sex and marriage

Chapter 18 Modern Family (2)
The status of the modern family, even the strongest, has been greatly reduced by the role of the state.In the heyday of the family institution, a family consisted of an elderly father, grown sons, and their wives and children—and perhaps younger generations.All these people live in the same house and work together as an economic unit.They unite to fight against foreign countries, just like the citizens of modern militaristic countries.Today, family members are limited to parents and their young children.And even these children, according to the laws of the state, spend most of their time in school, learning what the state thinks is good for them rather than what their parents want them to do (religion is an exception, of course).Now, British fathers not only do not have the right to life and death over their children like Roman fathers.He could even be accused of child abuse if he treated his children with the same moral values ​​that most fathers considered indispensable 100 years ago.If the parents are poor, the state provides free medical help and feeds the children.In this way, the role of the father, which has been largely replaced by the state, is reduced to a minimum.With the progress of civilization.This is inevitable.In the primitive state the father is indispensable, as in the birds and the apes, indeed for economic reasons, and to protect the child and the child's mother from harm.The latter role has now been taken over by the State.Now, a fatherless child is probably no more vulnerable than a child whose father is alive.

As for the economic role of the father, it is not a problem for the propertied class, and the effect is better if the father is dead than if the father is alive.Because if he didn't spend all the money for his own living, he would leave his fortune to his children.Among those of the wage-earning class, the father still has an economic function, but, with respect to the wage-earner as a whole, this function is constantly being diminished by humanitarian concepts.The idea is that a child should receive some degree of care even if he has no financial help from his father.Today the most important father exists in the middle class, because as long as he lives and has a good income, he can give his children that expensive education that preserves their social status and economic status; conversely, if he dies while the children are young, the children are likely to lose their social status.But, among the self-supporting classes, a far-sighted father can avoid this danger by means of life insurance, and thus greatly reduce his burden.

In today's society, the vast majority of fathers are too busy to see their children often.In the morning, they have no time to communicate with the children because they are too eager to go to work; in the evening, when they get home, the children are already asleep.It is often heard that the children's idea of ​​a father is "just a man who came over for Sunday".Fathers are rarely involved in the heavy lifting of childcare; in fact, this responsibility is shared between mothers and educators.There is no doubt that a father often has a strong affection for his children, although he spends little time with them.Every Sunday, in the poor parts of London, one can see many fathers with their children, and they can be seen to be genuinely happy at this brief opportunity to be with them.However, no matter what the father thinks, from the child's point of view, this is just a play relationship of no importance.

Often, among the upper classes and the working classes, it is common practice to leave children in the care of nannies when they are very young, and to send them to school later.Mothers pick nannies and fathers pick schools, so they keep their minds of controlling their kids intact in a way that working-class parents can't.But, as far as close association is concerned, the relationship between mother and child is usually not as close in the home of the wealthy as in the home of the wage-earner.Although the fathers of rich families have a game relationship with their children on holidays, they do not actually educate their children more than working-class fathers.Of course, they have financial responsibility and can determine the environment in which children are educated, but their personal contact with children is not of special significance.

When a child enters adolescence, conflicts between parents and children tend to arise because the child thinks he is fully capable of handling his own affairs, while the parents are still full of inherent worries, which are often a mask for power.Parents often consider the moral issues of their children's youth to be within their prerogative.However, their opinions are often so arbitrary that the young people cannot accept them, so they always act according to their own ideas in private.Therefore, for adolescent children, most parents are not very important.

So far, we've only discussed the shortcomings of Modern Family.Now.Time for us to discuss where family remains strong.

at present.The family is important primarily because it enables parents to gain affection.Whether for a man or a woman, the feelings of parents are probably the most important thing.Because it most influences human behavior.Couples with children often plan their lives primarily around their children.And children can most make certain behaviors of ordinary couples selfless, of which buying life insurance is probably the most clear and obvious example.In textbooks, people who were economically responsible 100 years ago were childless, although such people undoubtedly had children in the imagination of economists.These economists, however, take it for granted that the general competition they assume does not exist between fathers and sons.Therefore, the psychology of buying life insurance is obviously completely outside the motivation mentioned in classical political economy, but psychologically speaking, this kind of political economy is not spontaneous, because a person's desire for property is closely related to his parents' feelings of.Even Reeves says that all personal possessions spring from a family feeling.He points out that birds have private property only when their eggs are brooding, and not at all at other times.Most people, I believe, will admit that they are a lot greedier after they have children than they were before.In layman's terms, this result is instinctive, that is to say, it is spontaneous and arises from the subconscious.From this point of view, the family is the main reason why those rich people save money, and it is of great significance to the economic development of mankind.

A curious misunderstanding frequently arises between father and son on this point.A man who works hard in business will tell his idle son that he has worked all his life for his children.However, the son would rather get a small check and a little affection now than receive a large inheritance after his father dies.Moreover, the son clearly realized that his father's going to work in the city was entirely due to habit, not out of love for his son.therefore.The son judges his father to be a liar, just as the father judges his son to be a bad boy.However, the son is unjust.He saw only all the habits his father had formed in middle age, but not the invisible and unconscious causes of their formation.A father may have suffered poverty in his youth, so when his first child was born, an unconscious instinct made him swear that his child would never again suffer what he had experienced.This determination is so solemn and vital that it does not need to be consciously repeated.Even if it is not repeated, this determination will always govern the father's actions.This is one of the reasons why the family still has great power.

According to the child's idea, the greatest advantage of being dependent on parents is that you can get from them a caress that no one else can get except his brothers and sisters.One part of it is good; the other part is evil.In the next chapter I intend to discuss the psychological influence of the family on the child.So now I just want to say one more thing on this subject: there is no doubt that parental caresses are of great importance in the formation of a child's character, and that a child raised without parents must be very different from a normal child, and regardless of this difference For better or worse.

In an aristocratic society, or in any society accommodating eminent talents, for some important people, the family was a sign of connection with the continuity of history.Surveys show that those named Darwin are more scientifically accomplished than those named Snox as babies.I think that if people's surnames were based on the maternal line rather than the paternal line, it would be as fruitful as we are now.Although it is by no means possible for us to make such a distinction between hereditary and environmental components, I still fully believe that family tradition plays a considerable part in the phenomena of heredity which Galton and his pupils spoke of.Why, for example, did Samuel Butler develop his theory of unconscious memory, and why did he advocate the neo-Lamarckian theory of heredity?The factor that contributed to the above was that, for some family reasons, Samuel Butler decided that he and Charles Darwin were incompatible.His grandfather (as if) argued with Darwin's grandfather, and his father argued with Darwin's father, so he has to argue with Darwin too.George Bernard Shaw wrote "Methuchella" precisely because Darwin and Butler both had an eccentric grandfather.

In this day and age when contraception is common, the greatest significance of the family may lie in its ability to maintain the custom of childbirth.If a person does not see the use of having children, and if he has no opportunity to develop an intimate relationship with them, he will feel that there is no need to have children.Of course, if we slightly change the existing economic system, the mother may be the only member of the family.But it is not this kind of family that I am now discussing, since it has nothing to do with sexual morality, and so is relevant to our present discussion only of the kind that forms a stable marriage.Perhaps—I think it is not impossible—the father will soon be completely replaced by the state, except in the rich family.In this way, women can raise their children with the state, not with the father.They can have as many children as they want, and there is no responsibility for the father.

Obviously, if the mother is promiscuous, the identity of the father is difficult to ascertain.If this happens, it will inevitably bring about profound changes in people's psychology and activities.In my opinion, its depth is far beyond most people's imagination.As for whether this effect is beneficial to human beings, I dare not make rash comments.It would eliminate from men's lives the only emotion as important as sex; it would render sex itself still less important; It might also lead to early retirement; it would take away interest in history and the sense of continuity in historical tradition; The passion you have when you're not attacked by people of color.I think it also makes people less interested in war and maybe less greedy.It may be impossible to weigh the good influence and the bad influence, but the depth and breadth of the influence are beyond doubt.So the patriarchal family is still very important, though how long it will last is anyone's guess.

(End of this chapter)