MARRIAGE AND HOME INFLUENCE

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 65, 11 December 1943, Page 3

MARRIAGE AND HOME INFLUENCE

Contrasting Views QUESTION OF SEX EDUCATION

Contrasting views on marriage aud home influence on children were expressed in addresses at Newcastle, Australia, by Dame Enid Lyons, 51.1’., and the Rev. G. Stuart Walls, of Grafton. Dame Enid was speaking at the Religion and Life Week convention aud Mr. Watts at the Workers’ Educational Association conference. Mr. Watts said he believed the value of the family as an educational agent was greatly exaggerated. Children did not necessarily owe parents the oft-quoted "debt of gratitude” for bringing them into the world. Too often the influence of the home was obscurantist and reactionary. The more the family was isolated the more dogmatically its sanctity was asserted and the greater its danger to society. It became the depository of decayed opinions, a wasteland gripped by the dictatorship of the dead. The Patriarchal Family.

“In the typical patriarchal family submissiveness, not independence of outlook, is encouraged,” said Mr. Watts. "The patriarchal family is the foundation oi

the competitive order.” The tendency was to generate fear, hate, and deceit in children instead of love and frankness. He did not advocate abolition of family life, but would strengthen it by bringing it into closer relationship with the community and so expand and intensify it. Mr. Watts also advocated a system of sex education in high schools by qualified teachers and.honest answers to children’s questions by parents. Dame Enid Lyons said she viewed with alarm the movement for sex education in schools. There was need throughout the community for some such education, but sex education, as such, was no safeguard against immorality. “Enlightenment on sex matters during adolescence rarely ' need bo the subject of formal instruction—a scheme of parental sex education should be instituted,'’ she said. “Let parents instil a sense of reverence and reticence, let the child have respect for the privacy of others and demand a similar consideration for himself. Let modesty be a cardinal virtue within the home and the child is already partly armed against some of the dangers that threaten, even though he is not aware of their existence. If the proposed sex education is not linked with moral and religious training, then I fear the child will be likely to seek other remedies than self-discipline as the range of his knowledge increases.” To declare war on the over-emphasis on sex that disfigured almost every part of our social life seemed to be of paramount importance, said Dame Enid. She declared that once the institution of indissoluble marriage was seriously impaired the stability of the whole social fabric was shaken. Not only did the family begin to disintegrate, but all sexual morality tended to decline. “Wanton” Divorces.

From divorce on the ground of serious breach of the matrimonial contract alone we moved rapidly to divorce based upon sheer wantonness. Every divorce, no matter how desirable to the individual, represented in some degree a weakening of the whole edifice of marriage upon which the family and, therefore, society depended for its very life. Wo dared not move any further along the road to easy divorce.

In post-war reconstruction we must watch that in securing economic safeguards for the home we did not jeopardize tlie moral integrity and spiritual freedom of its inmates.

“My own feeling is that a workable scheme could be evolved in which sickness, unemployment and superannuation benefits without a means test could all be financed from general revenue, provided that everyone in receipt of any income whatsoever be required to make some contribution, however small,” said Dame Enid. "There should be reorganization of the basic wage system and extension of child endowment.”

Dame Enid advocated part-time home service help, run from a district centre on an hourly basis. A mother, to have the necessary time to develop her own spiritual and mental powers, must have some relief from (he constant call of home and children.

Mr. R. ,T. F. Boyer, Director of the American Division of the Commonwealth Department of Information, said the family circle at its best was ideal environment*, but there must be a common spiritual bond encompassing all individuals within a home to create an atmosphere in which character was formed. The Reverend S. R. Bowyer Hayward, principal of Leigh ‘College, .Sydney, said that on the mundane side one essential for the formation of character was a decent house in which the right kind of home life could be developed. The indispensable accompaniment was an adequate income, guaranteed by an adequate social security system.