August 27, 2020
Why Free Societies Need Healthy Families
The decline of marriage has created a social divide within the nations of the West, the likes of which have not been seen in over a century.
This essay is an edited excerpt from Jonathan Sacks’s forthcoming book. Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times will be published by Basic Books on September 1, 2020.
Almost all civilizations have developed ways of consecrating marriage and the family. Historically, the strength of Jewish families was the source of the resilience of Jewish communities that allowed them to survive the enforced exiles and expulsions, the ghettos and pogroms, of a thousand years of European history. Family in Judaism is a supreme value. It’s how we celebrate our festivals and Sabbaths. A Jewish child always has a starring role at the seder table on Passover night, where we are inducted into our people’s history, and where our parents fulfill their first duty: namely, to teach children to ask questions. Strong families create adaptive communities.
More generally, marriage is fundamental to the moral enterprise because it is a supreme example of the transformation of two “I’s” into a collective “We.” It is the consecration of a commitment to care for an Other. It is the formalization of love, not as a passing passion but as a moral bond. To see what is at stake we need to understand the difference between two things that look and sound alike but actually are not: namely, contracts and covenants.