Lessons From History About Marriage and Family

Allan Carlson of the Howard Center in Rockford, Illinois, offers insights into the historical context of our controversies over marriage and family in “The Family Factors,” published in Touchstone Magazine.

His conclusion:

And so, I offer you again my six lessons from history: (1) The family issues never change, or haven’t in a very long time, because they reflect a situation that has not changed; (2) the identity of the “pro-family” political party does change, and has; (3) “social engineering” can be done the right way, by supporting the breadwinner/homemaker/child-rich model of the family; (4) even Christians have followed the cultural trend to small families; (5) nevertheless, fertility reflects belief, and religious belief benefits society by raising it; and (6) America is an exception to the pattern in the rest of the West, and that should give us hope.