FOURTH OF JULY

Sunday is the Fourth of July. It is the day that we Americans celebrate as the day that our founding fathers signed a document that declared the American Colonies independent of British rule. It was a great day for governments and citizen rule called democracy.

What few realize about the Fourth of July is that it was a great day for marriages and families as well as governments. Through out history, families have organized themselves patterned after their government. Governments were organized to keep peace in the realm and provide an orderly society. Every government had a ruler called a monarch. It was assumed that the monarch ruled by divine choice.

In 1215 King John of England was forced to sign the Magna Charter guaranteeing certain political and civil freedoms to his subjects. Up until this time, people were at the mercy of the caprices of the monarch who ruled over them. After 1215, even the divinely appointed monarch had to rule by law.

But in 1776, a new, radical idea was born - "... governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . ." God doesn’t ordain the ruler, the people do - rule, of the people, for the people, and by the people. In the past two hundred twenty-eight years, the idea has gradually caught on around the world, maybe even in the Middle East.

So what does this have to do with families? Up until 1776, family rule was by hierarch, which means "holy ruler." The family order pretty much mirrored the government under which it existed. The husband/father of the home had the last word. He was king and his home was his castle. Conflict, it was theorized, would be eliminated since there was only one final word and peace would reign in the family as it did in the realm.

Over the last two hundred years families have experimented with various forms of democratic governance - a two vote system where parents have equal voice, and in some cases the children are also given a vote. The result has been a lot of conflict and the family expends a lot of energy avoiding that conflict. One way of avoiding conflict is to avoid dealing with subjects upon which there is likely to be differing opinions. After twenty or so years of avoiding subjects of potential conflict, conversations are reduced to, "Do you think it will rain tomorrow?" and "What is for supper tonight?"

Democratically organized families have another choice. They can become "conflict-resolving" families, choosing to use conflict resolution skills and work through their conflicts rather than to avoid them. When you resolve conflict, intimacy is restored and closeness is enjoyed once again.

If you would like to learn more about conflict resolving skills and how to acquire them, give me a call at 903-938-0262.