The traditional family is under attack but are we really being told all the facts?
For 30 years now, many in the intelligentsia have blamed the nuclear family for the ills in society. The family is portrayed as the seed bed of repression and hypocrisy, of frustration and stereotyped gender roles. At the very least the media bombards us with 'evidence' to show that the family is 'just another lifestyle choice', and even some within the established church have jumped on this bandwagon.
If, as evangelicals, we advocate chastity before marriage, fidelity within marriage, and we oppose homosexuality, we are looked at as if we believed that the earth is flat. It is easy to be intimidated. Of course, we believe these things because they are revealed to us in the Word of God. But what about the conscience? Are not the laws of God written on the hearts of men and women? Should not common sense and scientific evidence bear out the principles of Scripture?
Indeed, common sense and hard evidence do bear out the fact that, broadly speaking, human happiness is most likely to be achieved when there is harmony with God's creation mandate of marriage, childbearing and productive labour.
For this reason, we note the contributions to the 'family' debate made by the Institute of Economic Affairs Health and Welfare Unit. Over many years past they have produced a string of well-documented and fascinating analyses of the malaise of our society. The contributors are academics from a variety of backgrounds: some from the right, some from the left, and some from the academic neutral middle. There is no religious agenda. But there is broad consensus that the West is losing faith in the virtues that made for its prosperity and ascendancy: family life based on the Judaeo-Christian ethic and the associated work ethic. The authors expose the false reasoning of the 'conformist intellectuals' who have ignored the evidence to promote their amoral agenda.
The family breaking down?
Lone mother households (as a proportion of all households with dependent children) more than doubled between 1971 and 1991 from 8% to 19%. In 1971 21% of all conceptions were outside marriage. By 1990 43% were outside marriage. The percentage of births in England and Wales which were outside marriage remained at 4 or 5% for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, but by 1991 was 31% of all births. If divorce rates were to persist unchanged, 24% of children can expect divorce in their family by the age of 16.
Intellectual dishonesty
In Families without fatherhood(1) Norman Dennis and George Erdos offer a robust defence of the family as defined by Christian teaching, arguing that the 'sacred' teachings concerning chastity and fidelity actually correspond to human welfare (p.50). Professor Dennis is a 'ethical socialist', believing that individuals are personally responsible, and opposing 'egoistic socialists', who contend that the 'system' causes individuals to behave as they do.
A.H. Halsey provides a foreword in which he exposes the modern superstition of absolute individual freedom, the self-sufficiency of the ego, and the downward spiral by which marriage has become a mere contract and children mere commodities. Dennis and Erdos give evidence of the appalling consequences for the children (and the rest of society) of the increasing numbers of fatherless families. They expose the treachery of the intellectuals who have conspired to suppress this evidence. They warn that societies can decay from within, and see the breakdown of the family as an alarming symptom of this decay.
In his book Rising Crime and the Dismembered Family(2) Dennis draws attention to the facts indicating rising crime, refuting those who blame 'moral panic' for allegations of such an increase. He gives evidence that family breakdown is a primary factor behind rising crime, and demonstrates that this evidence has been suppressed in the interests of political correctness. He is scathing about the appearance in the Church of England of the 'debased' and 'materialistic' notion that crime is 'caused' by poverty, bad housing and unemployment.
The Family: Is it just another lifestyle choice?(3) reclaims the term 'bourgeois family' from the opprobrium which has been heaped on it over the past 30 years. The tendency to regard the family as just another 'choice' is seen to have devastating effects on civilisation as we know it.
Government policy
In Farewell to the Family?: Public Policy and Family Breakdown in Britain and the USA(4) Patricia Morgan gives a sobering survey of how the traditional unit of man, wife and children has been replaced in policy terms by the mother-child-state unit. The economic basis of family life has been undermined by changes in taxation which removed support given to parents with dependent children.
For instance, as a result of the child care allowance introduced in October 1994, a lone parent with two small children can work for 20 hours a week at £4.00 an hour, and end up with the net income of £163.99 after rent and tax. A married father of two children working double the time (40 hours) at the same hourly rate would take home £130.95. Critics lampooned Arch-bishop Habgood when he recently suggested incentives to marriage, missing the fact that at the moment the playing field is not even level: there are numerous disincentives to marriage.
Morgan documents the tragic effects on children of broken or incomplete (or re-constituted) families. She analyses the detrimental effects of the de-stabilisation of male employment.
Work ethic
In Taxes, Benefits and Family Life: the Seven Deadly Traps(5) Hermione Parker gives a devastating critique of how taxes and benefits interact to destroy incentives to work at the lower end of the wage scale. Our 'welfare' system is uneven between different groups of claimants, some of the most needy not receiving sufficient help, and there are perverse incentives which induce people to move themselves into categories where benefits are available. The government blames 'scrounging' and whittles away at benefits. That misses the real issue: people are playing by the rules of a complex government-imposed game. Sobering figures are supplied to show that poorer families may well be better off by not working, as they can take advantage of a greater number of benefits. A cumulative process of increasing disincentives to work means a vicious circle, with an increasing number of claimants, and the burden falling on a diminishing number of taxpayers.
Most scandalous are the pressures on low earners with families, where what is taken away in taxes, NI contributions and council tax often negates any advantage of being in work at all. Britain, it is argued, is no longer a 'family-friendly' country. Strong families are vital to economic prosperity, but 'successive governments have chipped away at the traditional, two-parent, single-earner family' (p.88). The penalties for marriage in the benefits system are documented. Seven 'traps', created by the interaction of taxes and benefits, are carefully analysed. Parker implies that confusion and muddle between different departments is partly to blame. Suggestions are offered of ways in which the benefit system could become a trampoline rather than a trap.
Feminist ideology
Liberating Women . . . from Modern Feminism(6) demonstrates that the real victims of the dogmas of modern feminism are women. Again, politically correct myths are dismantled. There are real differences between the sexes. Women are often fulfilled in the family context. A powerful essay, very relevant in the light of current proposals, argues for the restoration of fault to divorce law. In a similar vein Equal Opportunities: a Feminist Fallacy(7) attacks the modern 'sacred cow' of pushing maximum numbers of women into the paid workforce.
'Victorian values'?
According to the modern media, nothing could be worse. The Victorian age was, after all, the age of repression, smugness, hypocrisy and greed! Or was it? We note finally a study of Victorian society which debunks the modern myths.
The Demoralisation of Society: from Victorian Values to Modern Values(8) shows that the Victorian concept of personal responsibility and good character had profound and beneficial effects. The virtues of respectability, self-help, discipline, cleanliness, obedience and orderliness were at least believed in, if not always practised. This is a salutary corrective to the shallow judgments we hear so regularly. The author is scathing about the modern substitution of the feeble word 'values' for the old-style belief in virtue and vice, and ends up demonstrating that our increasingly-demoralised society is overdue for a moral reformation.
There is much to provoke thought in all these books. While we believe that genuine spiritual revival is ultimately the only hope for reforming our corrupt society, we must remember that God uses means. As citizens in a democracy we have rights and responsibilities. If we are to make our voice heard, we must be informed, and there is much information here which can help in the debate about the family.
Books:
1. Norman Dennis and George Erdos. IEA Health and Welfare Unit, Choice in Welfare series no. 12. 2nd edition. 1993. 132 pages. £7.95.
2. Norman Dennis. IEA Health and Welfare Unit, Choice in Welfare series no.18, 1993, 92 pages. £5.95.
3. Jon Davies, ed. IEA Health and Welfare Unit, Choice in Welfare series no.15, 1993, 109 pages. £6.95.
4. Patricia Morgan. IEA Health and Welfare Unit, Choice in Welfare series no.21, 1995, 194 pages. £9.00.
5. Hermione Parker, IEA Research monograph no. 50, 1995, 149 pages. £12.00.
6. Caroline Quest, ed. IEA Health and Welfare Unit, Choices in Welfare no.19, 1994, 101 pages. £6.95.
7. Caroline Quest, ed. IEA Health and Welfare Unit, Choices in Welfare no. 11, 1992, 114 pages. £6.95.
8. Gertrude Himmelfarb, IEA Health and Welfare Unit, Choices in Welfare no. 22, 1995, 306 pages, £12.50.
The above books can also be obtained from The Christian Institute, Eslington House, Eslington Terrace, Jesmond, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE2 4RE (0191 281 5664).
Bill and Sharon James live in Leamington Spa where Bill pastors Emmanuel Evangelical Church.
