Family

The family is the first and most natural community — the foundation from which village, city, and political life grow.

The household is the school of virtue and the smallest unit of the City of God's earthly realization — but it is also marked by sin.

Marriage is both a natural institution and a sacrament — its indissolubility follows from both levels, and children are persons entrusted, not possessions owned.

Conjugal society is a voluntary compact, and parental authority is temporary — held in trust for the child's eventual freedom.

The natural family is the only genuinely natural society — but good families in a corrupt society require the most careful artificial formation.

The family is the first moment of ethical life, animated by love — not a contract between individuals but a union that genuinely transcends individuality.

The family as constituted is a school of tyranny — reformed as a partnership of equals, it becomes the school of the virtues of freedom.

The family is where the deepest structures of the psyche are formed — and where civilization's renunciatory demands are first imposed.