Mutual Honesty Of Spouses As The Spiritual And Moral Foundation Of The Family

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Russia has been the world leader in terms of the number of divorces for almost a quarter of a century. According to the statistics of the registry office, we split from 50% to 70% of married couples from the number of families that were registered in a particular year. There are a lot of reasons for divorce: the spouses do not have their own home, their low income, dependence on their parents, alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling addiction, domestic violence, childlessness, sexual incompatibility, infidelity and much more. But it would be naive and wrong to think that all these problems did not exist in the past. In fact, families, especially young families, have always found it difficult: financially, physically difficult, morally difficult. Moreover, it is obvious that in a number of positions it was even more difficult earlier. However, the fact remains: in the past decades, centuries and even millennia, much less educated spouses than today, living in much less comfortable living and economic conditions, coped much better with a variety of problems, successfully overcame them and kept their families.

Paradoxically, this is true! This raises a reasonable question: what helped husbands and wives of the past to successfully meet the most diverse challenges for their families? What factors and circumstances worked for them? What was their resource, the key to a happy, lifelong marriage? As a family psychologist with a practice of more than a quarter of a century, calling things by their proper names, I believe that there were at least seven such saving "keys":

1. Thanks to a single religion and a single social, educational and cultural space, the spouses had common spiritual values, a common cultural, and therefore a mental basis, which created an excellent negotiating platform, helped the husband and wife not only find a common language, but have it from the very beginning., even at the start of the relationship, keeping it throughout life.

2. The spouses have always had common long-term goals. This was due, firstly, to the fact that they, as a rule, were involved in one material production (agriculture, cattle breeding, handicrafts, trade, etc.). And secondly, with the need to give birth and raise as many of those children as possible, which will subsequently help provide parents in the period of old age and illness. (After all, pension and social security did not exist then). A complete mutual understanding about these goals created the same complete mutual understanding on most other family and other issues.

3. Being a "cell of society", a basic social cell, the family was under the constant control and guardianship of higher social structures - the paternal and (or) maternal clan, tribe, church, state, etc. All these structures could make adjustments to the organization of family life, impose various sanctions on spouses, etc. They also helped in caring for children, in eliminating the risk of starvation, etc. This increased the responsibility of the spouses for their own family behavior, because they needed not to lose their own family face in front of society.

4. Family lack of alternatives, when men and women did not have a huge range of possible sexual partners, there was no wide choice of wives and husbands, which made men and women value the existing "half" very much, to avoid those risks that could be irreversible.

5. High stability of social systems. Hence, the small reality of finding a family partner in more socially successful strata and the obvious senselessness of finding a partner in socially less successful strata (in terms of wealth, income, education, etc.). Hence, a decrease in social and material needs, a decrease in the mutual self-interest of husbands and wives originating from approximately socially homogeneous strata of society, and therefore a decrease in mutual criticism along the axis "prestige - prospects".

This also includes the slower (in comparison with the modern mobile society) nature of the growth of social, economic and political success of family members (growth of their status, income, authority, influence, etc.), which allowed their "halves" to adapt more effectively under the ongoing changes, fit into them, separate them. From "rags to riches", that is, from a lower position to directors and owners did not grow in one day, and therefore the notorious "dizziness from success" did not arise, "euphoria of permissiveness" did not arise, this did not lead to alienation from family members.

6. The high level of physical labor, daily physical fatigue, the general hardships of life led the spouses to a mutual decrease in the requirements for appearance and sexual activity of each other. Hence, a minimum of divorces and betrayals due to the fact that someone in a couple was dissatisfied with being overweight, general neglect or lack of sexuality of the partner.

7. The spouses, their lives and thoughts, were completely "transparent" to each other. Husbands and wives knew perfectly well the sources and amounts of each other's income, social circle, daily routine, meetings and communication with other people, etc. This honesty and transparency was an excellent basis for complete mutual understanding and mutual trust in families, created a feeling of "closeness", which immediately reduced the level of conflict between spouses, increased their overall optimism in family life.

It was these seven circumstances that were the internal "reinforcement" that, like steel rods in concrete, strengthened the family structure, ensuring that the spouses successfully overcome the most difficult life situations and personal confrontations in couples.

Of course, we cannot, nor do we want to turn back time. Much of the above has already become history. However, having a social tool with seven adjustment buttons, even in the event of failure or "jamming-jamming" of two or three of them, we may well use the existing buttons intensively, thereby compensating for the emerging social and family deficits. And by and large, modern Russian society can and should compensate for the disappearance of buttons number "4", "5" and "6" into the past with increased attention to buttons "1", "2", "3" and "7", the potential of which very large.

As for the button number "1" - the creation of a single spiritual, moral and cultural space in the country and the family, so that men and women from any national, social, property and educational strata of modern Russian society have the opportunity to speak "the same language" only state, but also mental, psychological, in the language of some values. Through the efforts of the state, church, society, this is not only possible in principle, but also possible in a relatively short time - within one generation line, in twenty to thirty years, if only this work begins as quickly as possible.

In this article, I want to especially dwell on the button number "7", the mutual honesty of the spouses as the spiritual and moral basis of the family. It is not a secret for anyone that a global confrontation of civilizations is happening and will continue to occur: Western (Atlantic), Russian, Arab, Turkish, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, still emerging African and South American, etc. And this confrontation is taking place not only in the political, military, social and economic spheres, but more and more in the sphere of culture. After all, the destruction of culture, cultural identity is the beginning of the destruction of the social, economic, political, and there already the military power of another civilization. Cultural confrontation is especially often directed against family values, the family as a social unit of the society with which the struggle is being waged.

And speaking about the button number “7”, as a family psychologist, unfortunately, I note that the so-called model of the obligatory “personal space” of spouses is being strenuously imposed on Russian society, our men and women. According to which, spouses do not need to know:

- the life history of their "halves";

- places of their work, profession, current activity;

- sources of income, size of expenses;

- their day's schedule;

- the circle and nature of their personal communication, communication on social networks, on a mobile phone, etc.;

Spouses allegedly should not even pick up each other's mobile phone or tablet, should not know the password for their phone, email or social network accounts, should not be interested in who and why gave a loved one a certain valuable gift, etc..d.

Within the framework of this model, without even discussing it specifically in marriage contracts or orally, while in marriage, spouses have the right to secretly acquire movable or immovable property for themselves or their relatives or friends, separate their weekends and vacations (including traveling abroad), do not report to each other for anything.

The general idea of this model of Western-style "free" relations is simple: a man and a woman create a family only for the birth and upbringing of common children, and only partly for the conduct of intimate relationships and a common household. All the rest they can and even should receive from communication with other people.

What is crumbling from the implementation of this scheme? From my point of view, the mutual trust of the spouses is crumbling. Hence, mutual honesty automatically leaves the marital relationship. After all, what kind of honesty can we talk about if a lot of what does not agree to a loved one would hardly make him / her happy, if not even cause a scandal and rejection? As a matter of fact, we can confidently say that a considerable part of divorces in Russia is caused by the fact that many wives and husbands "vote with their feet" against the demonstrative use of them by the "family halves" of the principles of personal freedom in the family and "personal the space of the spouses in marriage. " After all, being brought up in traditional Russian values, our men and women will never understand how it is possible to live in a marriage with a person who, according to our assessment system, “leads a double life” or is in a “gray zone” that is opaque for his marriage partner. … It is not surprising that a lot of "reciprocal" games in free relationships, betrayals and divorces arise from this. Why, in fact, our Russian children are suffering.

Meanwhile, the mutual honesty of spouses in the system of traditional values of Russian civilization was nothing more than one of the most important spiritual and moral foundations of the family. The so-called "personal space" imposed by Western liberal values, in fact, turns out to be nothing more than a tool for destroying the unity of spouses, a tool for destroying the family as a social institution. And “free relations” between spouses are a model of the opposite direction, antagonistic not only for a particular Russian family, but also for any family in the world.

Hence, I consider the following to be fundamentally important:

- mutual honesty of spouses as a spiritual and moral foundation of the family should become a generally recognized standard in the value system of Russian society as a whole, regardless of confessional, national and other differences;

- within the framework of the “Family Studies” course planned for implementation in the system of general secondary education in Russia in the coming years, the concept of “personal space of spouses” should be subjected to reasonable criticism;

- It should be subjected to similar criticism from the lips of authoritative members of Russian society (politicians, representatives of religious confessions, cultural figures, businessmen, athletes, etc.);

- the upbringing of Russian youth should be based on the formation of mutual trust between spouses, which can technically be achieved only on the basis of mutual transparency in the life of the spouses.

Only by being in this position, only in this way reinforcing the importance of button number "7" in the family, Russian society can count on overcoming the protracted crisis of the Russian family as a social institution, on solving (including) the demographic problems derived from this, on the real protection of motherhood. and childhood. Indeed, by and large, the struggle for trust and transparency in relations between spouses in a Russian family is one of the fronts in the great struggle for the survival and future of Russia, our deeply distinctive Russian Civilization. And we have no right to lose this fight