DEFENCE OF HOME AND FAMILY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22958, 13 August 1936, Page 19

DEFENCE OF HOME AND FAMILY

About 4000 members of the Mothex-s’ Union attended Choral Eucharist at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, on' July 2, to celebrate the diamond jubilee of the foundation of the movement. Founded in 1876. the movement has now a membership of over 500,000 mothers scattered all over the world.

The Dean of St. Paul’s, in an address, said that the Mothers’ Union stood for the sanctity of home and maniage. To-day we were confronted by a new paganism, which contained both the higher and lower motives of attack that had existed in the older. With the increase of facilities for pleasure and enjoyment, the influence of the home had diminished. Every moment not occupied by work could be spent in entertainment. Too many people were seeking their own pleasure and trying to obtain the advantages of marriage while at the same time desiring to retain their freedom and avoid x’esponsibilities. People attempted to engage in what was, ironically enough, called “free love,”thinking that by so doing they retained freedom from responsibility. Many a woman to-day rejoiced in the pleasure of a small car when she ought to be rejoicing in the pleasure of a small baby.

The defence of the home and the family was in the last resort the defence of human freedom. If we destroyed the family we would be taking a step back to the savage and the jungle. It was woman who sounded the note. Men might lead in some things, but a community was what its women made it. The vocation of motherhood was the highest, and at the same time one of the most difficult, in the world. Mothers did not always realise what power they had. We wanted to-day, not denunciations and slogans, but understanding and ideas. He prayed that the Mothers’ Union would lead to wider visions of power of the family and the home.