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Family values

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about family values as a political concept. For the rock music tour, see Family Values Tour. For other uses, see Family values (disambiguation).
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Family values are political and social beliefs that regard the nuclear family as the essential unit of society. Familialism is the ideology that promotes the family and its values as an institution.[1]
Although the phrase family values is vague and has shifting meanings, it is most often associated[by whom?] with social and religious conservatives.[citation needed] In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the term has been frequently used in political debates claiming that the world has seen a decline in family values since the end of the Second World War.[2]

Definition

In the United States

The media in the United States of America sometimes use the term family values to refer to Christian values.[citation needed]
In 1998, a Harris survey found that:
  • 52% of women and 42% of men thought family values means "loving, taking care of, and supporting each other"
  • 38% of women and 35% of men thought family values means "knowing right from wrong and having good values"
  • 2% of women and 1% men thought of family values in terms of the "traditional family"
The survey noted that 93% of all women thought that society should value all types of families (Harris did not publish the responses for men).[3]

Conservative definitions

Since 1980, the Republican Party has used the issue of family values to attract socially conservative voters.[4] While "family values" remains an amorphous concept, social conservatives usually understand the term to include some combination of the following principles (also referenced in the 2004 Republican Party platform):[5]
Social and religious conservatives often use the term "family values" to promote conservative ideology that supports traditional morality or Christian values.[9] Some American conservative Christians see their religion as the source of morality and consider the nuclear family to be an essential element in society. For example, "The American Family Association exists to motivate and equip citizens to change the culture to reflect Biblical truth and traditional family values."[10] These groups variously oppose abortion, pornography, pre-marital sex, polygamy, homosexuality, certain aspects of feminism, cohabitation, separation of church and state, legalization of recreational drugs, and depictions of sexuality in the media.

Liberal definitions

Although the term "family values" remains a core issue for the Republican Party, in recent years the Democratic Party has also used the term, though differing in its definition. For example, in his acceptance speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, John Kerry said "it is time for those who talk about family values to start valuing families".[11] The Democratic Party definitions of family values often include items that specifically target working families such as support of:
Other liberals have used the phrase to support such values as family planning, affordable child-care, and maternity leave.[12] For example, groups such as People For the American Way, Planned Parenthood, and Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays have attempted to define the concept in a way that promotes the acceptance of single-parent families, same-sex monogamous relationships and marriage. This understanding of family values does not promote conservative morality, instead focusing on encouraging and supporting alternative family structures, access to contraception and abortion, increasing the minimum wage, sex education, childcare, and parent-friendly employment laws, which provide for maternity leave and leave for medical emergencies involving children.[13]
While conservative sexual ethics focus on preventing premarital or non-procreative sex, liberal sexual ethics are typically directed rather towards consent, regardless of whether or not the partners are married.[14][15][16]

Politics and culture

Australian politics

The Family First Party originally contested the 2002 South Australian state election, where former Assemblies of God pastor Dr Andrew Evans won one of the eleven seats in the 22-seat South Australian Legislative Council on 4 percent of the state-wide vote. The party made their federal debut at the 2004 general election, electing Steve Fielding on 2 percent of the Victorian vote in the Australian Senate, out of six Victorian senate seats up for election. Both MPs were able to be elected with Australia's Single Transferable Vote and Group voting ticket system in the upper house. The party:
In the 2007 Australian Election, Family First came under fire for giving preferences in some areas to the Liberty and Democracy Party, a libertarian party that favors legalization of incest, gay marriage, and drug use.[17]

British politics

Family values was a recurrent theme in the Conservative government of John Major. His Back to Basics initiative became the subject of ridicule after the party was affected by a series of sleaze scandals. John Major himself, the architect of the policy, was subsequently found to have had an affair with Edwina Currie. Family Values have been revived by the current Conservative Party under David Cameron, forming the backbone of his mantra on social responsibility and related policies, demonstrated by his Marriage Tax allowance policy which would provide tax breaks for married couples.

Chinese culture and Confucianism

In Confucian thought, family values, familial relationships, ancestor worship, and filial piety (Chinese: 孝; Mandarin: Xiào; Cantonese: Haau) are the primary basis of the philosophical system, and these concepts are seen as virtues to be cultivated.
Filial piety is considered the first virtue in Chinese culture.[citation needed] While China has always had a diversity of religious beliefs, filial piety has been common to almost all of them; for example, historian Hugh D. R. Baker calls respect for the family the only element common to almost all Chinese believers. These traditions were sometimes enforced by law; during parts of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE to 220 CE), for example, those who neglected ancestor worship could even be subject to corporal punishment.
The term "filial", meaning "of a child", denotes the respect and obedience that a child, originally a son, should show to his parents, especially to his father. This relationship was extended by analogy to a series of five relationships or five cardinal relationships (五倫 Wǔlún):
  1. ruler and subject (君臣),
  2. father and son (父子),
  3. husband and wife (夫婦),
  4. elder and younger brother (兄弟),
  5. friend and friend (朋友)
Specific duties were prescribed[by whom?] to each of the participants in these sets of relationships. Such duties also extended to the dead, where the living stood as sons to their deceased family. This led to the veneration of ancestors. In time, filial piety was also built into the Chinese legal system: a criminal would be punished more harshly if the culprit had committed the crime against a parent, while fathers exercised enormous power over their children. Much the same was true of other unequal relationships.[citation needed]

New Zealand politics

Family values' politics reached their apex under the social conservative administration of the Third National Government (1975–84), widely criticised for its populist and social conservative views about abortion and homosexuality. Under the Fourth Labour Government (1984–90), homosexuality was decriminalised and abortion access became easier to obtain.
In the early 1990s, New Zealand reformed its electoral system, replacing the first-past-the-post electoral system with the Mixed Member Proportional system. This provided a particular impetus to the formation of separatist conservative Christian political parties, disgruntled at the Fourth National Government (1990–99), which seemed to embrace bipartisan social liberalism to offset Labour's earlier appeal to social liberal voters. Such parties tried to recruit conservative Christian voters to blunt social liberal legislative reforms, but had meagre success in doing so. During the tenure of Fifth Labour Government (1999–2008), prostitution law reform (2003), same-sex civil unions (2005) and the repeal of laws that permitted parental corporal punishment of children (2007) became law.
At present, Family First New Zealand, a 'non-partisan' social conservative lobby group, operates to try to forestall further legislative reforms such as same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption. In 2005, conservative Christians tried to pre-emptively ban same-sex marriage in New Zealand through alterations to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, but the bill failed 47 votes to 73 at its first reading. At most, the only durable success such organisations can claim in New Zealand is the continuing criminality of cannabis possession and use under New Zealand's Misuse of Drugs Act 1975.

Russian politics

Federal law of Russian Federation no. 436-FZ of 2010-12-23 "On Protecting Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development" lists as information not suitable for children (“18+” rating) information "negating family values and forming disrespect to parents and/or other family members".[18] It does not contain any separate definition of family values.

Singaporean politics

Singapore's main political party, the People's Action Party, promotes family values intensively. One MP has described the nature of family values in the city-state as "almost Victorian in nature". The Singaporean legal system bans homosexual acts[19] and prescribes harsh penalties for drug trafficking. The Singaporean justice system uses corporal punishment..[citation needed]

United States politics

A woman at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear holding a sign that declares her ideas of family values.
The use of family values as a political term dates back to 1976, when it appeared in the Republican Party platform.[20] Later, the phrase became more widespread after Vice President Dan Quayle used it in a speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention. Quayle had also launched a national controversy when he criticized the television program Murphy Brown for a story line that depicted the title character becoming a single mother by choice, citing it as an example of how popular culture contributes to a "poverty of values", saying: "[i]t doesn't help matters when primetime TV has Murphy Brown—a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid, professional woman—mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another 'lifestyle choice'". Quayle's remarks initiated widespread controversy, and have had a continuing effect on U.S. politics. Stephanie Coontz, a professor of family history and the author of several books and essays about the history of marriage, says that this brief remark by Quayle about Murphy Brown "kicked off more than a decade of outcries against the 'collapse of the family'".[21]

Demographics

Population studies have found that in 2004 and 2008, liberal-voting ("blue") states have lower rates of divorce and teenage pregnancy than conservative-voting ("red") states. June Carbone, author of Red Families vs. Blue Families, opines that the driving factor is that people in liberal states tend to wait longer before getting married.[22]
A 2002 government survey found that 95% of adult Americans had had premarital sex. This number had risen slightly from the 1950s, when it was nearly 90%. The median age of first premarital sex has dropped in that time from 20.4 to 17.6.[23]

See also


Associated organizations

References

  1. Jump up ^ Anne Revillard* (May 24, 2006). "Work/Family Policy in France: From State Familialism to State Feminism?". Lawfam.oxfordjournals.org. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
  2. Jump up ^ "Tokyo watchdog looks at CSFB | Mail Online". Dailymail.co.uk. March 4, 1999. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
  3. Jump up ^ "Public Opinion on the Family – Family Diversity". Libraryindex.com. Retrieved January 16, 2011. "Questions about family values have generally included issues concerning the current diversity of family structures."
  4. Jump up ^ "T. Rexs Guide to Life - Main / Republican Family Values". Archived from the original on February 24, 2007.
  5. Jump up ^ "2004 Republican Party Platform: A Safer World and a More Hopeful America" (PDF). MSNBC. Retrieved July 23, 2012.
  6. Jump up ^ Kendal P. Mobley. Helen Barrett Montgomery: The Global Mission of Domestic Feminism. Baylor University Press. Retrieved December 31, 2007. "Late Victorian culture assumed that family was the basic model for society and that the relationships and values of the family, which were based on complementarian gender assumptions, ought to be extended into social ..."
  7. Jump up ^ Allan J. Lichtman. White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement. Grove Press. Retrieved December 31, 2007. "The new right put a positive spin on anti-pluralist morality. They weren't just against sinners and feminists; they were the "pro-family" and "pro-life" champions of wholesome "family values." Still, defense of the family meant battling the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), abortion, pornography, gay rights, and gun control."
  8. Jump up ^ Prof. Peter Goodwin Heltzel. Jesus and Justice: Evangelicals, Race, and American Politics. Yale University Press. Retrieved December 31, 2007. "Founded at the same time that the evangelical pro-life movement was gathering stream, Focus was politicized from its inception. In the 1980s Dobson became more involved in politics, focusing on a cluster of issues related to family matters, including abortion, pornography, and the women's movement."
  9. Jump up ^ "Support Our Families". Fami.ly. Retrieved January 16, 2011.
  10. Jump up ^ "American Family Association". Afa.net. August 6, 2010. Retrieved January 16, 2011.
  11. Jump up ^ John Woolley, Gerhard Peters (July 29, 2004). "Speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention". Boston, Massachussetts: The American Presidency Project. Archived from the original on November 1, 2004. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
  12. Jump up ^ Myriam Miedzian, Family Values: American and French Style, The Huffington Post, 2008-05-21
  13. Jump up ^ "/ News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Walking the walk on family values". Boston.com. October 31, 2004. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
  14. Jump up ^ Friedman, Jaclyn; Jessica Valenti (2008). Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape. Seal Press. ISBN 1-58005-257-6.
  15. Jump up ^ Corinna, Heather. "What Is Feminist Sex Education?". Scarleteen. Retrieved October 3, 2010.
  16. Jump up ^ Corinna, Heather (May 11, 2010). "How Can Sex Ed Prevent Rape?". Scarleteen. Retrieved October 3, 2010.
  17. Jump up ^ Lewis, Steve (November 6, 2007). "Christian party's unholy alliance". Herald Sun.
  18. Jump up ^ Антон Одынец (January 4, 2011). "Детей защитят от 'вредных' книг и фильмов" [Protecting children against 'harmful' books and movies] (in Russian). Фонтанка.Ру. Archived from the original on September 29, 2012. Retrieved August 2, 2012.
  19. Jump up ^ Sections 377 and 377A of the Penal Code (Singapore)
  20. Jump up ^ Stone, Lawrence (November 16-17, 1994). "Family Values in a Historical Perspective" (PDF). The Tanner Lectures on Human Values. University of Utah. Archived from the original on June 10, 2010. Retrieved July 24, 2012.
  21. Jump up ^ "For Better, For Worse". Washingtonpost.com. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
  22. Jump up ^ "Red Families Vs. Blue Families". May 9, 2010. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
  23. Jump up ^ Jayson, Sharon (December 19, 2006). "Most Americans have had premarital sex, study finds". USA Today. Retrieved May 22, 2010. Based on data from National Survey of Family Growth (2002).

Further reading

External links

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