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Chapter 4 - The Family in Transition to the Social World

There was little reason for people to forsake the traditional family living arrangement as long as long as life was bucolic or pastoral. However, the agricultural and industrial revolutions so changed the economic landscape that relatively sovereign family life was to be forever changed. Even those resisting these changes were pressured with changes in land laws and restrictions on hunting designed to drive people out of their homes and into factories.

It is difficult to understand the enormous changes this transition wrought. Money now became the measure of most things. A father, mother, or even child became measured in the salary they could bring in. Serfs were thrown off the land as it was much cheaper to pay wages and let them fend for their own survival regarding food, clothing, and shelter.

One measure of the impact this change had on families was the change in birth rate which has been continually declining since 1800. Throughout the nineteenth century a view gained traction that the difficulties people had as a result of the escalating rate of change could be solved through social action. This could be seen with various utopian community attempts, religious cults, abolition and temperance movements, and fraternal organizations. By the end of the century the 'progressive' mind-set was entrenched and in control of public policy. In a way, business had become a universal father and government a universal mother. People were beginning to see themselves not so much in relation to God (or even nature), but more in relation to human organizations (sadly, even some Christians came to see their primary relationship to be with the church organization over God, Jesus, or other Christians).

The twentieth century saw the completion of urbanization and the emergence of suburbanization. As people migrated from rural areas, they lost a significant connection with the natural world. At the beginning of the twentieth century public education became mandatory. The removal of children from homes was very detrimental to the institution of the family. Children were age segregated and forced to spend 12 years being made increasingly compliant to the parental replacement authority figures of teachers and then employers.

Women were also targeted, as they might object to the implication that they were too stupid to raise the children God gave them. They were diverted from the outrage they might rightly feel as their role as honored wives and mothers was being destroyed. The indoctrination of feminism

told them that they were not losing something but gaining 'freedom" as they had been exploited slaves in their families and they had nothing to lose but their chains (to quote Marxism). Strangely this 'freedom' was to be achieved by becoming slaves in factories and offices.

The use of media such as magazines and newspapers increased in pervasiveness with radio, movies, and then television so that a growing tidal flood of social opinion surrounded each person as a current that was hard to swim against. By the time the twentieth century was ending, divorce rates had sky-rocketed, single mothers were the normative, marriage was delayed or even ignored, and even homosexual encounters were considered 'family' relationships.

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