you have a deep spiritual problem.
Of course they are wrong . I wonder if I would a happy person if married ? I can be a right old so & so at times . But just cause I am single doesn't make it impossible to serve the church, I have a friend who went on a short term mission with Operation Mobilization and she still with them 30 years later. I served 2 churches here 1 as a libtrarian for 18 years and 2nd as a server also for 18 years . In most places thats known as a career !! For me it was doing what I could help the church I was/am part of
and I was happy though single .
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"He has told you O mortal,what is good;and what does the Lord require of youbut to do justice and to love kindness ,and to walk humbly with your God."Micah 6:8
Posts: 873 | From: Victoria B.C. Canada | Registered: May 2008
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Personally I would say that marriage and the family are one of the basis of society, but that doesn't mean they are the only basis of society. Or that if you aren't part of a marriage or a family you're not part of society. It seems to me that society is the interlocking of individuals to form increasingly greater units, and certainly one of those units can be a marriage and family. But that doesn't mean it's the only unit.
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Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
It's just one of many things that we (Christians) "just say" all the time (I could list others) and by saying them all the time we come to believe them, believe even that they are somehow biblical or God's will-- despite any real evidence that that is the case. As noted above, the more you think about it, the more troubling it is. The implications for singles, for divorcees, for widow/ers, for childless couples-- theologically it's a minefield. But we say it all the time so it just must be true.
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Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Even worse, far too often we say it without thinking assuming it's a Christian value, when all we're doing are repeating what some politicians who may have all sorts of agendas are saying.
I think it's fair to say that within the Bible it is normal for the household to be the base unit in society. Which is not the same as the nuclear family of the modern West.
The Biblical household would be the extended family - so not the pair of adults and 2.4 children, but the grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins etc - many of whom would probably be 'single' (though, how you would apply that word to a setting where you're surrounded by family, it's just that none of them are your spouse). And, the household would also include servants, if there was a trade possibly an apprentice or two who are not blood relatives, tenants of a large landowning family etc.
So, if we accept the Biblical pattern to be normative, we've got the wrong definition of 'family'. And, if we don't accept the Biblical pattern to be normative we have no other Scriptural foundation on which to base a claim about the importance of marriage and family.
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Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
I wouldn't underestimate the value of childless aunts and uncles, mentors and friends in the family system, either.
I know I would have had a much more difficult time as a teenager if I hadn't had my childless godparents in my life, all three of them.
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Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
Of course it's true!!
For goodness' sake; why do people want to denigrate something just because not everyone can experience it?
Anyway, it shows the decline in the respect and regard for 'the family' when people start to retreat into the '2 parent, 2.5 children' model.
Surely 'family' is aunts and uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces, grandad and grandma - and increasingly nowadays great grandad and great grandma. Yes, there are many people who choose to be single or, through circumstance or lack of opportunity, become single again. But family life is not just being married or being a parent.
In my immediate family there is me - married with 3 adult sons; one sister, divorced but now partnered and with 2 sons, a married sister who has 2 kids and 2 stepsons, a sister who, at 42, has never married and never had a boyfriend to my knlwledge! - and my mother who was widowed at 60 and now lives alone at 74. This is a family and you can add to it the aunts and uncles, cousins, etc - some of whom 'have no family' (to use the narrow definition) but who are part of a wider circle.
And, because this is a religious discussion forum, we remember that the Bible and Judaism itself, speak very much of that wider family - the household.
The church's witness is that the family is vital - and our mission and ministry is to ensure that the solitary are placed in families (Psalm 68 v 6)
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Surely 'family' is aunts and uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces, grandad and grandma - and increasingly nowadays great grandad and great grandma.
Yes, but in the context of a wedding statements about family will be about husband and wife, and any potential future children.
And, if we're discussing politics then it's the same pattern - family is two adults with children. When was the last time a politician proposed supporting families through the tax system to mean give everyone who is part of an extended family a tax break?
The challenge today is for those of us who recognise that the Biblical model (and, for that matter the pattern throughout practically all of human history) is of an extended family being the fundamental community unit. How does that model work out in the modern western world of geographic dispersion? It's quite easy to see how it works when the extended family are all living in the same place, either in a family home or in a series of smaller homes in close proximity. At present I'm living in a location where the number of close relatives within 1000 miles is precisely zero. Even when back in Scotland, the number of close relatives in the same town is still zero; within 1h travel I have a brother, it's more than 3h travel before the number of family members starts to get reasonable (1 brother, 1 sister and nephew, one cousin with her children), it takes 8h to get to my mum or my other sister. I'm not unique in that, and for a lot of people they have even less close family nearby.
Modern society has fragmented, in many cases totally destroyed, any functional extended family. We no longer have grandparents who can provide childcare, cousins for the children to play with after school. We're reduced to holiday visits and Skype. What alternative for a strong society do we have left? Politicians, and often the church in compliant support of politicians, just adds to the burden of parenthood. "Raise your children well, work full time to pay for the costs, have no support from close family" is bad enough, but now we also have "and be the basis for a strong society".
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Four thoughts.
1. I think that many Christians have romanticised the notion of "family" with the result that it has almost become an unattainable epitome of perfection. Yes, families are important, although they are most certainly not the only building-block of society. But idealising them too much ignores the very real problems that families often have and glosses over the normal wrangles and rows that beset most families.
2. Families may be good: but they can also be constricting and manipulative. At the very least one can have families ruled by a patriarch or matriarch who decidsd everything and does not allow other members to pursue their own aims and flourish. Then we have the problems of closely-knit families in some communities which lead to the ostracism and even murder(the so-called "honour killings") of members who step out of line. And one cannot forget the criminality endemic in some families, whether it be the Krays in East London or the Mafioisi. Not all families are "nice"!
3. I actually agree that weddings should be regarded as more than the romantic coming-together of two individuals. But, in practice, that's what it really means for most folk nowadays (things might be different in small close-knit rural communities).
4. I've noticed that no-one has yet mentioned the fact that families - at least according to British politicians - are either "hard-working" or "benefit cheats". Are there any who lie in-between?
[ 20. April 2015, 06:48: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
The modern West has turned the state into everybody's family. For better, singles / single parents can pretend to be equal members of society. For worse, David Cameron will be our elected foster mum. It's a trade-off we have come to accept as normal, demonstrating once more the flexibility of human behaviour. The nanny state is as far as the "divide and conquer" approach against the family will go, but it is inherently unstable and requires continuous economic success to finance its tremendous upkeep. When (not if, there is no end to history) the current social structure crumbles, the natural unit of human autarky - the family - will reassert itself near instantly.
The claim "marriage and the family is the basis of a strong society" is a kind of mantra in support of an ancient truce between the power of the state and the power of the family. Modern society has broken that truce through a relentless power grab of the state, turning this mantra into mockery in the mouths of its politicians. The other extreme, the total rule of families amidst a weak state, is however no particular fun either. Whether the future will find some balance without wild swings of the pendulum is anybody's guess. Let's hope so...
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Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I'm not sure what a strong society is, or if it's a good thing; as others have said, the family can also be the source of great hurt and damage.
It's certainly important as a place of care for children, and as a place to learn about love and hate, so these are vital abilities.
I suppose in addition, there is a right-wing cast to 'strong family', that makes me nervous, Kinder, Kirche, Kuche, and so on, (children, church, kitchen), this sounds quite repressive, as the family can be.
My own family was a scary place, no doubt, I have kind of recovered from it, at vast expense!
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Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
Far from being the foundation of society, marriage and the family is a way of getting care - for ther elderly, the housebound etc. - on the cheap.
As for raising children, any combination of loving partners is good - they don't have to be married heterosexuals.
Single people are the backbone of society - as carers, in the nurturing professions like teaching, nursing etc.
And the churches would collapse without celibate (or discreetly partnered) clergy and lay volunteers.
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Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I'm with Mudfrog on this, both as regard the nuclear blocks and the extended family.
Society is built on families. Even those who are anti-family can't avoid this without special pleading that isn't very persuasive. We have to work with this not against it.
Nor is it honest to pretend this is not so because we don't want to upset those who are single, do not have families or whose families have been a disaster.
Even in Dawkins terms, families that work reproduce more effectively and through more generations than families that don't work, people who don't have children etc.
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Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
For me, the family is ambivalent, since while here we can learn about love and attachment, we can also learn about cruelty and fear. But I suppose it's necessary to learn about all of these things. But strong societies can be very cruel.
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Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Tulfes
Shipmate
# 18000
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Posted
As a single/no children, I feel excluded from society. Church communities are the most excluding, sorry to say. On the other hand, it is the one aspect of my life which allows me to share the experience of those who are excluded for other reasons eg physical or mental illness/disability, appearance (eg gross facial disfigurement) or marginal economic status. I realise that I am privileged in economic terms. If it wasn't for my single hood, I would be a pain in the tonsils.
Posts: 175 | Registered: Feb 2014
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
Recognizing that people can see this formula as one that excludes, I think that it is useful to think of it in terms of happy childhoods, and especially the long-term effects of a happy childhood.
There are numerous variations on the concept of the nuclear family that can result in a happy childhood. The key ingredients seem to be stability, love, support, an absence of extreme deprivation, and I'm sure people can think of others.
A congenial, supportive home life in childhood can help a person grow up to be confident and well adjusted, and reduce our common tendency to feel isolated and to have low self-esteem.
I think that it is happy childhoods that are the real basis of a cohesive and loving society.
The question then is what the situation is that is most likely to produce happy childhoods.
While I'm sure that many variations on the theme can produce this hoped-for result, I think that the most reliable one is also the most common one - traditional marriage. ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Single people are the backbone of society - as carers, in the nurturing professions like teaching, nursing etc.
And the churches would collapse without celibate (or discreetly partnered) clergy and lay volunteers.
LOL, a friend when widowed told me all her coupled friends dropped her, the people she and her husband played cards with every Friday evening would not return a greeting in the church hall, she became invisible right after the funeral. That's a story I've known to be common in the USA mainstream culture since at least the 50s.
The clergy person put her to work in the church as head altar guild. Then she observed to me "the singles do all the work, but they don't get invited to the parties."
Looking around, I don't agree the singles do ALL the work, but a far higher proportion than their population share. Couples are "busy" hanging out with each other or with other couples. Altar guild, choir, coffee hospitality volunteers, predominantly older singles. Greeters are often couples.
Not true in my youth when stay at home wives volunteered at church to get out of the house.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
Just to add a "therefore" to my post above in case it is not immediately obvious.
Therefore, although it is often the case that a societal stress on the importance of marriage and family leads to people feeling unfairly excluded, the overall effect of that stress ought to be a reduction in feelings of exclusion and isolation.
Conversely, if this point of view has value, a reduced stress on the value of marriage is likely to lead to an increase in feelings of exclusion and isolation. The reason for this is that if traditional marriage is the most reliable source of happy childhoods, then fewer traditional marriages will result in an increase in unhappy childhoods, and therefore more feelings of isolation and exclusion.
Of course, if it is not really true that a happy childhood causes life-long well-being, or if it is not really true that traditional marriage is the most reliable cause of happy childhoods, then this house-of-cards falls apart.
I expect that the data on this question is available somewhere, or will be eventually. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
[ 20. April 2015, 13:39: Message edited by: Freddy ]
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Of course it's true!!
because.... ????
Look, I'm very happily familied. Married, three kids. Anxiously awaiting grandkids to the point of being that naggy mom pushing married daughter to get on with the show. It is pure joy.
But the basis of society? No. The basis of a strong society is a strong community that cares for and supports each other in all their varied life choices.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
It's worth making a historical point, that patriarchal society has privileged men, oppressed women and children, and used the family as a source of cheap labour and sexual servitude.
Of course, things have changd for the better in the West, but it was only in the 19th century that married women acquired certain legal rights, separate from their husbands (in English law) and children were taken out of factories. So it depends on how traditional you mean by traditional.
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Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I will also not that traditional and patriarchal families were very often reserved for the upper class and white members of the society. If you happened to be a black slave, good luck with the family thing; you might be paired off with some other slave at Master's dictate, and your children sold off. Or if you were very poor, and could not maintain your wife and kids, you didn't get support for being a family, but just criticism for breeding like a rabbit.
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Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I will also not that traditional and patriarchal families were very often reserved for the upper class and white members of the society. If you happened to be a black slave, good luck with the family thing; you might be paired off with some other slave at Master's dictate, and your children sold off. Or if you were very poor, and could not maintain your wife and kids, you didn't get support for being a family, but just criticism for breeding like a rabbit.
Yes, when people talk about traditional families, I am curious about which traditions they mean. For example, married women could be raped, their legal rights were subsumed into their husbands (so-called coverture), they could not own property, or form contracts, and so on (under English law). Is this supposed to be some golden age, which produced happy children, and happy wives?
[ 20. April 2015, 16:33: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
For better, singles / single parents can pretend to be equal members of society.
Why the assumption that this is a pretense?
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The nanny state is as far as the "divide and conquer" approach against the family will go, but it is inherently unstable and requires continuous economic success to finance its tremendous upkeep. When (not if, there is no end to history) the current social structure crumbles, the natural unit of human autarky - the family - will reassert itself near instantly.
I'm not convinced by your assertion that socialized medicine or old age pensions or whatever it is that you consider "the nanny state" is such a terrible bane to the family. It's more plausible that families are actually more stable when they're not one serious medical incident away from complete bankruptcy (e.g. pre-ACA United States) or where workplace safety regulations are strong enough so mom isn't killed by radiation poisoning.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The claim "marriage and the family is the basis of a strong society" is a kind of mantra in support of an ancient truce between the power of the state and the power of the family. Modern society has broken that truce through a relentless power grab of the state, turning this mantra into mockery in the mouths of its politicians.
Isn't this analysis somewhat flawed regarding democratic societies, where adult members of families are also (theoretically) the controllers of the state? There seems to be the underlying assumption that voters will support policies against the interests of their own families. Or that modern democracy is a sham where the state can enact policies contrary to the wished of its electorate.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
That for some of us, joy and happiness is experienced through being married and having a family does not mean that everyone shallbe required to experience the same joy. Any more than you are required to enjoy pickled herring, such as I had for breakfast.
The comments about nanny state are incomprehensible. Any than one can assert that I am part of a family of [i]exclusive and sexy undergarment aficionados[i] because my underwear are made by Victoria's Secret*.
*which they are actually not.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Solid and lasting relationships are the bedrock of a good society. For these relationships to be formed it is essential that each person learns that (i) they are of value but (ii) the whole world does not revolve around them. The best time and place to learn these things is in early life and in a loving family (which speaking from experience as a person who is an uncle and a godfather but not a father I think should be understood as extending beyond the nuclear unit and indeed perhaps even beyind the blood tie).
I really can't see how anyone could reasonably disagree with these statements. And while there are people- too many people- who grow up in a family in which, because for example it may be chaotic, cold, over-indulgent or abusive, these lessons cannot be learned, that does not mean that they cannot learn them later or elsewhere- it just means that they will be playing catch-up for a time.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
I really can't see how anyone could reasonably disagree with these statements.
That is my thought as well.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
I think Alan Creswells point about the biblical model is important. At a time in the past, the "family" would have consisted of a small nuclear family, with many other parts of the family around - aunts, uncles, cousins siblings even. This is because families tended not to move far away. There can still be the essence of a nuclear household, with the wider family structures in place.
But that is becoming increasingly rare. I have no blood-family near me. One of my sons has moved away. In terms of actual blood-relatives, that cannot be a foundational part of society. Where I used to live in East London, many people stayed for just a few short years - 50-60% or more of a local community would turn over in 2-3 years. In that type of community, family - even short-term friendships - cannot be the basis of the society.
Now just to put the record straight, I am not dissing families. I think they are important, and there is something special about the family gathering I was at over the weekend. Mainly because it only happens every year or so. But mostly, day-to-day, society where I am is held together by completely different things.
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Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I'm not sure what a strong society is, or if it's a good thing; as others have said, the family can also be the source of great hurt and damage.
It's certainly important as a place of care for children, ...
My own family was a scary place, no doubt, I have kind of recovered from it, at vast expense!
If "society" means living together instead of separately, family is probably the most common unit of shared work and assets and life-space. In that sense it is the lowest common level of "society," which can be called "base level" of societal awareness.
But family is also a major vehicle of social separation and in that sense an opponent of larger society. Hatfields and McCoys is an extreme of families identifying themselves as NOT in society with each other. But I'm thinking more broadly, having moved to a town where many families live withing a house or a block from grandma aunts uncles cousins kids grandkids.
In one sense it's great fun - for them. Any occasion is a party with lots of people attending, all family. But especially with churches proclaiming "God first, family second, church third" (note, no mention of friends or neighbors, when I asked I was told "that's the people in church"), it's really hard for a stranger who moves to town to find people to be friends with. They don't invite you to "family events," and they don't come to your parties, they have enough going on just in the family.
In a fast growing community like mine, whole churches of newcomers spring up because the old timers in the old churches can't take time way from their weekly Sunday morning family reunion to make friends with newcomers. In slow or non-growing communities, moving in is deadly lonely, because the family orientation blocks broader society.
Families are a base level of social living, but they can be an adverse influence on forming of broader society.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Pomona
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# 17175
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Posted
Mudfrog and Enoch - questioning marriage and family being the (as in, the only) basis of a strong society does not make someone anti-family. I'm not anti-family at all, and certainly very much value marriage and family. Please don't make assumptions about people's motives, I can't see anyone in this thread who has been anti-family either. I just don't see why me being a single person makes my contribution to society less important.
Society is strengthened by relationships and community. Blood relatives and married couples may be part of this, or may not. Churches are definitely hostile places for single people, especially those who have chosen singleness. Given that Jesus was single, this seems wrong. It really is true that single people in the church do all the work but get none of the support or benefits.
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
And for really abusive relationships, you go to a family. One abusive parent, one mentally-disturbed relative, one psychopathic sibling, and the entire cozy structure becomes a prison.
Too many novels and movies to cite here, and if I lived in your community we could probably trade hair-curling real-life examples. But here is a historical example we all probably know: Queen Victoria. Between her obsessive mourning for Prince Albert and her dysfunctional relationship with her son and heir the future King Edward, she created a fantastically unhappy family.
To hold the family up as the epitome of social stability is foolish -- I doubt if any mortal institution can make all of us happy all of the time. Those who hold it up as the only mode of Christian life are as off base as those who (a thousand years ago) insisted that monastic life, or priesthood, was the only way to go.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
I can't help thinking of Larkin's famous poem, 'They fuck you up, your mum and dad'. Well, for some, that's true, but we also learn about love and attachment. So I see the family as both stable, and destabilizing, a place of safety, and also a place of fear and misery. I'm not anti-family, since it's the best thing we've got for kids, but watch out for the repair bills. Well, it's kept me in work!
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Truman White
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# 17290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Of course it's true!!
because.... ????
Look, I'm very happily familied. Married, three kids. Anxiously awaiting grandkids to the point of being that naggy mom pushing married daughter to get on with the show. It is pure joy.
But the basis of society? No. The basis of a strong society is a strong community that cares for and supports each other in all their varied life choices.
Taking Alan C's view of family as "extended"
[QUOTE] The challenge today is for those of us who recognise that the Biblical model (and, for that matter the pattern throughout practically all of human history) is of an extended family being the fundamental community unit [\QUOTE] I'd agree we need to think "community" as a starting point and put (extended) family in the guts of that community. In some parts of the UK (not to mention overseas) "extended" is the default view of family.
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
And for really abusive relationships, you go to a family.
That is also an important aspect. The idea that families are foundational to society means that leaving an abusive relationships is seem as "breaking up society". Reporting abuse within the family is "destroying the roots of out country".
It is like leaving or reporting an abusive church is "attacking Gods kingdom". No - at its best, it might be a partial reflection of an aspect of the kingdom, but it is not sacrosanct. The same with families - they are wonderful, they should be supported, helped and encouraged. I don't think anyone is in doubt about that on this thread. But they are not sacrosanct, and when they are broken, they need fixing.
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Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
And for really abusive relationships, you go to a family.
That is also an important aspect. The idea that families are foundational to society means that leaving an abusive relationships is seem as "breaking up society". Reporting abuse within the family is "destroying the roots of out country".
It is like leaving or reporting an abusive church is "attacking Gods kingdom". No - at its best, it might be a partial reflection of an aspect of the kingdom, but it is not sacrosanct. The same with families - they are wonderful, they should be supported, helped and encouraged. I don't think anyone is in doubt about that on this thread. But they are not sacrosanct, and when they are broken, they need fixing.
I'm with you on the sentiment (if not Cloughy's rhetoric). Stable, loving functional families are a foundation stone in society since it's primarily here that we nurture our offspring. Abusive families are abhorrent precisely because they undermine that foundation.
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Why the assumption that this is a pretense?
Raising a child is at least 50-75% FTE for at least about eight years. Consequently, single parenting relies on institutionalised child care, the wider family (grandparents...) and/or charity, and even then outcomes for the children are generally subpar. That's not a slur on single parents, but simply a reflection of the demands of parenthood. Single parenting is not an equivalent substitute for the family to society. And as much as singles may contribute to a society, it would all come to naught within a few decades without parents. (When I say "single" here, I mean childless singles. For singles with children, see above.) A society without singles can survive into the next generation, a society without parents cannot. Singles are de facto secondary to society, simply by reproductive biology.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm not convinced by your assertion that socialized medicine or old age pensions or whatever it is that you consider "the nanny state" is such a terrible bane to the family.
Since I simply didn't assert that, I don't really need to defend it. My actual point was quite simply that the modern state has taken over many "support jobs" that an extended family was good for, from the cradle to the grave. Hence the state has assumed a central role in our lives, and therewith much of the social power that the family used to have. The modern nuclear (and often transient patchwork) family certainly is unthinkable without that state support as well. When the modern state fails, people will for the most part revert to the family as their support system.
(Actually, it is not really just the "state" that has stepped in. It's more complicated, with for example young child care being at least partly commercialised. But the state at least tends to be the accepted regulator for such "family-replacing" commercial activity.)
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Isn't this analysis somewhat flawed regarding democratic societies, where adult members of families are also (theoretically) the controllers of the state? There seems to be the underlying assumption that voters will support policies against the interests of their own families. Or that modern democracy is a sham where the state can enact policies contrary to the wished of its electorate.
I would consider modern representative "democracy" basically as a useful political mass delusion. It certainly is not the rule of the people in any straightforward sense. But that's a different discussion. Suffice to say that I agree that we are largely getting what we are asking for. But it is hardly realistic to consider what we are asking for as a totally free choice across many widely different options, readily available and presented fairly to us. For the most part, social decisions are necessarily incremental so as to not disrupt. And a thousand steps along one path one does not have the ability to simply teleport to the place where one would have been, had one taken a thousand steps along a different path.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The modern West has turned the state into everybody's family. For better, singles / single parents can pretend to be equal members of society. For worse, David Cameron will be our elected foster mum. It's a trade-off we have come to accept as normal, demonstrating once more the flexibility of human behaviour. The nanny state is as far as the "divide and conquer" approach against the family will go, but it is inherently unstable and requires continuous economic success to finance its tremendous upkeep. When (not if, there is no end to history) the current social structure crumbles, the natural unit of human autarky - the family - will reassert itself near instantly.
The claim "marriage and the family is the basis of a strong society" is a kind of mantra in support of an ancient truce between the power of the state and the power of the family. Modern society has broken that truce through a relentless power grab of the state, turning this mantra into mockery in the mouths of its politicians. The other extreme, the total rule of families amidst a weak state, is however no particular fun either. Whether the future will find some balance without wild swings of the pendulum is anybody's guess. Let's hope so...
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
What arrant nonsense! Dear me, have you ever looked at what the left actually advocated? I am a card carrying member of the NDP, the modern form of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, which brought the Welfare State to Canada. The legacy of the CCF is succinctly summarized thus:
quote:
Perhaps that is why literary theorist Northrop Frye once said that the CCF was the most conservative party conceived in Canada and it died not knowing that it was.
....While Communists were perishing on barricades around the world in the first half of the 20th century, Canada's answer to revolution was the democratic socialist CCF -- a group of quiet (sometimes they were Protestant ministers) moderate politicians. In contrast to the often violent response of the left in the rest of the world, the CCF tried to preserve the family, the most conservative and basic building unit in society. And how did it defend the family? Through advocating pensions, family allowances, and universal health care.
Tension, what tension? Source
[ 21. April 2015, 01:35: Message edited by: Sober Preacher's Kid ]
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Though, I think IngoB has been skating around an important point.
In pre-modern and early-modern societies (ie for the majority of people who have ever lived) the fundamental unit of society has been some form of extended family/household. That extended family/household has been the primary source of help in maintaining the family, including it's connections to the wider society, within the family providing care for children and elderly, nursing for the sick, etc. Only at times of extreme need would they seek help beyond that extended family unit.
In the modern west, we have broken apart that traditional family unit into much smaller units, the nuclear family rather than the extended family. That has only worked (if it has) because society has provided a surrogate for many of the roles that the extended family previously provided. Whether childcare, schooling, care for the sick and elderly etc are provided by the state, through commercial businesses or a combination of these is largely irrelevant - the effect of providing a replacement for the extended family is the same.
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
In pre-modern and early-modern societies (ie for the majority of people who have ever lived) the fundamental unit of society has been some form of extended family/household.
Consider also the political use of marriage. How do you seal a treaty between your city / country / whatever? Your kid marries the other guy's kid. How do you conquer a country / city / whatever? Kill their leader, marry his daughter. Now think about why that happened, and why people thought it was important.
[ 21. April 2015, 05:49: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
What arrant nonsense! Dear me, have you ever looked at what the left actually advocated?
You seem to think that I am a social conservative in an American sense. Hardly. And what "nonsense" are you talking about? Your reply does not address anything I was talking about. Alan on the other hand got my point just fine... For example, this:
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
And how did it defend the family? Through advocating pensions, family allowances, and universal health care.
is not "defending" the family. All of it is replacing the family. Children were to support their parents in their old age, directly. Now the state does. Either by instituting and controlling saving schemes, or by collecting taxes and thus anonymising the support of the elderly. The wider family used to support young families, often by support in kind (directly taking care of the kids, supplying food, supplying opportunities for work, etc.). Now the state throws various tax breaks and direct payments at them. It was the family's job to deal with failing health of a member (taking care of medical expenses, standing in for the work that the sick person could not do, literally nursing family members through their sickness). Now the state is doing this through an institutionalised system of health care professionals, financed either by contributions to state-controlled organisations or directly by taxes. Etc. The modern state pretty much tries to be the "universal family" to its citizens. And as far as it has succeeded, it has replaced the natural family.
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Though, I think IngoB has been skating around an important point.
I don't think that I have been "skating around" anything here, but you certainly have understood the point I've been making.
The only thing I would add is that the idea that history has ended is a delusion that is universal throughout history. The current social arrangement will fall, the question is only when. And at times when the state and other supra-individual organisations crumble, invariably the family rises. You can see that in every failed state across the world. I get those stories somewhat regularly first hand, due to dealing with PhD students from many places. If your world comes crashing down, the family as basic unit of human autarky is what remains standing last, and is what people devote their efforts to. It is this feature of the human family that makes it the core unit of any society. One can certainly take over from the family with other institutions, and the modern Western state is a demonstration just how far one can go with that. But only by applying constant "social force". Release that force, and social organisation will snap right back to its base state, "social lego blocks" of families interacting.
[ 21. April 2015, 08:02: Message edited by: IngoB ]
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
We should also extend the extended family to the tribe and the clan; in some parts of the world, these are still important, see the Middle East.
I think it's OK to say that the family is a foundation of society, but it's also possible to exaggerate this. For example, when societies go through upheaval - for example, the wars, revolutions, and civil wars that Europe has been through since the 18th cetury, are we going to say that these were caused by family breakdown? Society has many foundations, which shift and move.
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Albertus
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# 13356
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Posted
Put it another way- is there a qualitative difference between the experience of societies which suffer war, revolution, etc, but where the family does not on the whole break down, and those where families do break down as a result of all these troubles? I suspect there is but I don't know.
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
When we extend the extended family to the tribe etc we need to look at the way power is used (the technology of power). The family is not a democracy, it is an oligarchy based on seniority*.
Jengie
*chosen deliberately; the tribe normally defines seniority not by age, but by status which is often based on a combination of familial ties, gender, popularity and physical strength as well as age.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Put it another way- is there a qualitative difference between the experience of societies which suffer war, revolution, etc, but where the family does not on the whole break down, and those where families do break down as a result of all these troubles? I suspect there is but I don't know.
Well, you are reversing my point. Is there evidence that events such as the French revolution and the American civil war were partly caused by shifts in family dynamics? It's possible, and I would be interested in any historical analysis that has been done.
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Albertus
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# 13356
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Posted
I think society works at various levels and changes happen at various levels. Of course changes in family dynamics are not at the root of all change, and where there is a connection it can be hard to see whether we are talking about causes or consequences. But if- if- families are 'base units', then they may mitigate changes at national or regional or international social levels. There may, too, be a real difference between changes that fracture the stability of the family institution, and those which the family can absorb or, though shaken, withstand.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I think there is some analysis of the English civil war in terms of shifts in the bourgeois family, or maybe the creation of it, which was part of an ongoing shift in socio-economic structure. There are always these younger sons as well, who are spare pricks at a wedding, and need some action, military, colonial, sexual, it's all one. Primogeniture and its socio-economic impacts, a thesis for the degree of doctor of philosophy at the university of Lower Caldicote.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The current social arrangement will fall, the question is only when. And at times when the state and other supra-individual organisations crumble, invariably the family rises. You can see that in every failed state across the world. I get those stories somewhat regularly first hand, due to dealing with PhD students from many places. If your world comes crashing down, the family as basic unit of human autarky is what remains standing last, and is what people devote their efforts to. It is this feature of the human family that makes it the core unit of any society. One can certainly take over from the family with other institutions, and the modern Western state is a demonstration just how far one can go with that. But only by applying constant "social force". Release that force, and social organisation will snap right back to its base state, "social lego blocks" of families interacting.
The interesting question for me is whether the Western family as we know it today would be able to respond quickly enough to the collapse of the state. How would people feel able to offer mutual support to relatives in times of extreme crisis if they hardly know each other, live far apart and have grown used to placing personal autonomy above family loyalty?
I'm going to suggest that family bonds were already fairly strong in the failed states you mention here, so it was easy for society to 'snap back to its base state' after some major collapse. I think the process would be less straightforward in many parts of the UK.
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Albertus
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# 13356
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Posted
I think you're spot on there, Svitlana. The real enemy of the family is (certain varieties of) liberalism, whether of the left or the right - and it's right-wing neo-liberalism that calls the shots in our soiciety at the moment. Neo-liberalism hates the family in the same way that it hates all non-marketised, non-contractual institutions, especially those which provide resilience and therefore get in the way of the free play of market forces aand the commodification of human beings.
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I'm going to suggest that family bonds were already fairly strong in the failed states you mention here, so it was easy for society to 'snap back to its base state' after some major collapse. I think the process would be less straightforward in many parts of the UK.
Perhaps. I think though that there is a curious self-organisation to this. In some sense it does not matter how much you actually have to do with your family right now, because then the action of others will soon force you back into the family mould. When social certainties dissolve, it becomes really difficult to know who is your reliable ally, and who will turn on you. But if in a crisis I observe a bunch of people and know that they are a guy with elderly parents, wife, children and a brother, then in my mental evaluation I will probably see the elderly parents and children as the "liabilities" I will get if I ally this guy, and the wife and brother as the "opposition" I will face in addition if I attack this guy. It's sort of an instinctive grouping, and since I don't know what is what any longer (since I do not have stable social information), that's what I will fall back on. Now imagine that guy says to me "Never mind all these people, I couldn't care less about them. Just take me along, let's go." Will I be comfortable with that? No. In some sense sticking to his role in this instinctive grouping I have in my head precisely establishes a kind of trustworthiness. It makes this person "predictable" in a social sense, which is really important if there is social chaos. Basically, if this guy is happy enough to throw his own family under the bus, how can I trust him to be reliable to me, a stranger? One's family quickly becomes a kind of minimal social calling card, one will be under expectation pressure to deal properly with "one's own".
A more interesting aspect is the physical separation that now often lies between members of a natural family. I think that this "spatial" issue might disrupt the rise of families in severe crisis more than our current social system. I think social bonds are quite elastic and changeable under pressure. But if your family quite literally is not reachable, then that will throw a spanner into the works. For example, if Berlin were to erupt in anarchy and civil war by tomorrow, just what would I do to help my brother who lives there with his daughter? I think if we lived in close proximity, then even a decade of estrangement might be overcome in a matter of hours, as we seek reliable defence and escape for our families, and mutually need somebody who has our respective backs. But we live far apart, so I would probably mostly stare at the TV in horror (and desperately try to "get through" on the phone etc.).
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
I think that probably the collapse of the current social structures is already happening in a lot of places. In some countries where the norm is for "surrogate extended family" to be provided by the State there are moves for those with financial means to find private sector alternatives, and those without the financial means to become increasingly isolated from society - which may be a factor in increasing radicalisation of young people (which has been going on for years, in gangs, the inner city riots of the 80s, more recently with many of those people for whom the state has failed to be a surrogate being from immigrant communities that has led to religious radicalisation). Where there was nothing more than the most basic of state safety nets then the loss of a real replacement for the extended family has led to serious destitution and break down of society - inner cities where it is genuinely dangerous to be an outsider, where law and order is barely maintained.
It's my guess that often those that survive the collapse around them will do so because they have a genuine, strong support network. That may be extended family, in a lot of cases it's going to be something else - that may be churches, mosques or other religious groups, it may be the local community realising that they need the people who live next door and people unite around a place. It doesn't have to be an extended family of blood relatives.
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