The Institution of the Family: Chesterton and the Catechism

In G.K. Chesterton’s essay, “On Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family,” he makes a firm case for the indissoluble nature of the family. This position is firmly supported by the Catholic Church and it is fully relevant for our modern culture today because our society has the disturbing trend of encouraging people to “make up your own family,” and redefine it.

 
To begin with, the Catechism gives very clear definitions of the family. It states that, “The family is the original cell of social life. It is the natural society in which husband and wife are called to give themselves in love and in the gift of life.” The Catechism goes on to declare that, “Authority, stability, and a life of relationships within the family constitute the foundations for freedoms, security, and fraternity within society.”

 
Now we turn to Chesterton, who, in his essay, explains that the family is beautiful and sacred precisely because we cannot choose our families, we cannot choose the members of our families, and because the family is an institution that is bigger than ourselves. The family is necessary, according to Chesterton, because it helps people relate healthily to reality and the natural order of things.

All this is fully relevant for today, because our culture has the disturbing message that “if you don’t like the family you already have, you can go create a new one.” We see this through widespread divorce in which people dump their spouses when they tire of them, or through cohabitation, in which the unmarried parties and their offspring call themselves a “family.” It is also not uncommon in our culture today for people to disown family members that stand by moral principles that go against the culture.

 
In conclusion, as a society, we’d be much better off if more people realized, as Chesterton put it, “When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world that we have not made.”