|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Introduction: The Family in Transition
| Article
# : |
10369 |
|
|
Section : |
Modern Thought
|
| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1986 |
733 Words |
| Author
: |
Editor
|
The image of family pervades all civilization. As "the basic unit of society," the most fundamental of all social institutions, it may be said that the family is to society what the cell is to the body. When it exists in a state of health and vigor, the family is the microcosm in which man and woman can realize most fully their essential natures; it is the place where one grows and cultivates human personality; and it is the place where one finds comfort and support against the trials of an impersonal world.
There may be reason to believe, however, that the family in Western society is in deep trouble. Once taken for granted as the keystone to personal and collective well-being, the contemporary family is moving ever more rapidly toward dissolution and atomization.
Ironically, the family has never endured as a fixed institution. It has been constantly modified by the changes that affect its members. Furthermore, the economic, political, moral, and intellectual forces that have produced accelerated changes in the modern world have engendered loud and discordant echoes in the contemporary home. The fact that over half of all marriages are likely to end in divorce may be one indication of the profound crisis being felt in the contemporary American family.
A considerable amount of recent legislation, in the areas of taxation, defense of individual rights, responsibility for the child, and the administration of welfare for the indigent and socially deprived may have had the effect of actually weakening the family. As many social critics have noted, the "discovery of personhood" is often related to the notion that happiness does not rest with membership in the family but stands in opposition to it. The rapidly changing sense of the role of women and the ever-loosening legal bonds of marriage may have further brought into question the legitimacy of the family.
Certainly, there is no way to turn the clock back to a real or imaginary past. The traditional patriarchal family has come and gone. In view of irreversible cultural changes, the debate now being joined is over how best to preserve the family in contemporary American society.
The main focus of the Currents in Modern Thought section for this month will be a discussion of "The Plight of the Contemporary Family."
Brigitte Berger, in her essay "Why Feminists Still Don't Get It Right,"
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
