Family As A Model For The State - Modern Thought

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:

“ 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”. (On Divorce pp 44–46)

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. (On Divorce, pp 88–89; 149.)

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”. (Liberty or Equality, p.155)