Christianity and the Family
By CLAUD MULLINS
[Mr. Claud Mullins is the Stipendiary Magistrate at the Nort " Christianity and Conduct." Lord Hugh Cecil will write in THROUGHOUT history the family as a social institution has been periodically assailed, but it has always triumphed over its critics ; and if one may accept the views of such men as Maurice Hindus and Klaus Mehnert (who lived their youth in Russia, know the language as natives and since the Revolution have paid ,frequent and independent visits there) the latest onslaught on the family is being no more successful than the earlier ones. According to these writers, Russian public opinion is stronger than Russian laws ; the latter apparently facilitate sexual licence and militate against monogamy and the unity of the family, but public opinion is increasingly in favour of conventional European sex-morality. If these writers are correct, and Elias Tobenkin says the same, those of us who believe that the family is the true basis of healthy social life have reason to be optimistic even about Russia.
The health of family life is a good index to the health of a civilization. It is stimulating to apply this test to ourselves. We hear today, as ever, plenty of groan- ings from those of conventional religious and moral outlook that family life is endangered by this or that cause. Such complaints come usually from those whose inability to understand youth denotes a failure in the previous generation rather than any turpitude in the present one. None the less, as one whose work brings him somewhat intimately into the secrets of other people's family life, I confess to considerable anxieties about present conditions. My alarm arises from the inability (or refusal) of most religious and moral people to live with the times and thus to he able to help in the difficulties of today.
So sincerely am I convinced that the worst enemy of a healthy family life lies in the prevalence of false standards of sexual conduct in marriage and parenthood that I recently published a book on the subject : Marriage, Children and God. The main theme of this book is that it is sound Christian and Catholic doctrine that on certain conditions only are children welcome to God and a blessing to man. The children must have a reasonable prospect of parental love, health and main- tenance; otherwise it is wrong to bring them into the world. This, as I have shown, is the true teaching of all the Christian Churches—and of the Jews as well. I have also shown that in principle they all believe that sound sexual conduct should be itaught to all, especially before marriage. But in my social and reli- gious contacts (and a Police Court has many such), I find both life and teaching based on a view diametrically opposed to these doctrines with most serious consequences to family and social life.
With plenty of otherwise excellent Christians I have found it impossible to speak of sexual problems at all ; kLondon Police Court. His article is the third in a series on next week's SPECTATOR on " Christianity and Patriotism."] the subject is apparently inherently nasty to them. I have found the majority of Christian- workers obsessed with the idea that not only does.. God send children but that He decides the time and the frequency of their coming. Practically nowhere do I find religious people endeavouring to equip young married people or engaged couples with healthy knowledge, both physical and spiritual, about sex. Nowhere do I hear any Christian voice saying that in certain circumstances the birth of children is a moral crime. Everywhere I meet that fatalism and inertia that is content to see God's will in all that happens without realizing that nothing is God's will unless the best use is made of God's greatest gift to man—his intelligence. - Napoleon's mother, married at 14, had six children in her first nine years of married life, and of these only two lived. "God was fulfilling His purposes ; it was for her to bow to His will," says her biographer. Bishop Wilberforce had six children, the last four in five years. When his wife died about three weeks after the last birth, the Bishop wrote in his diary. of "God the smiter of my soul." The 160 years since the death of Letizia's children and more still the 90 years since the death of the Bishop's wife have taught us more merciful and intelligent views about God. It is blasphemy in 1934 to say that infant or maternal mortality is God's will, that the birth of children for whom there can be no adequate provision by their parents is welcome to God, that God teaches young married couples how to adjust their sexual life, and so on. Yet largely because the, parochial teaching of most churches is to this effect we have today thousands of marriages broken up through ignorance of decent sexual standards, countless unwanted children who drift into crime by the very reason that they were unwanted, a rate of maternal mortality which is much higher than in Holland (where contra- ception- has long been taught under healthy and moral conditions), and the overflowing of all institutions which attempt to patch up mental and moral defectives ; a large proportion of the latter would never have been born if we used God's gift of the human. intelligence and really had faith in the Holy Spirit, which- surely includes the wise use of- the progressive discoveries of science. But whenever attempts ar3 made to apply the discoveries of science and to prevent the indefinite continuation of existing social conditions, the greatest obstacles are always the prejudices of those who claim to be religious and who seem to believe that God sends us our social problems, and then bids us to try to clear ' them up.
To me it is pathetic -when .young married couples come to me asking for separations. Very often I strongly suspect that the root trouble is their inability to 'adjust their sexual life. When. this is so, .,despite the Lambeth Conference of 1930, there is no Christian organization. which I can call in aid with the knowledge that both the physical and moral aspects of the trouble will be wisely dealt with,. It is even more pathetic to have young men and women to deal with on charges of crime when one knows very often. that the real reason for their conduct is, in the words of the Departmental Com- mittee on Persistent Offenders, that "the unwanted child may. react to the lack of parental understanding and retaliate with persistent anti-social conduct." Two-fifths of those guilty of indictable crime today are less than 21 years old. As I talk with the distracted and shame-faced parents of the occupant of the dock, I often have the impression that they might have been quite successful parents of a moderately-sized, well-, spaced family. But who has ever taught these people any better standards ?
In 1980 the Anglican Bishops at Lambeth urged the "need for a Christian philosophy of sex and of purity," and the teaching of sex to children, adolescents and, above all; during engagement. "There should be special preparation for marriage for persons between their engagement and the wedding. . . . There should be some expert priest in every diocese. . . ." Again, "there are circumstances in married life which justify and even, demand the limitation of the family." The Bishops denounced births whieh " would involve grave danger to the health, even to the life, of the mother, or would inflict upon the child a life of suffering ; or where addi- tional children would render her incapable of carrying out, her duties to the existing family." By 193 votes to 67 the Bishops definitely accepted the principle of contraception.
Could there be a more helpful lead ? But the parochial churches and their social organizations are today ignoring . this lead almost entirely. They still work on the ideas of Napoleon's mother and of Samuel Wilberforce, to the immense detriment of family life and to the moral and physical health of the next generation.
Sometimes in my gloomy moments I wonder if Christianity (meaning thereby what the churches are making out of Christ's teaching) is not doing as much harm as good. Without eugenics and a healthy " Christian philosophy of sex," without birth control, and an adequate blend of contraception and self-control, without these the churches can do definite harm to family life. The Bishops have shown the way to better, conditions, but who is following ? In this failure to follow the Bishops' lead lies the greatest danger to family life.
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