PROVO — With single-parent families on the rise, a lower birth rate and more people either putting off marriage or deciding not to marry at all, some wonder what impact those trends will have on society.
Civilizations in the past have gone through a similar demise of the family, right before collapsing, BYU history professor Paul Kerry said Thursday morning as the opening speaker at the Wheatley Instutition's day-long conference "Defense of the Family: Natural Law and Perspectives."
Kerry relied heavily on the work of Carle Zimmerman, a former sociologist and Harvard professor who tracked the family over centuries and argued in his book
"Family and Civilization" that "familism" (or the supporting of families by civilizations) is the stabilizing force of societies.
Kerry said more and more historians are looking at the period known as the dark ages in terms of families and seeing that the fall of Rome had something to do with the demise of families. And that the Catholic church was able to restore domestic families, which led to the Enlightenment.
"The family is the core institution of our civilization and society," Kerry said. "We need to strengthen the family in order to strengthen our communities."
Zimmerman's book foretold the decline of the family more than 60 years ago. The volume originally was published just following World War II. Zimmerman foresaw a future breakdown of the family because of certain technologies and legal changes at his time.
Kerry then went on to say that the way people can combat this breakdown is by supporting organizations that support the family.
"It's a tall order to stabilize the family, but it's for the sake of children, husbands and wives and for the community," Kerry said. "This is the wellspring of the state of civilization."
Kerry characterized three main types of families in history: 1) the kinship family, which is tribal and clan-like, enforces its own justice on family members and is not tied to society; 2) the domestic family, which sees marriage as a way of bringing children to the world, children are not seen as a burden and there is a balance between society and families; and 3) the atomistic family, which has more singles and couples with few or no children, the government does not foster families and crime and sexual promiscuity in society are rampant.
The ideas resonated with the audience. One man asked Kerry if he could televise his speech on national television. Others talked about how it helped them realize how critical families really were to society and how they wanted to get involved in the debate.
Greer Bates, a sophomore at BYU, said Kerry touched on why it is so important to know history, to see the pattern and to know where society is headed. She said she is more determined to become part of the conversation after learning more about how family values affect society.
e-mail: slenz@desnews.com