What is a Mother? What is a family? And why is it Time to ask?
Rethinking our concepts of family, mothers’ role, and women’s roles, in the contemporary world.
Historically, mothers have held a definitive place both within our own intimate narrative and within our symbolic universe. Here, we witness the passage of a voluptuous, paleolithic Venus and similar historical matrons, deities that manifest a maternal archetype and the figure of the single mother out to conquer the world –and she succeeds. But everything, like the river, changes. Over time, both the figure of the mother, and the concept of the family began to change. Today, it’s more complex, more free, and certainly more inclusive and comprehensive.
On the one hand, female autonomy, generally subject to cultural standards and social inertia, is finally emancipating itself and designing its own future. At the same time, the family model has opened up, with the legal recognition of unions, relative possibilities for adoption and, above all, the maturing of the imagination. It’s a necessary rearrangement and, like any psycho-social transformation, it’s not exempt from a certain cultural rending (and all the implicit controversy). Still, the results seem more genuine and just.
Seen from the reproductive point of view, the word family implies the simple union which includes a man, a woman, and their resulting children. In the past, families were an institution which formed as a response not only to biological ties, but to political, economic, and social standards: children inherited noble titles, properties, surnames, and the powerful positions of their parents. But from a social and, above all, an emotional point of view, the family is something much more transcendent. It’s a construction which includes a group of people united in closeness, empathy, collaboration, love and, generally, a common history. Seen in this light, such a model does not necessarily have to be the response of people who are institutionally or genetically related, but to groups of people whose relationship implies much less arbitrary ties. This allows us to rethink a simple question, the answer to which we often take for granted: who is really our family?
Within this new scenario, the mother –archetypal and universal symbol of the feminine, fertility, reproduction, protection, sacrifice, compassion and wisdom– has also been able to rethink her role. Women, for centuries subjected to staying at home and raising their children, have found ways to develop professional careers in parallel, without necessarily giving up motherhood (or doing so if they wish, yet without having their femininity considered incomplete). Current technology allows a woman to become pregnant without the need of a partner, and even couples unable to conceive children can have them through various means. This evidently reformulates, even from a biological point of view, the role of the mother, the father, and the family.
The mother in the contemporary world, with all of the wide possibilities that are the contemporary family, maintains the role outlined above, just as exciting, but without the implication that her archetypal and sacred capacity to give life is somehow diluted. Our evolution as a society is sustained on multiple pillars. Undoubtedly these new facets of motherhood and the family are two of the fundamental agents of the process. Let’s celebrate them.
Images: 1) Public domain 2) Steven Zucker – flickr 3) Mother and child, Rudolf Dührkoop (c. 1900) – National Media Museum 4) La familia, Rufino Tamayo (1987) – Gandalf’s Gallery – flickr
Related Articles
7 Recommendations for Organizing Your Library
For the true bibliophile, few things are more important than finding a book from within your library.
Red tea, the best antioxidant beverage on earth
Red tea is considered to be the most unusual of teas because it implies a consistently different preparation process. ––It is believed that its finding came upon surprisingly when traditional green
A brief and fascinating tour of the world's sands
To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. - William Blake What are we standing on? The ground beneath our feet
Strengthen your memory with rosemary oil
For thousands of years rosemary oil has been traditionally admired and used due to its many properties. In the Roman culture, for example, it was used for several purposes, among them cleansing, as
Literature as a Tool to Build Realities
Alain de Botton argues that great writers are like lenses through which we can see an infinite array of possibilities.
Mandelbrot and Fractals: Different Ways of Perceiving Space
Mathematics has always placed a greater emphasis on algebra, a “purer” version of itself, one that is more rational at least. Perhaps like in philosophy, the use of a large number knotted concepts in
Luis Buñuel’s Perfect Dry Martini
The drums of Calanda accompanied Luis Buñuel throughout his life. In his invaluable memoirs, published under the Buñuel-esque title, My Last Sigh, an entire chapter is dedicated to describing a
A Brief Manual of Skepticism, Courtesy of Carl Sagan
Whether or not you’re dedicated to science, these tips to identify fallacies apply to any form of rigorous thinking.
How to Evolve from Sadness
Rainer Maria Rilke explored the possible transformations that sadness can trigger in human beings.
Alan Watts, A Discreet And Charming Philosopher Of The Spirit
British thinker Alan Watts was one of the most accessible and entertaining Western interpreters of Oriental philosophy there have been.