LXX: Families

The family is often under duress and assault in our society. There are many reasons for it, but there are also many larger themes that are often ignored.

Consider the "nuclear family." While in a sense it is the base unit that God established (Genesis 2:24), its isolation and intense focus is a more recent phenomenon.

We hear all the talk about how the family has degenerated since the 1950s. In reality, it began degenerating in the 1830s, thanks to the Industrial Revolution.

First, divorce. Statistics show that whenever industrialization and urbanization increase around the globe, so does divorce in those places, no matter the previous cultural norms (Sell, Family Ministry, 52).

What happens seems relatively clear. The ancient, medieval, and even early modern societies placed the individual family as the primary economic unit. A shopkeeper, blacksmith, farmer, laborer, etc., would work with his family at his residence. The wife would be a business partner, and children were put to work to assist them and later to take on the trade or occupation (54).

It was the shift in the Industrial Revolution that, well, "revolutionized" things. Men would go and work at the factories and be more separated from their families than before. The increase in income led to women exclusively devoting themselves to housekeeping-- the modern concept of the "housewife" is therefore less than 200 hundred years old (55).

This explains a lot: in olden times, to leave the family, either as a wife or a child, would be economically costly and hazardous. Today, not so much.

Likewise, it explains the Proverbs 31 woman in context. I feel for you Christian ladies out there; so much interpretation of the Proverbs 31 woman wants to make her someone modern, a woman who can work 8 to 5 at the office and yet have all the household chores completed with a happy husband and children...and you're not even given the benefit of the servants! Yet the Proverbs 31 woman (and man) were quite different from us moderns. He did not go work in a factory or office, and neither did she. Whatever his occupation, he would work quite near the family ore even within the living space. Her work would complement his, either helping in the bookkeeping end or, more likely, making fabrics or other clothing goods for sale. It was a whole lot more holistic than what we see today...and not nearly as stressful. Especially since she had servants to do all the dirty work. :D

Other interesting truths abound. The world around us was only considered a "jungle" from which "home life" was a "repose" since the....Industrial Revolution. Family is now to be a haven of rest from the world around us, and we have greater expectations out of our family lives now than ever before (56). Since we are imperfect people, and imperfect people make imperfect families, oftentimes the family cannot possibly live up to the ideal that we create and perpetuate in our lives.

The role of intimacy (non-sexual) in families is also illuminating. One of the often recognized effects of the industrial revolution has been the loss of community and the greater isolation of the family unit. The greater mobility that modern technology has allowed has led to "nuclear" families being separated by hundreds or thousands of miles from their "extended" families. For these and many other reasons, we now look more to the nuclear family for the complete satisfaction of our emotional needs (38-39).

Again, we humans are weak. Greater expectations rarely lead to better outcomes, but instead more disappointment. Because of the greater need of emotional fulfillment, families often become explosively emotional, and thus no longer the haven of rest in a hectic world. Children often bear the brunt of this: their emotional attachments to many adults are often now limited to just mom and dad, and that can lead to difficulties down the line.

And, of course, there is the husband-wife relationship. Americans now expect that relationship to be the most important source of emotional satisfaction and support. In many instances, people expect it to do so almost exclusively. But is that the way it was designed?

This desire for intimacy also forces couples to concentrate on their relationship to such a degree that a tremendous pressure to succeed sometimes makes that success elusive. High expectations for marriage may make couples less satisfied with their marriage. Studies show that lower expectations have played a part in the degree of marital satisfaction that working class couples achieve. Housewives who do not have, nor greatly expect to have, a close relationship with their husbands, but do have close friendships with other housewives are, on the whole, more satisfied with their marriages than the wives of white-collar workers. This means that when couples are isolated from kin and community and thus more in need of intimacy in their own marriage, their marriage is at greater risk (39).

This is not to say that wives should look everywhere but their husbands for emotional support, but it does show that just as man is not an island, neither is a marriage. We can (and often do) elevate what we expect out of marriage or our family so high that our spouses and children can just never reach our expectations.

We need to be realistic about ourselves, our spouses, and our children. And this entirely underscores the reason why we must become quite emotionally intimate with the body of Christ, the church. Why is it that we should bear each other's burdens (Galatians 6:2)? Because we need more people close to us in our lives than just one or two!

If we are married with children, we need to have emotional intimacy as appropriate with our family members. But we also need close friends, especially within the body of Christ, who can bear part of our emotional load as we bear part of theirs, and what we expect out of our spouse and family can be more realistic.

Single people should not be punished for not having a spouse with whom they can be emotionally intimate; they have emotional needs too, and the body of Christ can meet theirs. The same is true with divorced persons and widows and widowers.

Yes, the Industrial Revolution has led to all kinds of problems and havoc with the family, and more modern trends have exacerbated them. But we're not going to do well if we just put our heads in the sand and cling to some mythical family of yore that probably never existed anyway. We need to do what we can with whom we have and with the resources available to us. Of great importance, however, is the community of believers. If the local church is family-like in their care and concern for all members, as God intended it to be (1 Corinthians 12:12-27), then its members can bear each others' burdens and make modern life livable, and be a beacon of light to the world because of it. If the church decides to be a cold social club, don't be surprised to see more marriages ending in divorce, more teenagers run screaming in rebellion, dwindling numbers, and no significant evangelistic success.

Not only can we achieve God's intentions for families in the 21st century, we can do so while still living in the 21st century and being a great and powerful testimony to God in the community while doing so. But we can only do it when we provide the support network within the body to make it work.

What shall we do?

ELDV