It did not deny the trinity of father, mother, and child.
It merely read it backwards, making it run child, mother, father.
This it called, not the family, but the Holy Family,
for many things are made holy by being turned upside down.
But some sages of our own decadence have made a serious attack
on the family. They have impugned it, as I think wrongly;
and its defenders have defended it, and defended it wrongly.
The common defence of the family is that, amid the stress
and fickleness of life, it is peaceful, pleasant, and at one.
But there is another defence of the family which is possible,
and to me evident; this defence is that the family is not peaceful
and not pleasant and not at one.
It is not fashionable to say much nowadays of the advantages of
the small community. We are told that we must go in for large empires
and large ideas. There is one advantage, however, in the small state,
the city, or the village, which only the wilfully blind can overlook.
The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world.
He knows much more of the fierce varieties and uncompromising divergences
of men. The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose
our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us.
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