Religion and the Family

FOR many centuries, all over the world, religion and the family have been inextricably intertwined. The family has always been the natural social unit, and usually the most efficient survival unit, whatever the wider forms of economic organization. But man has not been content merely to survive. From the time that he began to wonder at the mystery of life and grapple with the problem of causes, he has sought to align himself, in an amazing variety of ways, with whatever power in the universe he has recognized as greater than his own. This persistent reaching out for contact with the infinite testifies to the high value man has placed upon his religious beliefs. They early became a basic part of his culture, inevitably bound up with other basic interests and behavior patterns, particularly the familial, economic, and political. When such cherished beliefs become firmly fixed in the fundamental institutions, their maintenance is relatively easy. Thus religion has helped to shape other institutions, and in turn has been supported and shaped by them. The family is the child's miniature society. Into it he is born and from it he begins immediately to learn, both formally and informally, the culture patterns which the family reflects. Those phases of culture most clearly reflected are naturally the ones the child absorbs first. Often religious beliefs and observances are in this category, and their easy acceptance by young children is due both to the prestige of the parents and to the constancy of the pattern to be transmitted. To be sure, the attractiveness of the religious appeal varies; if some of the observances are colorful or dramatic they are more attractive. In any case, the first religious impressions the child receives are likely to be within the family, and the family easily and naturally becomes the first school of religious training

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