The Family as Fundamental

One

Family as the fundamental unit

It may be that one of the most counter-intuitive teachings of the Catholic Church on civil issues is her declaration that the family is the most basic unit of society.

Most of us would tend to think that individuals are the most basic unit. We’d figure that it’s individuals who get together and form families and that it’s individuals who get together and form towns and cities and nations. 

In fact, in political or civil discussions, the family as such is frequently disregarded, and people talk about individuals or larger communities. That’s a big mistake, it’s a division that goes too far. The basic unit of water is a molecule made up of three atoms. If you get down to less than three atoms, you don’t have water anymore. 

The same is true of society. If you break the family down into individuals, you don’t have society anymore. 

As with God, the basic, indivisible unit of humanity is at least three. 

Two

The family is more fundamental than individuals

Even though we may be tempted to put the individual ahead of the family, or the larger community ahead of the family, we must remember that the family is in a sense more critical, since it is the unit which forms both. 

The family forms the individual. 

A human being first enters the world through the relationship between his father and mother, and that relationship for better or worse remains critical to his development throughout life. 

This is why John Paul II says, 

“The first and fundamental structure for ‘human ecology’ is the family, in which man receives his first formative ideas about truth and goodness and learns what it means to love and to be loved, and thus what it actually means to be a person.”

On the natural level, people are formed to be who they are by their family experiences. Their habits of thought, values, lifestyles, and even skill sets are largely determined by the family dynamics in which they were raised. 

Three

The family is more fundamental than society

It’s also key to remember that the family forms society as a whole. 

The larger society is made up of a multitude of families. Naturally speaking, it is only in the intimate setting of the family that you can create and instill the qualities of courage, selflessness, compassion, and loyalty. 

In other words, only the family can cultivate the virtues which are needed for civil society to function. Consequently, if the family begins to crumble, so will the nation as a whole. 

It is the state of the cells which determines the health of the body. If those cells grow sick, then the whole body gets sick and will eventually die.

Again, the basic building block of society is the family, since it is family life which supports the individual and the nation. But it has become commonplace to encounter dysfunctional, broken families. 

That should make us very, very nervous – because if the family becomes dysfunctional and broken, then inevitably the individual and the nation will quickly become dysfunctional and broken. 

In fact, it may not be an exaggeration to say that the collapse of the family is the gravest threat to national security which we are now facing (remember that the gravest threats are always those which come from within).

Four

How do we begin to restore the family?

The key commandment God gave regarding the family is the fourth commandment – honor your father and mother.

If children can honor their parents, it will enable them to honor God, who is their Supreme Parent. It will also make it possible for them to honor the legitimate authorities in their lives and make them fit to serve their own country and community and their own family when they have one.

So children must, must, must be taught to honor their father and their mother. But that’s going to be really difficult for them to do if their parents act dishonorably. 

Children have a hard time maintaining honor for parents who act shamefully. So, if you want to know what you can do to make a holier, more just, more decent and more stable society, one of the first questions to ask yourself is: how could I set a better example for my children? What shameful, dishonorable habits do they see in me? What shameful, dishonorable habits do I hide from them, and what will the effect on them be if and when they ever find out?

As always, each of the commandments demands that we examine ourselves first. 

How can we live in such a way as to help our own children better follow the fourth commandment?

As parents, it is not our responsibility to make holy children. Our responsibility is to give our children holy parents.

Five

The timelessness of the family

The human project, the human experience, depends on the family. As one writer puts it,

“With family life the history of the world commences. In the course of centuries, many dynasties have been established and mighty kingdoms founded; they lasted for a short while and have disappeared. An institution, however, which has not been destroyed by the many revolutions of time, is the family; generations come and go, but the family remains. It outlasts everything, until, finally, the whole of humanity will at the end of time be divided by God into two great families; God’s family in heaven, and the devil’s family in hell. As it was the beginning, so will family life be the end of the world’s history.”

The family is what sustains everything human. And what sustains the family is love and honor. 

How are you loving your family? How are you honoring and caring for your parents? How are you encouraging your children to honor their families, and how is your example helping or hurting them fulfill God’s commandment to do just that?