24. The Role of the Family in Society

Among all the living things on earth, only a few mate for life. Among these, only man founds families which stay together; often for generations, but at least until the children found their own families. It is probable that the idea of the family was arrived at after thousands of years. Over the last few thousand years, man has evolved more rapidly than he has over the millions of years before this. Life has become more complicated and there is now so much sophistication in our lives, that it seems a worthwhile question to consider whether, in the light of all this modernization, the family is still vital to a successful society and if so to what extent.

One reason why the family continues to be vital is the need for our young to have shelter, protection and early education. The alternative could be that instead of having families, parents hand over their young to a government body to act as surrogate or substitute parents; or better still produce babies through artificial means and have them brought up by machines—as is depicted in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World". It is likely that children will learn all the skills they need to, even without families. One problem remains: Is that all that families do? What do families teach that others cannot?

The human animal learns by imitation. This has been established again and again. We need role models from a young age in order to learn. It has been proven that the only skill that a human baby is born with is how to suck milk. A child needs to imitate its parents in order to be able to live in the world when it becomes adult. This is a lifelong learning process. No machine, or government organization can replace parents as role models after which the young will model themselves.

That families are important can be seen by comparing children from dysfunctional families with those who come from stable families. Almost without exception criminals have been found to have come from families in which there was little love or responsibilities from adults. Quite often children of families which have been unstable have been unstable themselves. Children from stable families have positive role models to follow. They have respect for the law and make good students in school. The example having been set by their stable families, they tend to be stable as well. If they come from homes where high moral conduct is the only acceptable behaviour—both by example and by precept—the children adopt these rules for themselves and live their lives the way they have seen it lived.

Schools, the government, religious organizations and even whole societies try to make people live good lives and found good, stable families but they find it difficult if the subjects come from dysfunctional families. The idea of the family being an ideal method of continued survival probably came to our forefathers after many centuries of evolution and trial and error. It is probable that the conclusion was reached after a lot of pain. It would be presumptuous for us to dismiss that with our present advanced civilization we do not need stable families. All evidence points to the conclusion that a stable family is vital for the continuance of the human race; at least if it wants to maintain the basic tenets of what being human is all about.