The Temptation of Power - Part Three: The Household — Society's Forgotten Institution

When people discuss the institutions that shape society, they usually think of government.

Some think of business.

Others think of the courts.

Few stop to consider the institution that, for thousands of years, formed the foundation of civilisation itself.

The household.

Today the word often means little more than the people who happen to live under the same roof.

Historically it meant something far greater.

The household was society's first government.

It was the first school.

It was the first welfare system.

It was the first healthcare provider.

It was the first pension scheme.

It was the first childcare service.

It was the first place where values, responsibilities and practical skills were passed from one generation to the next.

Long before governments assumed these responsibilities, households performed them naturally.

Children were educated by parents and extended family.

The elderly were cared for by their relatives.

Food was produced, preserved and prepared within the home.

Clothing was made, repaired and handed down.

Family businesses operated from the household.

Knowledge was accumulated and transferred across generations.

The household was not simply where people slept.

It was where society reproduced itself.

This was not a perfect system.

Some households were loving.

Others were abusive.

Some prospered.

Others struggled.

Human nature did not suddenly become imperfect with the arrival of modern government.

It always has been.

Yet despite those imperfections, the household possessed one characteristic that modern institutions often lack.

It was independent.

It derived its authority neither from government nor from the market.

It stood between the individual and the state.

This mattered.

A society composed of strong households contains countless centres of responsibility.

Problems are often solved before they ever reach government.

Neighbours help neighbours.

Families support relatives.

Communities organise voluntarily.

Churches assist those in need.

Responsibility is dispersed.

Power is dispersed.

As the household becomes weaker, however, those responsibilities do not simply disappear.

Someone else assumes them.

Over the past century many functions once carried out within households have gradually been transferred to government departments, professional services and commercial organisations.

Children spend increasing amounts of their formative years under institutional supervision.

Care for the elderly has increasingly become professionalised.

Meals once prepared within the household are purchased.

Repairs once carried out by family members are outsourced.

Support once expected from relatives is frequently sought from public services.

Some of these changes have undoubtedly brought benefits.

Specialist knowledge has improved healthcare.

Professional education has expanded opportunity.

Modern technology has transformed daily life.

This article is not an argument for returning to a romanticised past.

It is an invitation to ask a different question.

What happens when society's oldest institution steadily loses its responsibilities?

As the household becomes less economically productive, less educationally significant and less responsible for welfare, its influence naturally diminishes.

At precisely the same time, other institutions grow larger to fill the space that it once occupied.

This is not necessarily the result of a grand design.

It may simply be the cumulative consequence of thousands of individual political, economic and social decisions.

Yet the direction of travel is unmistakable.

The household has surrendered responsibilities.

Other institutions have acquired them.

The consequence is a society in which individuals increasingly look beyond their own households for solutions to problems that previous generations would first have attempted to solve themselves.

Whether that has made society stronger or weaker is one of the defining questions of our age.

It is a question that deserves far more attention than it usually receives.

For if the household was civilisation's first institution, perhaps we should think more carefully before allowing it to become its weakest.