'It Takes a Society to Raise a Family': The Multidimensional Family Sphere

This chapter reconstructs traditional teachings on sex, marriage, and family life, and connects them with modern family law and family theory. It presents the marital family as a sphere, or a globe. At the bottom is (1) a natural pole that anchors the natural goods of marriage and natural human inclinations, appetites, and capacities for sex, marriage, and family life. Radiating up from this natural pole are: (2) a social dimension that articulates the public goods of the marital family, and the important supportive role of social institutions and professions, not least church and state; (3) an economic dimension that reflects the union of properties, labor, and rights in marriage and the family, and the channeling, expressive, and signaling functions of modern family law; (4) a communicative dimension expressed in public liturgies, celebrations, and symbols on important family days, as well as the vital private daily communications among spouses, parents, and children; and (5) a contractual dimension, expressed in the complex formal promises that form a marital household and define ongoing family rights, duties, and expectations. At the top of the sphere is (6) a spiritual pole that helps integrate these dimensions around sacramental, covenantal, or other transcendent ideals for family life.