The institution of the family
The Greeks define a family as ‘a dwelling’ or a place where you feel at home and fit in. The Hebrew idea of the family, which is very similar to the African idea, is even more extensive because it includes everyone in the lineage as well as dependants and may go as far as people who work closely with the family. Hence, with regards to these above mentioned cultures, anyone living with you or anyone who your child constantly relates with, is considered to be part of the family and must therefore believe in the same values and morals.

A family is a prototype of society and society is as strong as the family implying that a nation is a collection of families. It therefore goes without saying that a disintegrated, frustrated and angry family will be reflected in the community and nation. The family is meant to secure society so any nation that builds a strong sense of family, has lower crime rates.  According to Tulsa World newspaper, Governor Mary Fallin from the city of Oklahoma signed a bill to make seeking divorce more complicated, requiring married couples with children younger than 18 and who are seeking a divorce based on incompatibility to pay for and complete an educational program. The class covered the impact divorce has on the child’s well-being including reconciliation as an option; the effects of family violence; potential child behaviours and emotional states of the child. This is believed to have reduced divorce rates by 40%, which also reduced social vices.

Everything that is going wrong in the nations now were very rare in the past decades. Increased violent crime and rape can be traced back to a problem in the family such as bitterness from a family that didn’t work. Young people are in prison today and majority of them are angry about a father who was never in their lives and they have taken their anger out on society and even on themselves. The ideal family is the key to a more stable society and it’s the only qualified unit for effective and total development of a child.  When a child is born in an ideal family, where there is a sense of structure and belonging, they very rarely experience social problems. The policies passed by the government and programs initiated for families are meant to strengthen the institution of the family instead of making disintegration easy. Any nation that builds a strong family concept and priority will have less poverty, crime and depression.

There probably lies some truth in the reason why the family was created first before the society. Since the nation is a collection of families, if there’s anger in the family it will surely show up in the nation. Below are some of the reasons why we need to focus on the family.

The first purpose of the family is to secure the society. No matter what we say about our country in terms of economic development and projects going on with investors coming in, there are folks going into these jobs angry and bitter about situations that are happening at home. This affects productivity at work as people are coming from homes with no sense of belonging and structure. Focusing on the family will strengthen and provide a more suitable society with increased productivity.

Secondly, the role of the family is to teach children how to be civil with each other by providing opportunities to live with people who are different from them, allowing another person to have a turn and to accommodate each other. We always hear on the news how criminals are becoming more and more uncivilised and lacking empathy as they go into homes to rob people and sometimes kill them afterwards. We are not meant to leave the government to discipline our children for us but the family institution is a place where discipline is taught and boundaries are clearly defined. Parents sometimes shirk our responsibilities by depending on the government and authorities to bring up their children.

Thirdly, the family is also important in the society because it gives children their identity, self-concept and self-worth.  Unfortunately, when children cannot find their identity from the family, they create another family outside of the home, in most cases the gangs, in order to feel loved and accepted. 

Last but not the least, the role of the family is to teach and transfer morals and values to our children knowing that as we hand over the baton to them, they will keep passing it on to the generations ahead of them and our voices will resound in the generations even after we are gone. Therefore it is not the role of the government or schools to each good morals and values but our children should have already grasped the concept from home. In most cases, by the time the state comes in to teach morals, it is too late to change what has already been cemented in the children. What the children keep seeing in the family is very important because we teach values to our children unconciously. We, as parents, cannot afford to have double standards as children become embittered and confused. For example, to tell them to stop smoking when you are smoking yourself. To train children implies that the parent leads by example and the children follow what is being taught.

In a nutshell, the purpose of the family is to reproduce, secure, preserve, develop and provide for the maximisation of the functional potential of the individual so that one can function effectively and efficiently in life and society.