Family/State paradigm - Definition and Overview

The Family as a paradigm of State organization is an idea in political philosophy that originated from the Socratic/Platonic principle of Macrocosm/microcosm, which states that lower levels of reality mirror upper levels of reality and vice versa. Some writers in ancient and modern times have seen parallels between the family and the forms of the state. In particular, monarchists have argued that the state mirrors the patriarchal family, with the people obeying the king as children obey their father.

Ancient thought

The Family/State paradigm was first expressed in ancient times, often as a form of justification for aristocratic rule or just simple observations of the cosmos.

Plutarch records a laconic saying of the Dorians attributed to Lycurgus. Asked why he didn't establish a democracy in the Lacedæmon, Lycurgus responded, "Begin, friend, and set it up in your family". The Doric Greeks of Crete and Sparta seemed to mirror the family institution and organization in their form of government. (9)

Aristotle argued that the schemata of authority and subordination exist in the whole of nature. He gave examples such as man and animal (domestic), man and wife, slaves and children. Further, he claimed that it is found in any animal, as the relationship he believed to exist between soul and body, "which the former is by nature the ruling and the later subject factor" (1). Aristotle further claimed that "the government of a household is a monarchy since every house is governed by a single ruler". (2) Later on, he said that husbands exercise a republican government over their wives and monarchical government over their children, and that they exhibit political office over slaves and royal office over the family in general. (3)

Arius Didymus in Stobaeus, 1st century A. D., wrote that "A primary kind of association (politeia) is the legal union of a man and woman for begetting children and for sharing life." From the collection of households a village is formed and from villages a city, "So just as the household yields for the city the seeds of its formation, thus it yields the constitution (politeia)". Further, he claims that "Connected with the house is a pattern of monarchy, of aristocracy and of democracy. The relationship of parents to children is monarchic, of husbands to wives aristocratic, of children to one another democratic." (4)

Of course, the structure of the family in ancient times was far more hierarchical - and patriarchal - than today.

Modern thought

Louis de Bonald wrote as if the family were a miniature state. In his analysis of the family relationships of father, mother and child, De Bonald related these to the functions of a state: the father is the power, the mother is the minister and the child as subject. As the father is "active and strong" and the child is "passive or weak", the mother is the "median term between the two extremes of this continuous proportion". De Bonald justified his analysis by quoting and interpreting passages from the Bible:

"(It) calls man the reason, the head, the power of woman: Vir caput est mulieris {man is head of woman} says St. Paul. It calls woman the helper or minister of man: "Let us make man," says Genesis, "a helper similar to him." It calls the child a subject, since it tells it, in a thousand places, to obey its parents". (5)

Louis de Bonald also sees divorce as the first stage of disorder in the state (the principle of macrocosm/microcosm). He insists that the deconstitution of the family brings about the deconstitution of state, with "The Kyklos" not far behind. (6)

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn draws a connection between the family and monarchy.

"Due to its inherent patriarchalism, monarchy fits organically into the ecclesiastic and familistic pattern of a Christian society. (Compare the teaching of Pope Leo XIII: 'Likewise the powers of fathers of families preseves expressly a certain image and form of the authority which is in God, from which all paternity in heaven and earth receives its name— Eph 3.15') The relationship between the King as 'father of the fatherland' and the people is one of mutual love". (7)

Politics and the family

George Lakoff claims that the left/right distinction in politics comes from a difference between ideals of the family in the mind of the person in question; for right-wing people, the ideal is a patriarchial and moralistic family; for left-wing people, the ideal is an unconditionally loving family. As a result, Lakoff argues, both sides find each others' views not only immoral, but incomprehensible, since they appear to violate each sides' deeply held beliefs about personal morality in the sphere of the family.

References

1. Politics, Aristotle, Loeb Classical Library, Bk I, §II 8-10; 1254a 20-35; pg 19-21
2. Politics, Bk I, §11,21;1255b 15-20; pg 29.
3. Politics, Bk I, §V, 1-2; 1259a 35-1259b 1; pg 57-59.
4. Hellenistic Commentary to the New Testament, ed. By M. Eugene Boring, Klaus Berger, Carsten Colpe, Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN, l995.
5. On Divorce, Louis de Bonald, trans. By Nicholas Davidson, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, l993. pp 44-46.
6. On Divorce, Louis de Bonald, pp 88-89; 149.
7. Liberty or Equality, Von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, pg 155.
8. George Lakoff, What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don't, ISBN 0226467961
9. Plutarch: The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, trans. by John Dryden and revised by Arthur Hugh Clough, The Modern Library (div of Random House, Inc). Bio on Lycurgus; pg 65.