Destruction of the traditional family structure

Mar 26, 2018 Editorial

We all have eyes, yet we are not seeing that there is an abundance of evidence that we live in a society that is slowly seeing the collapse of the family structure; a society in which crime, especially murder is often random and senseless.
We live in a society in which children are neglected by part-time mothers who are forced to assume the role of fathers in the home; women are abused, raped and sometimes killed and children are sexually molested and mistreated.
The killing of so many young men is one thing, but the killing of young women is quite another. Many of these women would have walked out on the family at the insistence of a friend or some male partner.
It is becoming increasing clear that our religious way of life which is based on truth and love is being betrayed. Nowhere is this more evident than the betrayal of the institution of the nuclear family, which, in normal society, comprises a father, mother and children living together in a stable home.
The religious way of life insists on a legal bond of marriage between a man and a woman, which is the bedrock of society on which family and home are built, religious institutions are sacrosanct and crime and violence are extremely low.
Yet these things did not happen overnight. The women were left with the children and when things got too heavy to bear, they in turn left the children to fend for themselves. These children grew into adults and had the idea that the way to treat children was to allow them to fend for themselves.
At the same time there is the same sex union that is now seeing to define the modern family. Today, a relentless war is being waged against religion and the institution of marriage, defiling them in such a way that they may one day suffer the same fate as the monastic way of life in western Christianity.
The traditional concept of marriage could eventually become redundant and disappear. In the eyes of many, it is morally wrong and socially unacceptable for man to legally marry another man and get a marriage certificate, for children to grow up in a home comprising two fathers or two mothers or for schools to teach them that such a lifestyle is normal in today’s world. It shows that societal norms are being eroded and may be beyond restoring. This often leads to the destruction of the family, which could eventually result in the collapse of our culture.
Guyana is a classic example of a society in danger, and had it not been for the presence of several religious groups, society would have already collapsed. Religions institutions have to a large extent succeeded in preserving the traditional family structure, quality of education, teenagers’ chastity and their incurable promiscuity.
However, the traditional two-parent, nuclear family structure has become less relevant today. It had to adapt to a number of changes, including divorce, the single-parent family, unwed mothers, same-sex marriage, and the extended family, among others.
Indeed, the traditional two-parent family structure has changed dramatically and is no longer the norm in society. Today, many grandparents are raising their grandchildren because either the parents are not present in their children’s life due to death, imprisonment, addiction, abandonment or being unfit parents.
In Guyana, it is unfortunate one in eight children is raised by grandparents and one in five is raised by a single parent, mostly mothers.
The fact that society accepts such family structure is evidence that the traditional family structure is being destroyed.

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