The Writings of Ivor Browne: Steps along the road-the evolution of a slow learner

10. The Family in Western Society

109 10. The Family in Western Society The following piece, ‘The Family in Western Society’, was written on 1 August 1975. This paper was never published but was written for a talk that I gave some time in 1975. MOST people in this country or elsewhere would, I think, agree that the family is a basic social institution in our society, perhaps the primary social unit. The constitution of Ireland has this to say about the family in Article 41: 1. The State recognizes the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law. 2. The State, therefore, guarantees to protect the family in its constitution and authority, as the necessary basis of social order and as indispensable to the welfare of the Nation and the State. 3. In particular, the State recognizes that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. 4. The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home. If the family has this central place in our society, then one would expect it to have some important functions for which it is responsible. Article 42 of the Constitution, regarding education, has this to say about the family: The State acknowledges that the primary and natural educator of the child is the family and guarantees to respect the alienable right and duty of parents to provide, according to their means, for the religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social education of their children. Much has been written, of which this statement is but one example, of the many functions that have been attributed to the family at one time or another. Let us try to ascertain what these functions might be. There would appear to be two main groups of tasks for which it is felt the family should have a major responsibility: 1. Those more obvious and visible functions relating to survival. 2. A group of less visible, subtle and more intimate functions to do with personal relationships and the development of our children. Commonplace, Visible Functions Relating to Survival Procreation Security: protection from disaster Clothing: protection from exposure Provision of shelter: housing Maintenance of basic health Education of offspring: spiritual, moral and social Leisure: time and space to play Deeper, Less Visible Functions of Intimacy, Relationship and Development Primary relationship between woman and man; i.e. between parents Relationship of mother to infant in the womb: peace, stability and security Intimacy: development in the child of a basic capacity for intimacy, in touching, feeling, relationship with parents in the first year of life Laying down the foundation for sexual identity Laying down the foundation for personal identity On this secure base to then provide a setting for the child to grow in independence: freedom to experience the world and to learn by doing Providing the child with the basic knowledge and information for living Providing a setting in which the child can develop the capacity for personal relationships; this involves initially the relationship with both parents and siblings, and later with a widening circle of friends Finally, to help the young person to progress to a position of confidence , independence and mature responsibility The Writings of Ivor Browne 110 If we go back to primitive cultures, or even further to the societies of primates and other higher animals, we find that the primary social unit is in fact a group of families, living and working together (developed out of the extended family), which addresses itself to the task of survival. On through history, until recent times, this has been the pattern. The primary social unit for survival and for transmission of the culture has always been a group of families. This has taken various forms at different times, from the extended family, the hamlet, the village, the small market town with its hinterland, the cluster of neighbourhoods making up the human city with its pedestrian centre, such as the city-state of ancient Greece or renaissance Italy. To my limited knowledge of human history, it is not until we come to modern society that we find the isolated nuclear family as it exists today. If this is the reality, then...