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FAMILY GOVERNMENT

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 14, 1881

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 7, No. 26.

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FAMILY GOVERNMENT.

THAT is what is the matter with our American society, there is no order in the family. Our children grow up without any proper idea of obedience and respect for authority. There is a very prevalent notion in America that one person ought not to be restrained by another. A boy at fifteen is supposed to be a competent judge whether he shall use tobacco; at all events if he chooses to do it he is let alone. The idea of making him behave never occurs. So as to going out after night; if he is interfered with, there is rebellion. He believes himself consequently a man at sixteen, and apes all the vices of young men; calls his father (about forty years of age) "the old man." Of course he is mother's darling, and if the father fires up sometimes at his impertinence, she intercedes. "Oh, let Augustus alone; boys will be boys." Augustus has probably touched off a pack of fire-crackers under his teacher's chair, and mumbled that he would "slap him over" if he said anything to his father about it.
In cities they judge what places of amusement they shall attend, and how often. Take a drink when it suits them. Carry a pistol.
Young girls claim the right to say whether they shall dress according to their own ideas of propriety, or after their mother's views. They decide what they shall study, and how long to stay at school. They learn to sew or not as seems best to their judgment. They determine the question whether they shall dance the round dances or not. Not one parent in twenty dare utter the word, Veto.
They determine where they shall go to church. They decide how many dresses they must have for the season.
They claim that the parlor, which in Virginia used to be the family "sitting-room," belongs to them and their beaux, and must be cleared after tea.
They will not remain in the room with the old people.
At parties no married women are wanted unless they dance.
Young ladies and gentlemen go to the theater, and from the theater to the restaurant to get hot oysters and wine.
Small boys in short pants will kick the door down if you lock it, and tell them it is too wet to go out.
They will tackle you in a minute on the street if you antagonize them.
Well, what sort of grown-up people are you trying to make out of them? If children will not defer to their parents and do not like their society and conversation, what sort of citizens will they make? If the young maiden does not value the opinion of her mother about the propriety or impropriety of her actions, will she bow to the admonition of the church when she has taken on the vows of religion? By no means; the church must let her alone if it wants to keep her, because she intimates plainly that she will go somewhere else where they are not so stupid.
Therefore we affirm that the great training school in life is the nursery and under the parental roof, and if the child does not learn obedience there, he will be an unruly and turbulent member of society. There is nothing more beautiful in life than reverence for the old, and when the young come to regard their elders as no better than themselves, the very root of social order is struck at.
In the matter of marriage, what does a girl of nineteen know about selecting a companion for life? In Europe the other extreme is reached; the old people manage it all. But here in America they are hardly consulted. And hence so many ill-sorted couples and so many divorces. The very qualities which a young girl admires in a young man often make him contemptible in the eyes of men, and in the maturer appraisement of older persons. The quiet, solid youth, who is going to make his way in the world, is no toast at all with the girls; they want a fellow that can dance.
Of course children will be children and young people will be young people, and we can not expect the reform to commence with them. It has got to commence with the head of the family—the father, who if he is a man, will be readily recognized in this capacity by his household. Well, we do not write to any great extent for the world at large. We address ourselves to Christians, who constitute the body of our readers. Therefore to them we speak; to Christian fathers first.
Govern your children, keep them in their places until they leave your roof; establish order and exact obedience at their hands as the initial principle in your family life. The mother, too, should exact respect and obedience, and not have any decision debated. Let the children from their earliest years be made to understand that superior intelligence, guided by love, intends to rule in that household, and that the old have rights which the young are bound to respect.
Do you think your children will love you less, and shrink from you as tyrants? By no means; they will love you more, for no true love ever yet existed which was not grounded on respect. Your boy will think more of you, and whether he does or not in his boyhood, he will remember you with more reverence when he is a man, and you run great risk of his becoming a worthless member of society if he does not learn obedience in his youth.
There is nothing humiliating in obedience. It is the rule of the universe. It is the bounden duty of the inferior to defer to the superior. There is no compromise of manhood when the soldier obeys his commanding officer. There is rank in Heaven, and perhaps about as little of it in the United States of America as in any part of the universe.—Central Presbyterian.