THE

BIBLIOTHECA SACRA

ARTICLE I.

THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST, AND THE MODERN FAMILY.

BY PRESIDENT CHARLES FRANKLIN THWING, D.D., LL.D.

Of all social institutions, Christ apparently judged the family to be the most important. Respecting its foundation, continuance, conditions, and possible disruption, he spoke more constantly and more directly than respecting any other institution. Either with silence or with brief speech did he treat other social institutions and movements with which society, ancient or modern, is concerned. He declined to be led into discussion regarding the duty of allegiance to the civil authority. He had nothing to say respecting the nature of government. He did not condemn the monarchical, and he did not favor the democratic, form. He spoke no word regarding the evils of human slavery, or the divisions of society, or the reciprocal rights and duties of labor and capital. Regarding education, he also was as silent as he was about the social question. If one result of his coming was the establishment of the church, yet he uttered, regarding its character and functions, purposes and relationships, only a few, even if pregnant words. Like Socrates, he wrote no book. He gave no dissertation on the ethical or intellectual value of many of the theories which concern modern society. But in respect to the family his utterances were, if few, significant; and many of the most funda

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mental and impressive of his teachings were based upon elements of domestic life and society.

The theology of Christ is interpreted to us more largely in terms of the family than of any other institution. The doctrine of God is declared to us in the word "Fatherhood,” and the personality of Christ himself is likewise made known in sonship and brotherhood. Christ and his Father, he affirms, are one. From the Father he comes forth, and to the Father he returns. If he is made known as the Son of God, he is likewise made known as the Son of man. His most tender and impressive prayers are addressed to the Father. The character of children he uses to teach the nature of the Kingdom of God. The fitness of prayer receives illustration in the request of children made to their parents, and the willingness of God to answer is enforced by the nature of the desire of parents to grant the requests of their children. His suggestions regarding conversion are founded upon the figure of birth. The infinite love of God, the degradation of sin, the duty and the possibility of repentance, the fact of forgiveness, are declared in the parable of the prodigal son, which is likewise the parable of the loving Father.

The social teachings of Christ are, like the theological, based upon the figure of the family. The most intimate relations of service to him are suggested through the remark that one may become to him as a mother, a sister, a brother, by the doing of his will. Among his last utterances on the cross are the commending of his mother to his beloved disciple, and of his beloved disciple to his mother. The duty at once of truthfulness and of service, he enforces in the parable of the two sons. Among the most significant words of his last long talk with his disciples, before the crucifixion, is found the assurance that in his Father's house are many mansions or rooms,—the fam

ily dwelling-place. If the pearl of the necklace of his parables shows the love of the Father and the redemption of the profligate son, it also shows the base and debasing effects of selfishness. The grace of humility, the duty of freedom from giving offense, the beauty of innocence, the sweetness of truthfulness, are illustrated in the character of childhood. The love which he has for man, finds its inspiration in the love which the Father has for him; and the test of the love of the disciples for him is found in their keeping his commandments, even as the test of his love lies in the keeping of the commandments of his Father. His first recorded utterance is the interrogative declaration that he is to be about his Father's business or in his Father's house. If the last word he spoke on the cross is the commending his spirit to his Father, the first of the seven utterances is a prayer to his Father to forgive those, who, in ignorance, crucify him.

It is, therefore, hardly too much to say, that the theological and the social teachings of Christ are largely and impressively embodied and set forth in terms of the family.

The reason of such a presentation is not far to seek. Christ desires to speak to the common experience. Every person is a child. Every person has a father and a mother. The home is as common as it is central. Each person is born into a home. Pathetic, as it is unusual, is the lot of one who is homeless. "Born of the Virgin Mary" was the Christ. If for three years, he was, in a sense, homeless, for thirty years he was a son in a home. He was subject to his parents. Out of his experience, Christ spoke to the experience of all.

The origin of the family is marriage. Marriage is both a status and a contract. Marriage is, says Bishop, "The civil status of one man and one woman united in law for life, for the discharge to each other and the community of the duties

legally incumbent on those whose association is founded on the distinction of sex," 1 It is also defined by Perkins as the "union of one man and one woman so long as they shall both live, to the exclusion of all others, by an obligation which, during that time, the parties cannot, of their own volition and act, dissolve, but which can be dissolved only by authority of the State." 2 Schouler says: "The word 'marriage' signifies, in the first instance, that act by which a man and woman unite for life, with the intent to discharge toward society and one another those duties which result from the relation of husband and wife. The act of union having been once accom. plished, the word comes afterward to denote the relation itself." Marriage, therefore, is both a status and a contract; through the contract the status is created.

Marriage, as the foundation of the family, has several bases. Among them are: (1) the Historical, (2) the Biological, (3) the Psychological, (4) the Sociological, and (5) the Ethical and Religious.

1. The historical basis of the family is enveloped in an impenetrable mist of either ignorance or of conflicting tradition. Sir Henry Sumner Maine says: "I have never myself imagined that any amount of evidence of law or usage, written or observed, would by itself solve the problems which cluster round the beginnings of human society."

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One of the most important of these unsolved problems, to which Sir Henry refers, relates to the beginning of the family. Certain scholars hold that the first man and woman were communistic, and that by slow and far-reaching process the modern family has arisen out of that early society. On the other hand, such scholars as Sir Henry Sumner

1 Marriage and Divorce, Vol. i. § 3. 2 Perkins, J., 19 Ind., 57. 3 Husband and Wife, p. 19. 4 Early Law and Custom, p. 205.

Maine, Herbert Spencer, and Charles Darwin are not convinced that man ever existed in such a state.

It is, however, extremely difficult for a careful student of early society to believe that marriage, as we understand it, as a union for life between one man and one woman, was the social rule in primitive times. Neither is it easy to believe that polygamy, the strict union of one man with several women, or that polyandry, the strict union of one woman with several men, was the primitive condition. The nearly equal birth-rate of the sexes would shut out the presumption of the universal prevalence of either of these customs. Were it possible to reconstruct the original social status, it would probably be found to contain elements of each of these diverse conditions and practices. If primitive society was not a social chaos, it may yet have embraced domestic relations of every sort. As either passion or expediency dictated, polygamy, polyandry, and even monogamy, may have prevailed side by side. "The original communities of men may have taken," says Sir Henry Maine, "all sorts of forms." 1 It is, indeed, not improbable, on even the grounds of historic credibility, that a family pure and simple may have existed since the beginning of the human race. Either mutual attraction, or a community of interests, or attachment to their children, may have bound a man and a woman together, at least during the child-bearing period of the woman's life.

2. Christ also had respect to the biological basis. The phrase "twain one flesh" is significant. The Author of humanity made humanity, from the first, male and female. He made each to have fitness and attractiveness for the other. The sexual instinct and condition is primitive. Whether this instinct has grown stronger with the passing of the generEarly Law and Custom, p. 281.

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