I return to one of my all-time favorite themes – marriage and the family. As each human individual is the first unit of interest with God in the creation, so family is the next unit for God with the individual in society. The primacy of the individual is demonstrated in the creation of Adam, who appears for a time without a mate. God knows the loneliness of the male, and fills the need with the female. (Precedence does not determine equality, nor do the role assignments limit the genders.) In his observations, the first male saw the relationships in the animals, so emphasizing aloneness for him. The loneliness served well, in that the human male, in a biological gesture from God, gained a sense of responsibility. In the animal world the male often appears to have relatively little responsibility except to father cubs, and serve nature in a jungle culture. Only in a few species in nature does the male escape large self-interest. The female bears the burden of birthing through acceptance of the male, in mutual heat, and the major care of the young. She shows prowess in the care of the new-born, even grieving if they are lost to distracting enemies or fighting if they are threatened. Some human issues also relate to gender differences in assigned roles.
Gender is of no consideration to God relative to rights, freedom, self-worth, and all that is resident in personhood as God meant it to be. When assigning responsibilities, God provided the resources from nature to accomplish the purpose of society. The details on this are dealt with on other Pages. Our purpose here is to articulate the positive meaning of the family as found in the ideals, the practicality, the fulfillment, the needs of the individual person and society in general. God accented the concept to Israel. The truly good in the family is truly good for the society. The family is society writ small. Society ought to be the magnification of the family to the degree that it can be. Only God could have created a system to guide conscious life as it exists in nature, and known to mankind. God let us in on the secret, and we do not do nearly as well with it as we ought to do and can do. Family is the first context for service to others.
There is an increasing interest in declaring marriage as outdated. A sociologist noted the end indicated in: the divorce rate; the number of persons living together without marriage increasing in startling percentages; the definition of marriage changed in the gender relationships; the sexual dalliance that defies vows of life agreement; and, the reduction in adult duty to the needs of children, especially related to nurture and development to adult life. In my lifetime, same sex marriage adds another shift from marriage meaning. Because the needs of persons assume family solidarity, and with that solidarity eroded, there must be some other provision to meet the need. We are moving toward larger institutions, not families, to form society.
Problems increase. Persons cannot be nurtured, directed, controlled, educated, employed, retired, and maintained to their deaths with human satisfaction by institutions. Hitler wanted to form society for Aryans. Even early Christians tried a system at the beginning of the church, but it soon faded. It takes family to meet the needs of the members of the family. The costs to government, if the trends of the decades since World War II continue, will be greater than the total national product. The society is best that is populated by responsible persons, living in loving and care-giving families to lift their members to their meaning in society. There will be needs that other family members should be serving, and those serving will likely need to be served at some points along the way. Such relationship was active to the solution found by Mordecai and Esther in Scripture. In this is fulfillment, protection, idealism – a microcosm of the larger society. In this is the purpose of mankind to be fulfilled both as one who serves, and one who is to be served. It is ideal in the life of the parent with the child, but so much more. It dare not be lost. With the changes that have occurred in the family, in the purposes of government, in the decline of firm values, in the industrialization of life – the future of earth life will be different than history has recorded. At this writing there is not a government competent enough, financed well enough, unified sufficiently to offer the necessary services and motivations for happy life based on love that cares for its own. Love is the motivation, and care is the performance of love. It is freely provided in the biblical family, and offers analogy of meaning in our lives. It is a formation for all societies *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020