As we observe the International Day of Families on 15 May, it is opportune to reflect on the rights and responsibilities in a family and how to create healthy family relationships.
In the Bahá’í view, unity, cooperation, and harmony in a family are maintained in the balance of rights and responsibilities. All family members “have duties and responsibilities towards one another and to the family as a whole,” which “vary from member to member because of their natural relationships”.
Upholding rights and prerogatives of family members will ensure that respect is accorded to all members of the family, irrespective of age or gender. For example, in a family boys and girls must be valued and given equal rights and opportunities. The observance of gender equality is crucial to the well-being, happiness, and unity in the family.
Families are critical sources of emotional and material support for their members. If loving, joyful, and unified, they can provide the ideal conditions for the well-being of their members in all facets of life – physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental.
According to the Bahá’í Writings: “if love and agreement are manifest in a single family, that family will advance, become illumined and spiritual; but if enmity and hatred exist within it, destruction and dispersion are inevitable” and again “where unity existeth in a given family, the affairs of that family are conducted; what progress the members of that family make, how they prosper in the world, their concerns are in order, they enjoy comfort and tranquillity, they are secure, their position is assured, they come to be envied by all”.
In order to promote unity in a family, and to strengthen the marital bond, there is need for spiritual and moral transformation, belief in, and practice of, equality of men and women, and that the rights of all members of the family are respected.
Families lay the foundation of both the individual’s happiness and development, as well as advancement and cohesion in society. Unless the family – the building block of society – is unified, the well-being of society cannot be ensured.
The Universal House of Justice, the governing council of the Bahá’í international community states that: “The family unit, the nucleus of human society, constitutes a space within which praiseworthy morals and essential capacities must be developed, for the habits and patterns of conduct nurtured in the home are carried into the workplace, into the social and political life of the country, and finally into the arena of international relations”.
It is within the family where the values of tolerance, peace, and social responsibility can be initiated and taught; and it is in the family where a sense of responsibility and of values such as loving, caring and sharing are developed.
“The family”, in the Bahá’í view, “is the best and most effective institution to teach the concept of the oneness of humanity and to rear our children to live a life of unity and to become unifiers in all dimensions of their lives”.
For feedback please contact: tshwane@bahai.org.za; or call 083 794 0819
Websites: www.bahai.org, www.bahai.org.za
