Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/865

 FAMILY

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FAMILY

manent, and monogamous, but raised the contract from which it springs to the dignity of a sacrament, and thus placed the family itself upon the plane of the supernatural. The family is holy inasmuch as it is to co-operate with God by procreating children who are destined to be the adopted children of God, and by in- structing them for His kingdom. The union between husband and wife is to last until death (Matt., xLx, 6 sq.; Luke, xvi, IS; Mark, x, 11; I Cor., vii, 10; see Marri.\ge, Divorce). That this is the highest form of the conjugal union, and the best arrangement for the welfare both of the family and of society, will ap- pear to anyone who compares dispassionately its moral and material effects with those flowing from the practice of divorce. Although divorce has obtained to a greater or less extent among the majority of peoples from the beginning until now, " there is abundant evi- dence that marriage has, upon the whole, become more durable in proportion as the human race has risen to higher degrees of cultivation" (Westermarck, op. cit., p. 535).

While the attempts that have been made to show that divorce is in every case forbidden by the moral law of nature have not been convincing on their own merits, to say nothing of certain facts of Old Testa- ment history, the absolute indissolubility of marriage is nevertheless the ideal to which the natural law points, and consequently is to be expected in an order that is supernatural. In the family, as re-established by Christ, there is likewise no such thing as polygamy (see the references already given in this paragraph, and Polygamy). This condition, too, is in accord with nature's ideal. Polygamy is not, indeed, con- demned in every instance by the natural law, but it is generally inconsistent with the reasonable welfare of the wife and children, and the proper moral develop- ment of the husband. Because of these quaUties of permanence and unity, the Christian family implies a real and definite equality of husband and wife. They have equal rights in the matter of the primary con- jugal relation, equal claims upon mutual fidelity, and equal obligations to make this fidelity real. They are equally guilty when they violate these obligations, and equally deserving of pardon when they repent.

The wife is neither the slave nor the property of her husband, but his consort and companion. The Chris- tian family is supernatural, inasmuch as it originates in a sacrament. Through the sacrament of matrimony husband and wife obtain an increase of sanctifying grace, and a claim upon those actual graces which are necessary to the proper fulfilment of all the duties of family life, and all the relations between husband and wife, parents and children, are supernaturalized and sanctified. The end and the ideal of the Christian family are likewise supernatural, namely, the salva- tion of parents and children, and the union between Christ and His Church. '' Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it", says St. Paul (Eph., v, 25). And the inti- macy of the marital union, the identification, almost, of husband and wife, is seen in the injunction: "So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth him-self" (Eph., v, 28).

From these general facts of the Christian family, the particular relations existing among its members can be •eadily deduced. Since the average man and woman are not normally complete as individuals, but are rather the two complementary parts of one social or- ganism, in which their material, moral, and spiritual needs receive mutual satisfaction, a primary requisite of their union is mutual love. This includes not merely the love of the senses, which is essentially sclfisli, not necessarily that sentimental love which anthropologists call romantic, but above all that ra- tional love or affection, which springs from an appre- ciation of qualities of mind and heart, and which im-

pels each to seek the welfare of the other. As the in- timate and long association of husband and wife necessarily brings to the surface their less noble and lovable qualities, and as the rearing of children in- volves great trials, the need of disinterested love, the ability to sacrifice self, is obviously grave.

The obligations of mutual fidelity have been suffi- ciently stated above. The particular fimctions of husband and wife m the family are determined by their different natures, and by their relation to the primary end of the family, namely, the procreation of children. Being the provider of the family, and the superior of the wife both in physical strength and in those mental and moral qualities which are appropriate to the exer- cise of authority, the husband is naturally the family's heatl, even " the head of the wife", in the language of St. Paul. This does not mean that the wife is the husband's slave, his servant, or liis subject. She is his equal, both as a human being and as member of the conjugal society, save only that when a disagreement arises in matters pertaining to domestic government, she is, as a rule, to j'ield. To claim for her com- pletely equal authority with the husband is to treat woman as man's equal in a matter in which nature has made them unequal. On the other hand the care and management of the details of the househokl belong naturally to the wife, because she is better fitted for these tasks than the husband.

Since the primary end of the family is the procrea- tion of children, the husband or wife who shirks tliis duty from any but spiritual or moral motives re- duces the family to an unnatural anil unchristian level. This is emphatically true when the absence of offspring has been effected by any of the artificial and immoral devices so much in vogue at present. When the conjugal union has been blessed with children, both parents are charged, according to their respective functions, with the duty of sustaining and educating those undeveloped members of the family. Their moral and religious formation is for the most part the work of the mother, while the task of providing for their physical and intellectual wants falls chiefly upon the father. The extent to which the different wants of the children are to be supplied will vary with the ability and resources of the parents. Finally, the children are bound, generally speaking, to render to the parents implicit love, reverence, and obedience, until they reach their majority or marry, and love, reverence, and a reasonable degree of support and obedience afterward.

The most important external relations of the family are, of course, those existing between it and the State. According to the Christian conception, the family, rather than the individual, is the social unit and the basis of civil society. To say that the family is the social unit is not to imply that it is the end to which the individual is a means; for the welfare of the indi- vidual is the end both of the family and of the State, as well as of every other social organization. The meaning is that the State is formally concerned with the family as such, and not merely with the individual. This distinction is of great practical importance; for where the State ignores or neglects the family, keeping in view only the welfare of the individual, the result is a strong tendency towards the disintegration of the former. The family is the basis of civil society, inas- much as the great majority of persons ought to spend practically all their lives in its circle, either as subjects or as heads. Only in the family can the individual be properly reared, educated, and given that formation of character which will make him a good man and a good citizen.

Inasmuch as the average man will not put forth his full productive energies except under the stimulus of its responsibilities, the family is indispensable from the purely economic viewpoint. Now the family can- not rightly discharge its fimctions unless the parents