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  The Traditional Christian's Guide to the Family in Modern Times

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The Traditional Family

Up until the 1920s most people grew up, lived, and died where they were born. Families had both breadth (multiple siblings and cousins) and depth (multi generational) as well as geographical continuity. This started to drastically change with common access to the automobile and birth control. Also in the 1920s the population of the US shifted from mostly rural to mostly urban.

Being raised in a traditional family was sometimes considered stifling, repressive, and could even be abusive. The allure of money, freedom, and easy living often drew people away from their families to more anonymous urban living. If one is known by an entire village everyday of one’s life, there is little that can be hid. The spread of the early church even in times of persecution might be attributed to the undeniable change that occurred in someone who became a Christian. A shrewish wife could become loving and submissive or a drunken husband could become sober and caring. Today most are not known well enough to conclude if there has been any change or not.

Humans in close proximity sometimes verify the saying “familiarity breeds contempt”. However, most people would gravitate to those siblings and cousins with whom one could find greater compatability. The depth of these sort of lifelong friendships are not often encountered in today’s more superficial relationships.

The absence of on demand entertainment as well as a generally slower pace of life allowed for a much greater integration of one generation into another. As children grew, speculation as to which “matches” might evolve would be observed over time.

This would not be so much an “arranged marriage” but the likely outcome of people who had come to know each other well and the advice and suggestions of the older generation that also knew them well, loved them, and wished the best for them..

Technology provided the opportunity for many to “escape” the traditional family. This was seen as advantageous because without Christ, the family can be a pressure cooker of discontent. However, with Christ and the transformation of a selfish life into one of selflessness and love, one can find with the traditional family a life of happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment. 

The Christian who wishes to build a traditional (large) family and resist to destructive elements set in motion by Satan needs to be aware of many elements that will have to be dealt with. For this reason a review of these elements can be useful.



  


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