By removeing and neutering the voice of the father, we are creating a culture of chaos!!

But I was trying to take into account the argument that has become so pervasive today, that the traditional nuclear family of mum, dad and children has largely been superseded, whether we like it or not, and there are now many alternative “groupings” (for want of a better word - although I rather like it as a description because it hints at the coldness and depersonalisation that is left at the heart when dads are not there - would you rather be in a “family” or just a “grouping”?)

My attempt at a definition of family, and I am not claiming it is a perfect definition, was trying to make the point that families should also be economically independent, i.e. they must contain at least one breadwinner who will sustain all the material needs of that family. That has always been dad’s role. Nobody has yet come up with anything better - the state is a very poor substitute.

Diluting and eliminating the father is why the family has disappeared and why our society continues to produce the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears.

“Two or more people, living under the same roof, recognising some relationship bonds between themselves for their mutual benefit, and providing for all their own financial and material needs from within their own resources.”

The last part of the definition is extremely important. If a “family” cannot support itself from within its own resources, how can it claim to be a family? Because if you have to look outside of the family to support it, you are immediately letting strangers - non-family members - into your family, and giving them powers over it. This breaks the family unit, loosens the bonds, and unravels the relationships. It also makes the grouping essentially parasitic, since it has to attach itself to some outside source of funding in order to sustain itself, and thus loses its independence. It can also easily be far worse that that; if its outside source of funding has to be coerced into yielding that funding without obtaining any benefit from the grouping to which it has now become an unwilling provider, then the grouping has become a source of injustice and aggravation, a running sore in society.

So mother-centric groupings without a dad living under the same roof and where mother therefore requires financial and/or material support from the state or elsewhere (including from absent dad) in order to sustain the grouping, will certainly fail the definition of a family. It will be something else, something unpleasant and parasitic, and not a family. So let’s not honour it with such a description.