The Family : Part 9

The Family and it's Members
by Anna Garlin Spencer

(Page 10 of 25)

The Monogamic Family Justifies Itself by Social Usefulness. - In the first place, one must accept the fact that it is presumptive evidence of the continued worth and value of any inherited institution if it can be proved that it has served vital social needs which still operate and that no other existing institution is able or ready to take its place for the special social service which it was designed to render. To the present writer it seems clear that the monogamic family holds its title clear to social preservation on both these points. The family preceded individualistic marriage as we know it and was developed for the purpose of giving to oncoming generations a share in the race-life, whatever the ideals concerning that race-life may have been at any period of social order.

Even in its present undeveloped form, with its cramping limitations of past autocracy and with its crude attempts at an as yet half-understood democracy, we may well count the private monogamic family as a priceless inheritance and work toward its better organization and larger service to social life. No other institution yet developed has shown in history or now shows in present life a worthy substitute for its functioning in child-care and child-development. Many also believe that no form of sex-association secures such possibilities of moral discipline and personal satisfaction as does the guarded relationship of monogamic marriage.

The Inherited Family Order Demands New Social Adjustments. - There are, therefore, no reasons for welcoming the decline of the private family. There are many that demand imperatively some adjustments in inner comradeship and in mechanical arrangements surrounding the household, in order to hold firm its spiritual values during changes in social conditions. How far these changes of detail may go or what will be the end of some present clearly outlined tendencies no one can prophesy. The duty of the hour is, however, to set this treasure of social inheritance in a clear light; to show its actual and potential social value as at present perceived; and to try by all simple measures open to our intelligence to aid in its evolution toward a more perfect expression of the love of man and woman each for the other and of the protection and care of both for the children of that love.

The basic test of all proposed changes in any inherited institution is from henceforward, we must believe, that which inheres in the spiritual essence of democracy. What is that essence of democracy which must be applied as test within the family, as within the state and within the industrial order? It is the fundamental belief in the worth and dignity of every human being and the equal right of each and all to personality. No man, as in the older days, must be obliged to be husband and father, but may choose, if he deems it essential to his own being, to remain in a solitary path outside the current of the generations. No woman must be obliged to live solely to serve a family. She, too, has right to self-development in some chosen way. No married couple must be forced to add to the children already here; they may justly be protected in living and working together in some comradeship that has no family limitations save those of mutual loyalty and mutual service. No child is to be justly held so much under family control as to have his nature stifled or warped, and no child shall be made a pecuniary asset to the family regardless of his own needs. No family autonomy is henceforth to be secured by fiat of law enthroning one "head" as the legal despot or economic ruler. The family must be democratized in that sense in which each individual within its bond shall be sustained in seeking and in maintaining the conditions of personality. No one human being to live solely for others' service or to have his or her value estimated in terms of contribution to other lives, but all to seek the utmost perfection of individual life as a contribution to the common life; this is the democratic ideal.

The Family as an Aid to Spiritual Democracy. - There seems to be no other inherited institution in which this spiritual essence of democracy can be so clearly and so well realized as it may be and to-day often is in the private monogamic family. The permanent and successful family offers a unique centre of personal development at the heart of all other social groups. Founded as it is in selective affection, and in aim at least permanently secure, it offers a refuge in every distress and a help in every trouble of each of its members. There was never a time when such a mutual resistance of a small and intimate group to the complex pressure of the world upon each individual life was more sorely needed.

The confusing social currents of this changing era set free from ancient moorings many who can find no clear chart for newer voyaging in thought and action. These need what the family more than any other inherited institution can still give - something of the simplicity of the blood bond and something of the strength of clan membership, and more of the partial affection which sets each personality in its best light and gives each a chance to better its own world achievement in the appreciation of its dearest.

The Family the Nursery of Personality. - The family in this sense of comforting and developing the individual nature has as yet no rival. Says Browning, "Every man has two soul sides - one to face the world with and one to show a woman when he loves her." There are those who blame the family relationship for its exclusiveness and partiality, and there are countless instances where the ego is so extended into the blood group that selfish disregard of all others becomes a mark of family affection. Yet is it profoundly true that just as the baby needs some one to whom its little life is all-important in order to gain strength of will to achieve its difficult beginnings of consciousness, so all of us need a small group in which our well-being and our happiness are of greater concern than those of any one person can be to all the world of persons.

Copyright, 1923 by J.B. Lippincott Company

About the Author

Anna Garlin Spencer (1851-1931) was an American educator, feminist, and Unitarian minister. Born in Attleboro, MA, she married the Rev. William H. Spencer in 1878. She was a leader in the women's suffrage and peace movements. In 1891 she became the first woman ordained as a minister in the state of Rhode Island.