The Family in the Peripheral World

Abstract

"What is called Western culture (European-North American) is often identified with what is 'universally' Christian as such. So the European family is identified with what is seen as being the Christian family. The 'usual' theological treatment of the subject begins with a study of the family in the Old and New Testaments, goes on to analyse it in Roman and mediaeval culture, and ends with an examination of it in modern Europe.1 In this way, judgments are passed on contemporary change in late capitalist societies. N o account is taken of the fact that this viewpoint - historically and systematically -is exclusively European and is valid today for some twelve per cent of the world's population.2 So this article has to deal with the question of the family as it affects the major part of humanity. The question is so closely linked to daily life that it is not surprising that the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for Africa, which ended in Rome on 8 May 1994, made marriage and the family one of the central issues in its debates, and that it was the one that aroused the strongest feelings."