In the first two parts of this series, we looked at just a tiny part of the criticism directed at the traditional family – husband and wife, plus any children they may have. Much of the criticism, but not exclusively, comes from those intent on pushing the sexual agenda emanating from LGBT+ issues. With the uptake in different ungodly lifestyles, removal of existing norms is seen as necessary to accommodate the new “freedom” to do what they want and that is expressed as contempt to what the great God of the Bible stated in His Word at the dawn of civilisation.
Another criticism can be read in fee.org. “Even today the aversion to the traditional family remains strong in socialists. A 2019 article in The Nation, titled “Want to Dismantle Capitalism? Abolish the Family,” offers a glimpse of the modern socialist critique of the institution.
“We know that the nuclear private household is where the overwhelming majority of abuse can happen,” author Sophie Lewis explains. “And then there’s the whole question of what it is for: training us up to be workers, training us to be inhabitants of a binary-gendered and racially stratified system, training us not to be queer.”
“For true believers of collectivism, there’s little question that private family matters are also state matters. Socialism requires collective control of resources, and humans are the ultimate resource. This is why the traditional nuclear family, which places authority in the hands of parents rather than the community, is an affront to so many socialists.”
To be clear, we thoroughly condemn this socialist, communist and fascist approach, as it would give the ungodly state total control over the people.
Timothy P Carney wrote the following in the Washington Examiner, on December 17, 2020:
“In Alienated America, I argue that strong communities need strong families and vice versa. Where community breakdown occurs, it’s often the fruit of family breakdown. Children raised by only a mother are at a disadvantage, but their neighbors suffer, too, because that mother (probably working full time and charged with all household duties) is less available to coach, volunteer, or just sit on the front porch keeping an eye on things.
“Marriage implies permanence, dedication, and commitment. Communities need those things. Less marriage means weaker communities.
“Raj Chetty’s research, in fact, suggests that having many households with two married parents is the best way to guarantee the upward mobility of children.”
An older, but still very relevant essay published by docslib outlines the grim reality of “The Decline of the Traditional Family”:
“The traditional family today has been transformed into a post-modernistic family, as the modern culture has pulled apart the connected bonds of a family. Our popular television shows today portray wrong visualizations to their commonly young audience with inappropriate content and family morals. The ‘Little House on the Prairie’ TV series, popular in the late 1900’s, was a refreshing family show that portrayed the common traditional family in that era. However, new TV series accentuate today’s post-modernized family that makes untraditional family morals desirable for their viewers. One of the newest series ‘Modern Family’ portrays the life of three modern related families of today, including same-sex partners with an adopted child. The appeal to be like the celebrities on these post-modernistic shows are draining away the traditional values families should have. However, ‘Modern Family’ is one of the top TV series today, winning up to 11 Emmys.
“This essay will focus on the core of the decline of the traditional family as divorces, abortions, same sex marriages, and ignorance of biblical principles increase daily-making our present families diverse from tradition.
“The government is also encouraging the destruction of the traditional family. One example is the rising of same-sex marriages. The title, ‘Ex-Lesbian: Obama Destroying Traditional Families,’ is as shocking as it sounds. Janet Boynes, a former lesbian, is now the leader of her Christian ministry called Janet Boynes Ministries, where she ministers to individuals who either question their sexuality or wish to leave a homosexual lifestyle. Janet affirms that it is hard to keep the values [of] traditional family ideals today, because our current generation and government powers are advocating rights for homosexuals. Ms Boynes mentions that President Barack Obama is using the financial governmental power to encourage people to accept and normalize same-sex relationships! This rips apart the picture of the traditional husband and wife.
“The government’s intentional ignoring of Biblical values are affecting the children of America. The children’s educational system that used to be taught with Biblical-based principles is now the design of a humanistic, person-centered program that is corrupting our future traditional families with immoral doctrines. The ability to pray or talk about God’s love is banished from the classroom and discouraged from children’s vocabulary! Parental consent is also considered unneeded for the health of their children.
“Today, traditional family values are being destroyed as if crushed by a huge rock. Matthew 5:13 says, ‘Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt has lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.’ The children of today have lost their identity, living opposite to the Bible!
“We must stay strong to the faith and proclaim God’s Commandments to all! Together, let us empower ourselves with the determination, as one nation under God, to revolutionize our future and bring back the traditional family.”
In the Daily Mail, dated Monday, Feb 13th 2023, one of the headlines was: “I’m a psychologist and these are 13 reasons why people DON’T want to get married anymore – and why staying single makes you happier.” It went on to say:
“If you are about to have a baby, chances are you are more likely to be unmarried than married. Figures from the Office of National Statistics (in the UK) show that 2021 was the first year on record that more children were born out of wedlock than in it. It follows a long-term trend of declining marriage rates and rising numbers of cohabiting couples seen in recent decades.
“Explaining the decline, Dr Max Blumberg, a relationship psychologist and chartered member of the British Psychological Society, says that marriage no longer offers what it used to.”
Below is how he breaks down exactly why the traditional institution is on the way out. We have deliberately not quoted the text under the headings except for number 11, as this was too long to quote in its entirety.
- Traditional reasons for marriage no longer matter
- People marry when they are happy (and we are less happy)
- Growing acceptance of cohabiting
- High divorce rates paint a bad picture
- No evidence to show that marriage makes you happier and healthier (especially for women)
- Cost of weddings
- Marriage is not promoted by UK government
- Women are fine doing motherhood alone
- People don’t want to invest
- Being born out of wedlock is no longer a social disgrace
- Sexual fluidity
The younger generations are far more likely to be open minded than older generations. An increasing number are gay or lesbian or pansexual, as well as being gender fluid. If people want to date people of differing and varied sexes, then again marriage is less likely to be an option, particularly as the church does still not support gay marriage.
- Lack of married role models
- Sexual liberation and the pill
We could respond to each of the items above but that could seem somewhat tedious and the answers are pretty obvious!
Julie Roys, a speaker, freelance journalist and blogger in the USA wrote: “A little known fact about socialism is that, from its beginning, it has sought to destroy marriage and family. In the USA, Grove City Professor Paul Kengor explains this in detail in his book, ‘Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Marriage and Family.’ Essentially, what socialism seeks is for the state to replace the family. That way, it can indoctrinate children in its Leftist way of thinking, and remove from them any notions of God and religion.
“Friedrich Engels, co-author with Marx of the ‘The Communist Manifesto,’ once wrote that the society he envisioned would be one where ‘the single family ceases to be the economic unit of society. Private housekeeping is transformed into a social industry. The care and education of the children becomes a public affair.’”
We hasten to add that this is not only true for socialist or communist societies, but also for fascist regimes which try to control their people. National Socialism under Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler would be prime examples.
In a paper “Redefining the Family: Undermining the Family,” by John DeWitt Gregory” from the University of Chicago Legal Forum, the following snippet is interesting: “In addition to casebook editors and treatise writers, professorial contributions of legal scholarship in law reviews have contributed frequently and at length to efforts to redefine the family. One prominent commentator, for example, has stated bluntly: [Our] society has undergone profound transformations in the past century, and the long-standing legal structure of marriage may now be anachronistic. The state’s interest in preserving the traditional family may not be important enough to offset new societal and individual needs which require more flexibility and choice in family forms.”
On the website voiceofthefamily, we read how local government is usurping the authority of parents in raising their children in a family environment. “A group of parents in Wales is asking the High Court to overrule a decision by the government in Cardiff to make attendance at sex education classes mandatory in local primary schools. When the Welsh government introduced a ‘new code’ for the teaching of ‘sex and relationships education’ (RSE) earlier this year, it removed the right of parents to withdraw their children from the lessons.
“Sadly, parents in the rest of the UK, the Irish Republic and across most of the Western world have already been confronted with the situation unfolding in Wales. And although the legal action against the Welsh government is unlikely to succeed, there is a strong body of international law aimed at protecting the family and the rights of parents. The fact that governments no longer respect these rights is the result of a strategy worked out decades ago by organisations, such as International Planned Parenthood Federation. These organisations, which have managed to seize control of the agencies established by the United Nations, are now sufficiently powerful to have their agenda enforced across the globe.”
We can see how those who want the rights of the godly-ordained family to be paramount are overridden by those who think that the state knows best. The family is certainly under threat by bureaucrats who think that they know better than God who created the family 6,000 years ago.
The traditional family, according to the Word of God, is simply put: Marriage as God ordained it is between a man and a woman (Genesis 2:24). For a more thorough exposition on this subject, please see our Q&A as mentioned in the second part in this series: https://www.eternalgod.org/what-is-a-family/
(To be continued)
Lead Writer: Brian Gale (United Kingdom)
