1927
Reading edition
After speaking at —— University today Professor —— said he objected to my assumption that the family is the root of human societies. He said he believed that most forms of human cooperation were formed by men who had to resist the special interests of the family, as typified particularly by the narrow loyalty of the mother to her own offspring, before they could establish wider fellowships. That was a new idea to me and one that seems to be not without merit. Of course it does not invalidate the thesis that the family is the first unit of society; for the first fighting unit was probably composed of a group of fathers and sons and sons’ sons. That is, not the family in the narrowest but in the widest sense, the family as it develops into the clan is the first real society.
The idea that the family is frequently opposed to ventures in wider fellowship is justified by more than one present fact. The family is still essentially selfish, and many a man is beguiled from ideal ventures by a false sense of obligation to his family. Think of the number of men who sell their souls merely that their wives and children may enjoy higher standards of living than other families. Think of the number of mothers whose interest in life never goes beyond the ambition to secure special advantages for their children. The mother of the sons of Zebedee is a good example. In her you have motherhood in its tragic limitations as well as in its sublime beauty.
The family is not inevitably selfish or invariably opposed to larger ventures in fellowship, but it may easily become so. Jesus’ ruthless words, “He who loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, he who loveth son and daughter more than me is not worthy of me,” have more meaning than most Christians have realized. Celibacy may be wrong because it escapes rather than solves this problem. But the invariable tendency of religious movements of great moral sensitiveness to experiment with celibacy is significant. Thus speaks a bachelor. Let the cynic make the most of the private prejudice which colors this judgment.