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When Families Decay

THE family is the oldest and most basic unit of society. It provides a protective framework for rearing a nation’s youth. Yet you have probably seen serious problems in many families.

What happens when the family weakens and begins to break down? The magazine U.S. News & World Report of March 13, 1978, observed:

“The family is the core strength of our society. If it collapses our society collapses​—unless we provide a strong, reasonable alternative.”

But, really, have you noted any successful alternatives to the family? What do you think of the various experimental “familylike” relationships that are popular today?

For example, homosexual “families,” even some with adopted children, have sprung up. So has communal ‘group marriage,’ where sexual partners are shared along with the rearing of resulting children. ‘Open marriage,’ too, is being tried​—legally married persons agreeing to permit each other sexual relations with outside partners. And especially are there millions of ‘no-contract marriages,’ where couples simply live together without the formality of legal marriage.

Examine the Fruitage

Yet what has been the fruitage of these alternatives to the family? Generally, it has not been good. For example, youths practicing the so-called new morality have produced an epidemic of teen-age pregnancies, costing governments billions of dollars annually in medical and welfare bills​—for which you, as a taxpayer, must pay.

The fact is, these alternative living arrangements reflect a decay of proved values. This is a matter that affects all of us, sooner or later, as noted in the striking observation of the 1978 World Book Encyclopedia:

“Entire civilizations have survived or disappeared, depending on whether family life was strong or weak.”

Is this really true?

Well, historians indicate that in ancient Greece moral decay destroyed the family. After noting the variant life-styles of people then, historian Will Durant writes: “We have tried to show that the essential cause of the Roman conquest of Greece was the disintegration of Greek civilization from within. No great nation is ever conquered until it has destroyed itself.”

This also proved true with Rome. Durant tells of the strength of the family in earlier Roman times, how it hardened the people’s character and made the nation strong. Then, as the centuries rolled by, the family life of Romans weakened and that nation’s strength waned.

Now some look at our present society and wonder whether history may not be repeating itself on a global scale. Is the family really in decay today?