History is a Family Business!

Historians have long noted that social decay, which sometimes precedes or causes the fall of a civilization, has a number of causes. In such social analysis, causation is often difficult to distinguish from mere correlation, but it is clear that among the causes for the decline of a nation are large and increasing cases of divorce, illegitimate birth, adultery, and a low birth rate.

To be precise, every culture, even those which are thriving and on their way up, experience some amount of these phenomena. Even in societies which are ascending, there will be a few cases of divorce, illegitimacy, and adultery. Small amounts of these circumstances can easily be absorbed by a vital civilization.

But large and increasing numbers of divorces, illegitimate births, and cases of adultery will weaken societal fabric. Fewer births, measured in total or per capita, also undermine political and economic stability.

Author Alvin Toffler notes, however, that there is a personal side to this sociological pattern. While historians are interested only in the macro-level, Toffler points out that there is a large amount of human pain in such trends. Toffler writes that "guilt is associated with the fracture of the family." Historians see a deeper cause underlying these patterns than mere personal choice.

We cannot blame the people who get divorced when divorce is rampant: rather, we blame society for failing to instruct generations of people about how to choose a mate, about how to make an inviolable commitment, and about how to maintain a marriage of mutual respect, affection, and supportiveness.

Toffler writes:

As millions of men and women clamber out of the strewn wreckage of their marriages they, too, suffer agonies of self-blame. And once more, much of the guilt is misplaced. When a tiny minority is involved, the crack-up of their families may reflect individual failures. But when divorce, separation, and other forms of familial disaster overtake millions at once in many countries, it is absurd to think the causes are purely personal. The fracture of the family today is, in fact, part of the general crisis of industrialism — the crack-up of all the institutions

which have served the human race in agricultural or industrial settings, around the globe in different nations, on different continents, in different languages, and with different cultures and religions. We face this pattern in our post-industrial, or late-industrial, era. It has been faced by other civilizations from Rome to China. Toffler reminds us that great societal declines, about which we can read and write so dispassionately, are often accompanied by personal pain.