Abstract
This chapter explores the experiential reality of the family and its role in securing human well-being. I argue that the family is an epistemic category as well as an ontological category: it reveals the being of the phenomenological life-world in ways that are necessary for adequately appreciating the embodiment of human health and well-being. Without the family, there are significant areas of human flourishing about which one can neither know nor experience. The family uncovers categories of moral duties and virtues central to the creation and maintenance of core areas of human well-being. Familial interactions, for example, routinely demonstrate significant forms of altruistic behavior and other-directed personal costs at levels that are atypical of nonfamilial relationships. Moreover, significant cross-cultural sociobiological data support the conclusion that family life provides social, emotional, adaptive, and financial advantages, as well as the development of affective autonomy, increased longevity, improved physical and psychological health. Conversely, traumatic changes to family life, such as the death of a spouse, are well-documented as negatively impacting personal stability, life-expectancy, and overall well-being. In short, to focus unduly on the individual in isolation from the family is to diminish this rich and significant category of human good and well-being.
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Notes
- 1.
Note, the human experience being explored is that of typical mature adults, rather than infants. As Schutz and Luckmann note: “We have occupied ourselves up until now with the life-world of everyday life, which we define as that reality the wide-awake normal person finds given straightforwardly in the natural attitude” (Schutz & Luckmann, 1973, p. 16).
- 2.
“The life-world is thus a reality which we modify through our acts and which, on the other hand, modifies our actions” (Schutz & Luckmann, 1973, p. 6).
- 3.
The account of the family, which I defend, shares similarities with the categorial analysis of social and political life that G.W.F. Hegel explores in his Elements of the Philosophy of Right (§§158–180). Hegel recognizes that when man and woman join as husband and wife to live together and have children, they create a family. They cease to be isolated individuals and became members of a family. Relationships and interactions shift into the intimate familial relationships and personal associations of family members. Hegel recognizes both that the family forms a social unity as well as that it embodies a particular moral content. “The family, as the immediate substantiality of spirit, has as its determination the spirit’s feeling [Empfindung] of its own unity, which is love. Thus, the disposition [appropriate to the family] is to have self-consciousness of one’s individuality within this unity as essentially which has being in and for itself, so that one is present in it not as an independent person [eine Person für sich] but as a member (Hegel, 1991, §158, p. 199). Hegel recognizes the family as a natural fact of the matter that embodies a substantial ethical end. “Marriage, as the immediate ethical relationship, contains first the moment of natural vitality; and since it is a substantial relationship, this involves life in its totality, namely as the actuality of the species [Gattung] and its process” (§161, p. 200). “The ethical aspect of marriage consists in the consciousness of this union as a substantial end, and hence in love, trust, and the sharing of the whole of individual existence [Existenz]” (§163, p. 202).
- 4.
“Men who have marital partners also live longer than men without spouses; men who marry after age 25 get more protection than those who tie the knot at a younger age, and the longer a man stays married, the greater his survival advantage over his unmarried peers. But is marriage itself responsible for better health and longer life?
Although it’s hard to be sure, marriage seems to deserve at least part of the credit. Some have argued that self-selection would skew the results if healthy men are more likely to marry than men with health problems. But research shows the reverse is true: unhealthy men actually marry earlier, are less likely to divorce, and are more likely to remarry following divorce or bereavement than healthy men.
Another potential factor is loneliness; is the institution of marriage linked to better health, or is it simply a question of living with another person? Although studies vary, the answer seems to be a little of both. People living with unmarried partners tend to fare better than those living alone, but men living with their wives have the best health of all” (Harvard: Men’s Health, 2019: https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/marriage-and-mens-health).
- 5.
“Prostate cancer is a particular concern for men. To find out how marriage affects survival, scientists from the University of Miami investigated 143,063 men with the disease. Over a 17-year period, married men survived far longer (median 69 months) than separated and widowed patients (38 months); men who had never married had an intermediate survival rate (49 months)” (Harvard: Men’s Health, 2019: https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/marriage-and-mens-health).
- 6.
The adolescent years can be precarious. “1) This developmental period is characterized by higher rates of experimentation and novelty seeking. 2) Addictive disorders in adults generally have onset in adolescence and early adulthood. 3) Early onset of substance use predicts greater severity and morbidity of substance use disorders. Of particular note is that in alcoholics, 80% of the cases began before the age of 30 and over 40% reported alcohol related problems between the ages of 15 and 19. Our observations at the cellular level are consistent with the idea that alcohol and other drugs of abuse engage glutamatergic-based learning processes that are particularly active during neurodevelopment that characterizes the adolescent brain” (Carpenter-Hyland & Chandler, 2007, p. 206).
- 7.
As Charles Murray summarizes: “No matter what the outcome being examined—the quality of the mother-infant relationship, externalizing behavior in childhood (aggression, delinquency, and hyperactivity), delinquency in adolescence, criminality as adults, illness and injury in childhood, early mortality, sexual decision making in adolescence, school problems and dropping out, emotional health, or any other measure of how well or poorly children do in life—the family structure that produces the best outcomes for children, on average, are two biological parents who remain married” (2012, p. 158).
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Cherry, M.J. (2023). Well-Being, Health, and Human Embodiment: The Familial Lifeworld. In: Boublil, E., Ferrarello, S. (eds) The Vulnerability of the Human World. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 148. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41824-2_6
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