I write in respond to the Reverend Al Miller's article 'In defence of the preferred family structure.' According to Rev Miller, morals are "time-tested, proven principles that predate and will outlive the brief lifespan of the editorial writer or modern thinkers". Now, anyone who has taken any course in the humanities (sociology, psychology, or ethics, etc) can tell you that morals are not constant or universal, and that they change from era to era, and from community to community.

According to Rev Miller, we are still living by the moral codes established in the Bible, and he defines the family with this supposedly biblical definition. However, the Bible has no constant definition of family.

Instead, it has many references to various forms of family structures. The description of family changed at various points in the Bible, depending on the era, the way of life and the thinking of the people.

Quite normal earlier

In early biblical history it was seen as quite normal for Abraham to marry his half sister Sarah, and for his son Isaac and grandson Jacob to marry their first cousins. In today's Jamaica that is called incest. Men having many wives and concubines under one household was at one point considered a family unit; that's polygamy in today's society and it is illegal. In Mosaic periods pre-pubescent girls as young as 12 and 13 years old were given into relations with older men, and that was quite normal; today it's called carnal abuse and can elicit a long jail sentence. It was also normal for a man to have relations with the widow of his dead brother and produce children as a part of his deceased brother's family; that's not normal today.

As time evolved the family structure changed and by the time Jesus walked on the scene, monogamy was the most practised form of family relationships. However, it was possible for a man to divorce his wife by simply announcing 'I divorce you' three times in public, and be able to marry another woman, while the poor woman would be left with no means of sustaining her self and children. Jesus was a constant defender of these unfortunate single mothers.

The facts

It is a fact that 85 per cent of babies being born in Jamaica are to unmarried mothers. Now, that is the majority, and it would not be beneficial to this majority of mothers to limit the definition of family to a husband, his wife and the children. That definition, though it may still stand in some people's minds, has not been the norm since the 1950s, especially with the increase in unmarried mothers and divorces. Lest I forget, where do the barrel children, and the children raised by grandparents and other relatives, fit into the obsolete yet time-tested family structure? How will we account for them? Or do we ignore them also? Surely, we as a nation cannot continue to limit family structures based on the morals of yesterday and beyond, when we are living in a new era with forward-thinking citizens who need to be accounted for, despite the structural make-up of their household.

I am, etc.,

R. BROWN

rcbtro@aim.com

Philadelphia, PA

Via Go-Jamaica

Lest I forget, where do the barrel children, and the children raised by grandparents and other relatives, fit into the obsolete yet time-tested family structure?