Aristotle’s remark that man is by nature a social animal is not often paired with another of his: man is even more naturally a marrying animal. The union of man and woman with the aim of reproduction creates the most fundamental society of all, the family. Any further society presupposes the family and is parasitic on it. The mark of any society is concern for the common good, and where better than in the family do I learn that I have goods that are not simply mine but ours? Parents and children, each with their private goods, must give precedence to the shared or common good of the family if it, and they, are to flourish.
To say that marrying and founding a family is natural to the human person, does not mean that it just comes about. The natural impulse must be humanized, consciously directed and ever preserved from the dangers that menace it. The greatest enemy of the family has arisen from the Enlightenment nonsense that freedom characterizes us, that we have no links or aims that are not freely chosen, that the natural instincts have no claim on the practical direction of our lives. For centuries there has been an assault on the fundamental unit of society with the result that political society is in chaos. It has become controversial to say that the family consists of a husband and wife and their children. The divorce of sexual activity from its manifest aim has created a chaos that is all around us. Replacement rates, in the touching phrase, are no longer met by western societies. Irregular unions, contraception, and abortion represent a vast suicidal movement toward extinction.
How is the impulse humanized? Through virtue.
My ever-constant quibble -- a distorted notion of freedom and autonomy -- for most people, is that just the state of sin, or is it really traceable to the influence of the Enlightenment?
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