Social Ethics: What is a family - Lecture Notes
What makes family a natural society?
(a) Human beings are social beings.
(b) They have a natural aptitude, tendency, and the need for permanent union or companionship with fellow beings.
These two aspects make family a society quite natural to human beings.
Types of families
In virtually all societies, we can identify two types of families: nuclear family and extended family.
a) Nuclear family
This consists of two adults living together in a household with their own or adopted children. In most traditional societies, the nuclear family was part of the larger kinship network of some type.
b) Extended family
This is when close relatives other than a married couple and children live either in the same household or in a close and continuous relationship with one another. An extended family may include grandparents, brothers and their wives, sisters and their husbands, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins, etc.
Two Levels of Understanding of Family
i. Conjugal society
In its most elementary form, a family begins to exist through the conjugal relationship of husband and wife united in marriage. This is the conjugal Society. Conjugal Society or Marriage is defined as the permanent union, lawfully formed, of husband and wife for the procreation of children and their wellbeing. There is a horizontal relationship between husband and wife (the union of husband and wife).
The dignity of the persons involved in this conjugal society demands that the union is a PERMANENT and an EXCLUSIVE one. Otherwise, there is no scope for proper and complete development of children. The primary end of marriage according to the traditional understanding is procreation of children and their wellbeing.
ii. Parental Society
Conjugal society’s natural extension is known as Parental Society. It comes into existence when the spouses give birth to a child or children. It is the natural expansion of the conjugal society, with the arrival of the child or children. There is a vertical component in family, that is, the union of parents and children. The Primary End of family as a parental society is Good of the Child or Children and the Secondary End is Happiness of All the Members of the Family.
The horizontal and vertical components are just two aspects of a family. Both the conjugal and parental societies begin with marriage. To understand it better, we consider two aspects of marriage.
Two Aspects of Marriage
Marriage is an Act:
As an act, marriage is a contract by which a man and a woman give and receive right over each other for companionship and the performance of the generative or reproductive act.
Marriage is a State:
As a state, marriage is a society of lasting union (permanent) of a man and a woman, resulting from such a contract.
Marriage as a Contract
Requirements of a Valid Contract. As a contract, marriage must fulfil the basic requirements of a contract.
Two conditions for a Valid Contract:
- The contracting parties must be competent (capable) persons; i.e., in marriage, adult man and adult woman (Competency).
- The consent must be mutual, free, and in proper form (Consent).
There shall be no compulsion or force to marry any particular person, and marriage must be entered by two persons through free consent.
This consent must be true, internal, mutual, and manifested to each other. It should be a Bilateral agreement (two sided). Error, force, and fear must be absent.
So, Marriage is (conditions for a valid marriage):
a) A union of opposite sexes (male and female), hence, morally, a marriage between homosexuals and lesbians is not possible or permissible.
b) It is a permanent union, no divorce is allowed for that matter.
c) It is an exclusive union, no extra-marital relations are permitted.
d) Its permanence and exclusiveness are guaranteed by contract. Hence, civil and religious ceremonies to solemnize the contract are called for and signature of both husband and wife are required.
Marriage as a Natural Institution
- Marriage is not merely a human convention.
- Marriage has its foundation in the Natural Law. It is a natural institution.
- Natural Law as something grounded in the nature itself.
- Natural Law that governs rational creatures (human beings) is Natural Moral Law.
- Natural Moral Law is that of the rational creatures’ participation in the eternal law.
- Natural Law that governs the non-rational creatures (not human) is Natural Physical Law.
Aristotle and Aquinas:
According to Aristotle and Aquinas, the primary end of marriage is good of the offspring. The secondary end is companionship. They assert that there are two essential properties of marriage.
Two Essential Properties of Marriage according to Aristotle and Aquinas
Unity – this is opposed to polygamy; and
Indissolubility – this is opposed to divorce.
The Unity of Marriage
The unity of marriage means that only one man be married to one woman simultaneously. This promotes monogamy. Monogamy is the most accepted form of marriage in many societies.
Violation of the Unity of marriage
i. Polygamy – the practice of a man being married to more than one woman at the same time. (marriage with more than one spouse)
ii. Polyandry – the practice of a woman being married to more than one husband at the same time. It is a rare form of marriage practised within matriarchal societies such as Old Nair families, Tibet, Himalayan societies, Eskimos, American-Indian cultures, etc. This is meant to counter scarcity of land problem.
iii. Polygyny – the practice of a man is married to more than one wife at the same time. (getting more people to work at home!)
iv. Homosexual and Lesbian Marriages – the practice of a man being married to a fellow man or a woman being married to a fellow woman.
These forms frustrate the ends of marriage because they violate the natural law. Especially, polyandry frustrates the primary end as, ordinarily, children cannot or do not know their real father and secondary end as companionship is divided. Polygamy and Polygyny violate the secondary end of marriage as the mutual companionship is adversely affected. Homosexuality and lesbianism violate both primary and secondary end of marriage.
The Indissolubility of Marriage
Indissolubility is that essential property of marriage in virtue of which the conjugal bond between husband and wife cannot be dissolved or broken by any human power during the lifetime of either of the two partners. This means that marriage cannot be dissolved.
Violations of the indissolubility of marriage: Separation and Divorce
a) Separation
This is a temporary measure in which the two parties; husband and wife, cease to live together and to discharge marital functions, but remain married. Temporary means probably to resolve some issues; related to character, temperament, unjust conduct, disagreements on issues of religion, career, family issues, etc. It is morally permissible since separation does not break the marriage bond. There is hope that the two partners can reconcile within a given period.
b) Divorce
This is the permanent dissolution of a marriage contract freely and mutually undertaken by a man and a woman. Divorce dissolves the marriage bond. If morally acceptable, then parties should be free to marry. However, divorce frustrates the adequate and intrinsic ends of marriage such as; procreation, good of the children, and mutual companionship of marriage.
No human authority has the power to grant a divorce, from the perspective of Natural Law. Though some countries have legalized divorce, this doesn’t make it morally right. Many things may be lawful, but not useful. Divorce may not be harmful in individual cases; but it would be ruinous to humankind at large especially children. Cases of home violence, distrust, street children, etc. may result from divorce.
Marriage and sexuality
Marriage can be defined as a socially acknowledged and approved sexual union between two adult individuals known as husband and wife. Marriage is also a socially recognized and approved union between individuals, who commit to one another with the expectation of a stable and lasting intimate relationship. Marriage as an institution transcends the particular individual involved in it and unites two families.
Sexuality is a theme found throughout society – places of work, in the mass media, and so on.
Sexuality is an important part of how we think about ourselves as well as how we evaluate others.
But, in spite of its importance, few people really understand sexuality. Throughout much of our history, sex has been a cultural taboo, so, at least in polite conversation; people do not talk about it.
Sexuality has a biological foundation. But, like all dimensions of human behaviour, sexuality is also very much a cultural issue. Around the world, some societies restrict sexuality, while others are more permissive. In some societies, for example, China and some African societies, societal norms closely regulate sexuality, so that few people have sex before they marry.
In other societies, for example, the United States, however, sex prior to marriage has become a norm. Because sexuality is an important dimension of social life, society regulates sexual behaviour. From a biological point of view, sex allows our species to reproduce. But culture and social institutions regulate with whom and when people reproduce. For example, most societies condemn married people for having sex out of wedlock because it threatens family life and many societies condemn sex between blood relatives (incest). This shows clearly that no society is willing to permit completely free choice in sexual matters.
The relationship between marriage and sexuality
Sexuality is a basic dimension of our personhood; it is our self-understanding and self expression, our way of being in the world, as male or female. To be human is to be a sexual being. Human Sexuality is also a general term referring to various sexually related aspects of human life, including physical and psychological development, and behaviours, attitudes, and social customs associated with the individual's sense of gender, relationships, sexual activity, mate selection, and reproduction. Sexuality permeates many areas of human life and culture, thereby setting humans apart from other members of the animal kingdom, in which the objective of sexuality is more often confined to reproduction.
Sexuality permeates and affects to some extent all our emotions, thoughts, and actions. It includes the culturally defined attitudes and characteristics that we make our own as masculine and feminine. It also involves our affections toward and appreciations of those of the opposite sex and or same sex. Our attitudes toward our own bodies and those of others are rooted in our sexuality.
Sexuality is a sign of our incompleteness as individuals and a means of calling us to interrelate with other humans, to communicate and commune with them. The mystery of our sexuality is the mystery of our need and yearning to reach out to other persons, to embrace them both physically and spiritually. In this way sexuality serves to create and develop our personality by integrating us as persons into human society.
Marriage regarded legally as an institution has its primary end i.e. the begetting and rearing of children and as its secondary end the mutual love and help between the spouses. It is a kind of completeness between the spouses. Mark 10:6-7 “God made them male and female and for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and unite with his wife, and the two will become one”
What is our attitude towards our sexuality?
Negative attitude (invalid)
People consider sexuality as a sin, not allowed, a law, an order and as a product made by man. We need to remember that, sexuality is a responsibility because it is a gift from God. Considering sexuality as a sin doesn’t correspond to the reality. Sexuality is not a sin; instead we need to integrate the whole dimensions of body and heart.
Positive attitude (valid)
Sexuality is the fundamental aspect of human experience, i.e. being man and woman. It is a personal attitude and must be respected in the whole dimension, the will, liberty, intelligence and sexuality of others. The person is a mystery, and he or she understands himself or herself through the other person, therefore through the relationship.
Selection of a marriage partner
Among practically all peoples, custom forbids the marriage of very near kin. Sexual relations between parents and children and between brothers and sisters are known as incest. Most people not only condemn sexual relations between members of the immediate family but forbid it between other less closely related persons.
One rule shared by virtually all societies is the taboo (social prohibition) against incest sexual relations between two closely related individuals. Incest taboos are rules that determine acceptable and non acceptable marriage partners. Incest taboos always cover nuclear family members.
Marriage outside the immediate household means that family ties are extended throughout a larger community. These ties reinforce community solidarity and provide support when needed.
Historically, parents have played a major role in choosing marriage partners for their children, and the custom continues in the world’s developing countries today. Parental influence is greatest when the parents have a large stake (personal involvement) in whom their child marries. Traditionally, marriage has been regarded as an alliance between two families, rather than just between the two individuals. Aristocratic families could enhance their wealth or acquire royal titles through a child’s marriage. Marriage was also used as a way of sealing peace between former enemies, whether they were kings or feuding villagers.
The most extreme form of parental influence is an arranged marriage in which the bride and groom have no say at all. For instance, in traditional Chinese practice, the bride and groom meet for the first time on their wedding day. In some upper-caste Hindu marriages, children are betrothed at a very young age and have no voice in the decision. In a less extreme form of arranged marriage, parents may do the matchmaking, but the young people can veto the choice. Some small cultures scattered around the world have what social scientists call preferential marriage. In this system, the bride or groom is supposed to marry a particular kind of person, for example, a cousin on the mother’s or father’s side of the family.
Qn. What factors should one consider in choosing a marriage partner?
Marriage crises and dilemmas today
Marriage is in crisis, as everyone knows: high rates of divorce and illegitimacy have eroded marriage norms and created millions of fatherless children. There is a high increase in the marriage crises and dilemmas in marital life. Due to the increasing marriage dilemmas, today we have many divorce and separation cases in marital life. As a consequence, many young men and women have shunned marriage. And single parent families are on a rise.
Separation
A separation, sometimes called imperfect divorce, means that the two parties cease to live together and to discharge marital functions, but remain married; the marriage bond remains intact so that neither party is free to contract a new marriage. An agreement contract is entered into between husband and wife by which they agree to live apart; or a judicial separation, a court decree that separates the parties to the marriage and provides for their living apart. Separation does not dissolve the marriage relationship. A separation agreement contains provisions for the custody and support of minor children, as well as for the division of property between the parties. Such a separation is sometimes necessary, but it should be undertaken only for the gravest of reasons, such as the danger of a physical harm.
Divorce or dissolution
The term divorce is usually understood to mean perfect divorce, which is an attempt to dissolve the marriage bond itself so that the parties are free to contract new marriages with other persons.
This is a legislatively created or judicially administered process that legally terminates a marriage to no longer be considered viable by one or both of the spouses and that permits both to remarry.
However Divorce, like the marriage contract which it tries to dissolve, is regulated by ecclesiastical and civil law. Divorce was legalized in November 2004. Many societies support marriage and about 9 out of 10 people marry., half of today’s marriages end in divorce. The divorce rate (i.e. the number of divorces per 1,000 married men and women) is increasing today. Indeed, divorce is becoming an accepted part of our way of life, or so as it appears. At greatest risk of divorce are young couples especially those who marry after a brief courtship with little money, and who have yet to mature emotionally.
The chance of divorce also rises if a couple marries after an unexpected pregnancy or if one or both partners have substance abuse problems. People who are not religious are more likely to divorce than those who are. Finally, men and women who divorce once are more likely to divorce again, probably because problems follow them from one marriage to another.
Divorce may not be harmful in individual cases, but its widespread practice is a serious social and moral evil i.e. a breakdown in social morality. The chief reason against divorce is the havoc it works in the life of the child. The child is the one who pays for the parents’ failure. The child is deprived of the environment in which it should grow.
The status of divorce in other nations varies, often depending on prevailing religious beliefs.
Among Roman Catholics throughout the world, the traditional attitude is that a true marriage (one entered into as a religious sacrament) is indissoluble by legal means. Notwithstanding this strict interdiction of divorce, many Roman Catholics procure divorces in the courts. The Roman Catholic Church views such divorces as merely a form of legal separation, and remarriage is not permitted.
In countries where Protestantism is dominant, the doctrine that marriage is indissoluble has been rejected. Philosophical theories and political theories generally maintain that marriage is pre eminently a civil contract and that therefore it is subject to dissolution. Divorce on various grounds is recognized among Buddhists and Muslims as well.
Why should one be obliged to spend the rest of his or her life with a companion one has ceased to love? Why can’t an unfortunate mistake be rectified?
Such questions only go to show what an important step marriage is. Those who enter it hastily with no sense of its serious obligations must pay the price of their folly or thoughtlessness. A contract for life is precisely that, a person is obliged to live up to his word. Accidentally divorce may be better for this or that individual, but it is ruinous to mankind generally. Laws are made for the common good and individuals are bound to cooperate for the common good, and individuals are bound to cooperate for the common good even at personal disadvantage.
Causes or reasons for divorce
Divorce has become much more common over recent years in today’s society due to several reasons:
a) Individualism
Today’s family members spend less time together. People have become more individualistic, more concerned with personal happiness than with well-being of their families and children. Physical distance and long separation between married people has also contributed to infidelity or unfaithfulness among couples. There is also lack of truthfulness among some couples, hence, leading to divorce.
b) Women are less dependent on men
Women’s increasing participation in the labour force has reduced wives’ financial dependency on husbands. As women become more economically dependent, marriage is less of a necessary economic partnership. Greater overall prosperity means that it is easier to establish a separate household in case of marital disaffection or not being satisfied. Thus, women find it easier to quit unhappy marriages.
c) Stressful marriages
With both partners working outside the home in most cases, jobs leave less time and energy for family life. This makes raising children harder than ever. Children do stabilize some marriages, but divorce is most common during the early years of marriage when many couples have young children.
d) Decline in romantic love
Because our culture bases marriage on romantic love, relationships may fail as sexual passion fades. Many people end marriage in favour of a new relationship that promises renewed excitement and romance. Some couples have failed to coexist due to individual differences.
e) Divorce is more socially acceptable
Divorce no longer carries the powerful stigma it did a century ago. Family and friends are now less likely to discourage couples in conflict from divorcing.
f) A divorce is easier to get
In the past courts required divorced couples to demonstrate that one or both were guilty of behaviour such as adultery of physical abuse. Today all states allow divorce if a couple simply thinks their marriage has failed. The divorce reform movement of November 2004 has accelerated divorce.
g) Successful careers
Divorce is also more common if both partners have successful careers, perhaps due to the strains of a two career marriage but also because financially secure people do not feel compelled to stay in an unhappy home.
i. Parental divorce – people whose parents divorce are more likely to divorce.
ii. Premarital cohabitation – people who cohabitate before marriage have a higher divorce rate.
iii. Premarital childbearing – people who marry after having children are more likely to divorce.
iv. Marriage at an early age – people who marry as teenagers have a higher divorce rate.
v. Childless marriage – couples without children are most likely to divorce.
vi. Low incomes – divorce is more likely among couples with low incomes.
What are the effects of divorce on the spouses themselves, children, and the society at large?
Annulment of marriage
In law, annulment of marriage is the determination by a court that a supposed marriage was never legally valid. Annulment, also called nullity of marriage, is distinguished from divorce, which is the action of a court in terminating a valid marriage. Marriages subject to annulment proceedings are classified as “void” or “voidable.” A void marriage is one that is deemed invalid in all respects.
Examples of void marriages include those involving incest or bigamy, under aged or the insane or a marriage procured by fraudulent (untrue) means. Sexual impotency existing at the time of marriage also gives grounds for annulment. A void marriage may be annulled only in a lawsuit brought by the aggrieved party directly against the guilty party. In practice, void marriages are valid until annulled, and any children are legitimate.
Criteria for a happy marriage
a) A happy and successful marriage life begins and ends with God. A good wife or husband comes from God.
b) Communication
Good communication is one of the most important requirements in successful marriage. Poor communication results in increasing anger, tension, and frustration in getting others to listen and understand. Effective communication involves the ability to exchange ideas, facts, feelings, attitudes, and beliefs so that messages from the sender are accurately heard and interpreted by the receiver, and vice versa.
c) Admiration and respect
One of the most important human needs is acceptance and appreciation. Partners who like, admire, and support each other, are proud of each other, and build each other’s self esteem are fulfilling their emotional needs in a satisfying relationship. Partners who are able to respect each other are usually emotionally secure people themselves.
d) Companionship
Successful married couples spend sufficient and quality time together. They enjoy each other’s company, share common interests and activities, and laugh together.
e) Spirituality
Shared spirituality contributes to marital success. Religiosity is the most consistent and strongest predictor of marital adjustment. Religion contributes to marriage in a number of ways, including social and emotional support, friends and activities to share, encouragement of marital commitment, and increased intimacy as a result of sharing ones faith.
f) Commitment
Successful marriage requires a high degree of motivation: the desire to make it work and a willingness to expend personal time and effort. Marital success is more attainable if the commitment is mutual. The commitment is threefold: to the self, to each other, and to the relationship the marriage and the family. One of the hardest tasks is to balance commitment with personal autonomy and freedom.
g) Affection
One important expectation of most married partners is that they will meet each other’s need for love and affection. However, needs vary. Both physical and verbal expressions of affection are important. In successful marriages, love grows, but changes over the years with fewer components of romanticism and stronger bonds of attachment and affection.
h) Ability to deal with crises, stress
All couples experience problems and stress. Successful couples are able to solve their problems and manage stress in a creative way. They also have a greater tolerance for frustration than do unsuccessful couples.
i) Responsibility
Responsibility involves being accountable for one’s own behavior within the context of the family.
Successful marriage depends upon the mutual assumption, sharing, and division of responsibility in the family. In marriages in which couples report a high degree of satisfaction, two conditions exist in relation to the division of responsibility: there is a fairly equal division of labour, and gender role performance matches gender role expectations.
j) Unselfishness
Selfishness in marriage lessens each partner’s willingness to assume responsibility for the relationship. The most successful relationships are based on a spirit of mutual helpfulness.
Paradoxically, the people who are the most self centred and self-serving are less likely to feel fulfilled and happy and are less often able to bring happiness to others.
k) Empathy and sensitivity
Empathy means the ability to identify with the feelings, thoughts, and attitudes of another person.
Empathy is affective sensitivity to others and is important in a successful marriage. Affective sensitivity develops in five steps: perception, experiencing, awareness, labeling, and stating.
l) Honesty, trust, fidelity
Partners need to know that they can accept each other’s word, believe in each other, depend on each other to keep promises, and be faithful to commitments that are made. They need to be honest and sincere. Research on trust indicates that it is the degree of confidence people feel in their relationship; it is the feeling that the other person is predictably dependable. People who trust others are more dependable and trustworthy themselves.
m) Adaptability, flexibility, tolerance
Adaptable and flexible people recognize that people differ in the way they think, in their attitudes, values, habits, and ways of doing things. They don’t insist that everyone be a carbon copy of themselves. They recognize that life is not static, that people and circumstances change.
Adaptability and flexibility require a high degree of emotional maturity. The most difficult people to deal with are perfectionists, who have only one rigid standard by which they judge everyone, who have impossibly high standards, who fear criticism and rejection and so are always on the defensive, and who inhibit self-disclosure and so are hard to communicate with.
Marriage and sexuality in an African context
Marriage and sexuality are decisive for the further development of life and therefore including ethical development. Marriage in African context resembles a drama in which each person plays an active role; hence marriage is an existential task to which all are summoned. One who refuses to play his part will be reproached by the entire community, since this negative attitude is understood as a contempt which contradicts the good law of the ancestors.
Marriage is one of the fundamental elements which strengthen and reestablish the community, it signifies solidarity with one’s ancestors, moreover, which ultimately achieves a communicative fellowship that transcends death. All this also implies the idea of fertility and the transmission of life, and this not only concerns the survival of the individual but also embraces the entire fellowship, the living, the dead and the unborn. Each one who continues the transmission of life through the covenant of marriage narrates the biography of his ancestors and writes his own autobiography, there by conquering death on the level both of the individual and of the community.
Each child who enters the world keeps alive the memory of the ancestors and makes it present. At the same time, the birth of a child is a sign that gives the future generation the chance to survive, the newborn child is a sign that those not yet born are called to a visible existence in which they will play a vigorous role within the community. Thus, children represent both the unborn and the ancestors. In relation to the ancestors, they are a genuine memory, whose arrival they proclaim.
Marriage is a covenant and a place where the human person is realized in his totality, for the human person is constituted in his entirety only in a union of the two genders. This uniting in marriage likewise reestablishes solidarity with one’s ancestors and with the coming generation. Hence, married life is a high and demanding ideal. One who tempts to attain this ideal must pass through many, often painful experience which finally bring him to maturity. This allows us to grasp the African attitude to celibacy: an unmarried person is inexperienced and immature. The African understanding of marriage questions the Western understanding, where marriage is lived individualistically and considered as nothing more than a private contract between two persons, without consideration of the community.
Sexual life in the context of the community
African communities are interested in the sexual lives of all their members, since sexuality is not a private matter. The goal of sexuality is to keep together the community entrusted to us by our ancestors and to bestow ever new life on this community. It follows that the community must prepare young people for a responsible sexual life, psychologically and physically. In a psychological speaking, young people are to become so mature that they learn to refuse every abuse of sexuality; physically, wise women and men teach them the correct relationship with their own bodies. This takes place above all in the period of initiation, which is the best school for self control and is oriented to the future of the community.
In many ethnic groups, the entire clan fellowship is interested in the wedding night, discreet questions aim to discover whether the newly married couple are satisfied and happy with their sexual life, since it is on this not only on the ability to beget or give birth, that the future of marriage, and hence the fate of the entire community, can depend. Sexuality aims at more than just procreation due to the fact that in many regions particular events are to be sealed or celebrated by sexual intercourse between the spouses, for example, the marriage celebrations of one’s children, the appearance of the child’s first teeth, and also funeral rites. The goal of the sexual act is to strengthen the bond between the family and the clan community, therefore to build the community.
The family in a social context
In the family each one has a role to play for the construction of a good family. Concerning education the parents are the ones responsible, not only the direct parents, but also the whole community, we can say all the society. Therefore we can see the importance of community in the African way of life and ethical conduct. A child is not only for the individual but belongs to the entire community.
The concept of ‘family’ varies greatly from culture to culture. The family is a universal human institution. It is known by all people on earth since it is at the origin of all tribes and nations. It is known by all human beings since all come from it. When we speak of the family, we all understand that, it means “the group composed of father, mother and children”; or “the group of persons who have common blood or a covenant links” including those without children.
Extended family systems are common and extensively widespread in Africa. Extended families emphasise blood ties and trace descendants through paternal and maternal lines or bilinear depending on whether they are patrilineal or matrilineal societies. Most of African traditional societies are patrilineal where by Authority lies with the male heads of families and decision making processes involved blood related male members. The family in Africa is mostly the extended one, the eldest living direct paternal parent, is the head of the small family. As long as the father is living, the children, however old they might be, are never fully independent, they are still under his control.
The family is a place of growth whereby the first education is received. The main or basic education is given in the family from parents to children, where by a boy is educated by the father and for the girl is given by a mother. The main agent of education in Africa is a family; it is because the parents take the first step to the growth of children mentally, physically and spiritually. It is the education given by parents to children at their first life which helps them to befit in the society in which they belong. Slowly the children are taught good manners, taboos and the duties they are supposed to carry out in the community. Great emphasis is laid on obedience and respect for the elders. The whole community is responsible for this type of education, it is the education of life, because is a base for life.
The role of parents
In the African family, parents have a very important role and in the community too. It is in the family that children obtain their human and moral education, and parents are the immediate people who offer this to them. Education is given through the telling of stories, riddles, proverbs, sayings, songs and mostly by lived examples. These methods are used because they help to assimilate values without causing tension to the child. The education begins at the time of birth and ends with death. The child has to pass through various stages of age groupings with a system of education defined for every status in life. It is best for the child when he is educated by both parents, because the father and mother have different roles to play, each is important and plays a necessary complementary part in child education. Moreover, the community accompanies the child and provides all the care he needs to mature. Its role is very important, for a child does not belong only to his genital parents, but in his growth, the whole community is involved.
In many African societies the father is the head and the highest authority after the ancestors in the family. He is the one who has to think about the solutions to the big problems of the family; he is responsible for the welfare of the family. He stands for the family in front of society and protects it from external enemies. The education of his sons is in his hands, particularly when the sons passed from childhood to adulthood. He has to help them know their responsibilities, values, discipline and prepare them for marriage and future life as a whole. He has to protect and give assistance to the wife when expectant, to respect her and the new life growing in her. He remains the one giving life to his family in that he is the main protector and supporting pillar of the family.
The father is the custodian of the discipline in the family.
A mother has an important role in running the family, in African traditional societies she is the real base of family life and her motherhood goes beyond the boundaries of her household. When a baby is being born, it does not only then open the mother’s womb but also her heart so that she may have, in her heart, a place for every human child, the Africans would think. This is why one can call ‘mother’ every African lady without any risk of ridicule. The mother in the family is the flower, and the husband the fence around it; that is a Ghanaian saying very much applicable to any family. The flower gives fruits, which are the children, while the husband cares for them together with his wife. Being a mother, she disseminates love, care, tenderness, calm, and peace in the family. Of all these duties and obligations, expected of parents and children, the stress is not on the legality but on the togetherness, on communion, on respect and acceptance of what the tradition has laid down in the course of time.
The role of children in the family
In the family, the child is accepted from the moment the mother realizes that she is expectant. It is known that the main purpose of marriage is to beget children. Children are greatly valued in African life, for they are the seal of marriage. Once a marriage has produced children, it is very rare to see it broken. On the other hand, if no child is born, the marriage could break up, though at times arrangements could be made to preserve it, seeing to it that children come into the family by other means. Children bring joy to the family, and are the glory of a marriage. The more children the family has, the greater the glory. They add to the social status of the family and no one wishes to die childless.
In the family, the children have their own duties to fulfil. They are to help their parents, respect them, help with household chores, in the fields, and study for a better tomorrow. When parents become old and weak, it is the duty of their children to look after them and to the other affairs of the family. Children, by meeting the needs of their parents in their old age, prolong their lives and through them the name of the family is perpetuated. Whatever the position of the child, he is expected to treat the elderly with great respect and care, especially parents.
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