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The family is the perfect structure on which to build human society. It alone assures stability to parents and children.
The family composed of father, mother, and children represent the cornerstone of human society.
The family unit is the cornerstone block in which father, mother, and children can grow to be balanced and mature individuals. The social relationships spun therein are the foundation of the network of human society.
(Audit of Humankind, chapter 3.7)
We’re discussing the structure of human society, the relationship between human beings, locally and worldwide. We’ve discussed the equality of human beings and that humanity is composed of two compatible genders. The basis is that the only way to procreate is for two individuals, one of each gender, to come together. Last week we discussed the formation of such couples. Dating, engagement, courtship, bride, and groom. This leads to marriage and husband and wife with its beneficial effects.
The binding of two individuals of opposite genders in marriage can lead to procreation and the founding of a family. These new structures of human society pose questions of leadership, authority, and rulership among others. The ultimate section of chapter 10, Singularity of Humankind, highlighted the human capacity to rule their surroundings. Rulership which entails leadership.
In marriage and family, both leadership and rulership are important. How so? We will discuss this much more in the next section of this book, Endeavors of Humankind, but it arises in the lives of a couple and their family. As soon as you have two or more people, there has to be a leader. Can’t we have joint leadership? When you have two people that have different opinions and a decision has to be made either a compromise has to be found, one has to consent or one has to make the final decision.
In the latter case, that falls to the leader. Traditionally, in Western society that has been the male. In matriarchal societies, this will be the female. I intend to take the traditional approach of a male leader. Why? You can read the answer in Origin of the Universe. But, what is of paramount importance is not only WHO the leader is but HOW that person leads. In certain family situations, it has to be the female. In a single parent situation, or if the male becomes incapacitated, the role of leadership falls to the woman and she is responsible for leadership and rulership of the family.
I am going to use one word to describe this type of positive leadership, benevolent. The welfare of the governed is the focus of such leadership. In the context of How Humans Function there are four elements: Ethics, justice, self-reproach, and forgiveness, all summed up by the proper expression of love towards and between those governed.
Who are the governed? In the family, it is the couple and the children. The children are like new branches that grow out of the trunk (the parents) of the tree. If you have a tree, especially a fruit tree then you know that branches have to be pruned, in-growing branches, diseased and dead wood should be cut away for shape and health. A productive tree can’t be allowed to grow any-which-way. Wind and light should have access. This is especially true of a young tree.
In a family, the children are the branches, and they do need pruning by a benevolent gardener.
The family structure is the best growth structure that exists. Here’s why.
- It’s a small malleable and controllable structure with one father, one mother and a few children. Groups of 3-10 or 12 are the most viable for best management.
- A benevolent leader or leadership can devote time to each of the members of the group. One-on-one time is necessary to build bonds, trust, and sharing.
- The babies, children, and adolescents are going through the critical periods, which is the best time, even one-time-only, opportunity to establish the basics of life in their brains and minds. They are the most malleable from 1-5 years when they are essentially in their parent’s care most of the time.
Overall, in a family, you have the ideal conditions for proper structure: Benevolent leadership and malleable subjects. The leadership has all the rights and a huge responsibility to mold malleable minds in preparation for life. This situation is once-in-a-lifetime and will never come again either to that leadership or to those subjects.
U.S. Rep Michelle Bachmann (R-MN 06) Oftentimes will think there’s not a lot we can do for America, I’m just one person. But if we do our best to be a good husband or good wife and have a strong marriage, that provides the foundation not only for great kids but for a great society. When we focus on the smallest unit of government, which is the family, making that strong in our own backyard, that’s really what the founders said that America would be all about—self-government. Because when we can greatly govern ourselves the nation takes care of itself so if we have strong well-grounded families we will have a strong well-grounded nation.
Watch this video with experienced individuals who deeply understand the value of marriage and family. Here are a few quotes about the necessity for the proper functioning of these fundamental building blocks of human society.
US Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC 07) Senior House Majority Whip. Family is the basic governing unit of all society and where we learn the values of respect, dignity, discipline, teamwork, understanding, compassion and cooperation. Those are all values that are truly family values that truly start at home.
A well-governed family is not perfect parents and perfect children. It’s father and mother learning and exercising their authority as parents and leaders. It’s children making mistakes and learning to be disciplined (justice). This leads to children understanding their position in the family (self-reproach) and it creates the right respect (ethics) so there are cooperation and teamwork (love). The compassion is the forgiveness that all family members need one for the other.
US Rep. Henry Cuellar. I think the concept of what families are about is what makes us strong as a country. But first, we’ve got to be strong as a family and this is why the family is the nucleus of what makes so important what we do as human beings in this world.
To be able to make an impact on the world, the first step is exercising our role in our immediate nucleus, our family. Family foundation first.
We look for answers in government; we look for answers in new government programs; we look for answers in new money being thrown at programs. Doing what? Trying to replicate the relationships we find in families and trying to somehow find substitutes for the families. When in fact, what we ought to be doing, in my judgment, is trying to promote families, promote the traditional idea of families. And, in the law, grant if you will, preferential status to the common notion of a marriage being between one man and one woman. It stood the test of time for thousands of years, seems to me the onus, the burden should be on those who want to change it.
The cornerstone is the family. When the family abdicates its role, it expects kindergarten, school, police, army and government to step in and maintain the order in society. This is what’s happening, this is the Audit of the Universe, what’s happening today. It’s like trying to straighten out a five-year-old tree. Only families can work with children as soon as they’re born and start them out on the right footing.
US Rep Louie Gohmers (R-TX 01) And a mother and father will tell their children, if they love them, “you need to learn to do this let me teach you and then you’ve got to do it for yourself.” And as the family disintegrates then you see people demanding that the government do this for that and that for me.
Parenthood is helping your children learn how to make their own decisions, to lead their own lives properly. Parenthood is to help prepare children to become future parents.
US Rep. Henry Cuellar. When you look at the discipline that a mom and a father provide, when you look at what’s provided in the family, that’s what provides order, that’s what provides a civil order and this is why what we do as a family and what the definition of family does, that is something that has an impact on what we have in our civil society, without a doubt.
It isn’t conceiving and making babies that’s the key. it’s all the work, and it is work, needed to guide their growth until they reach maturity.
Dr. Wilson Goode. Because when it’s (sk. marriage and family) not working government has to step in and in essence become the parrot, at times, in terms of education, in terms of law enforcement, in terms of correcting young people. All those become factors in a society where there’s not a strong family unit performing the function of a strong family unit which is training children to grow up and become productive citizens in our society.
I certainly have my differences with the Pope, but Jean-Paul II said, As the family goes, so goes the nation, and so goes the whole world in which we live. That is profoundly correct. The family is the key cornerstone of human society.
This blog post is an excerpt from chapter 3.7 of the book Audit of Humankind.
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