448. Does “The Family” Still Exist?

I do not think there are many people, if there are any, who remember how the family lived at the beginning of the last century.

From our grandparents or parents, we know that they lived family life, in their times, very differently from ours today. Today, the family consists of two adults and the offspring - usually only one, sometimes two, it is an exception if there are three, and over that it's just exceptional! It certainly cannot be compared to the minimum of five and the norm of a group of eight as the family consisted of a hundred years ago.

But that's not all! The "family" was not composed of one family, but two or three, all under the same sheet! There were uncles, aunts, grandparents, grandmothers, and if a male member of the group married he added the newly-wedded bride to the family, and vice versa.

So we get to some twenty people or so; which meant four per bed, two at the head and two at the feet- and if they were still small they could even squeeze in  quite “comfortably” five or six.

But then, how were these mega families organized? Well, just like our parishes are today. There was the patriarch, that is, the oldest who sat at the head of the table; who not only was the absolute boss and his word was law, but kept the accounts, a central purse where everyone surrendered their earnings.

What about the kitchen? What went on in the kitchen? This was also a source of power. Whoever handled the food was perhaps even more powerful than the one who held the purse since falling into the cook’s graces meant perhaps getting an extra slice of polenta (mush), even though you knew quite well the best part of anything that came out of those furnaces was reserved and served primarily to the men in their hierarchical order. I think in a society built on this basis was indeed fertile ground for a “splendid” dictatorship as in fact happened with Fascism.

However, although there was no shortage of female help, it is obvious that not all of them ended up in the kitchen. No, only the best, or even eldest, if still in age of reason, was the supreme ruler in the kitchen- all the others, a dozen or more had other jobs. 

Taking into consideration, as far as it was possible, talents and attitudes, there was the one who did the laundry, the one who cared for cows, oxen, and not just hens and rabbits; The one who dug up the garden, the one who did the housekeeping, the sewing, the cleaning... and if there were others without a job, a bit like ministers without a porto-folio, they were assigned to go with men to make coal on the mountain, or in the fields, milk the cows and other work intended for males.  Isn’t that where our monasteries and convents based the "Rule" of their Order! Or was it vice- versa?

But why did I say that our parishes were like the families at that time? Because there was the Patriarch who was in charge, that is, translated in our days, the Parish priest and then all the helpers whom we now call "Parish Groups." It is obvious that the duties are not like those at that time- they do not go to make coal or process the silk worms. Now there are those who sing, those who serve Mass, those who care for the liturgy, those who take out Communion, those who write newspapers and document events with films and photos, those who print, those who care for young people, those who teach, clean the church, keep archives, accounting, records... etc. etc. etc…

And here they are all grouped together in a big family to dine together, have fun, bicker, talk about this and that, just as families did at the beginning of the twentieth century. Yes, if you like, “the family” as it was then, still exists.