Problems in Family Life

Kyeongyang Magazine has an article on marriage in the different cultures of the world, written by a professor of cultural anthropology. She goes to the different types of marriages that we see in the world today: monogamy, polygyny ( having  more that one female as a mate), polyandry ( having more than  one male mate at the same time)  We have also same sex marriages in the society.

Polygamy, is the marriage of a spouse of either sex with more than one mate at the same time.  In recent years  this has changed in many cases to marriage to one person at a time: brought about not always easily but because of the changes in the cultures, the laws of a country, and economic conditions. 

Because of the frequency of divorce we have serial monogamy.  In many of the cases the children are relating to the parent  who has left, and is helped financially, and the relationship continues, which  is not much different from polygamy. 

Recently many of our young people no longer feel that marriage and the raising of children is the way they will find happiness, but will only hamper their personal development. They have seen in families the conflicts between husband and wife, and with children: abuse, violence, abandonment and even murder. Communication in the family is difficult; and they see the number of old people who die alone.

When we see the problems families have, we need to ask ourselves what is a family? The family is no longer what it is meant to be. The families relate with each other without  love and with indifference. The need  to relate with each other with love, understanding, concern, giving-in, will change the mentality and enable the family to overcome the difficulties they will face.

The message of religion for the family is not the  systematic formalities they have learned, but love, respect and equality of the members in relating with each other with the practice of the virtues. Each member has to remember that their best intentions, no matter how noble and beautiful, and worthy of praise, the body will not permit their implementation without a great deal of effort in their cultivation.  

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church the virtuous person does what is good consistently, easily, and joyfully. Koreans hear the  proverb: a habit at 4 years of age will be with the person when he is eighty. The effort to rid ourselves of the bad habits will require many repeated actions to undo the hold that bad habits have on us.

She concludes the article by wanting the Church to not only emphasis the teachings of the Lord, but to work to  change the unhealthy  conditions  families face in society.