The Family
“After having been for a good many thousand years an institution, the family has now, almost suddenly, become a problem. Why? We have become more aware of ourselves, more consciously individual, than our fathers. And at. the same time, with the compensating spread of humanitarianism, we have become more conscious of the feelings and the rights of others. ‘ In the sphere of the family, as elsewhere, these changes in the mode of consciousness have produced profound effects.
“To begin with, it is impossible for us as self-conscious individuals to accord the old unquestioning belief to the traditional axioms. The family has ceased to be the divine and inevitable institution it was. And scepticism born of self-conscious individualism is reinforced in the case of this institution by humanitarianism.
“We feel acutely that our children have rights and that we are not justified in ..imposing,jipon, -.them .too strict a discipline of constraint. More rational in their alms, the old educationists sought to transform and ameliorate the self before permitting it to indulge in expression. In our hatred of the means we have failed to see that the ends were good.’’—Mr. Aldous Huxley.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19301206.2.134.3
Bibliographic details
Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 62, 6 December 1930, Page 17
Word Count
192The Family Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 62, 6 December 1930, Page 17
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