The institutions of marriage and families appear to be in decline, particularly in the Western world. People no longer view marriage as a lifelong bond. Divorces are becoming more and more common in almost all societies and are causing households to break up. Single parent and stepchild phenomena are becoming more common.

Children are gradually learning to grow independently on their own from an early age in their lives. Even when marriages don’t break up, family ties weaken because parents are busy with their own careers and have little time for their children.

However, the decline of the institution of the family is giving rise to the increase in friendships between people. Now even a teenager can have dozens of friends and even thousands of “virtual” friends. Not only children, but also adults and even seniors are making more and more virtual friends over the Internet through social networking sites. Nowadays, most of the major websites like Facebook, MySpace, Orkut are the social networking websites that help people to make virtual friends.

Friends often provide emotional support to the individual and help them cope with life without strong family support. Most people who are financially independent think that friends can replace family, since both provide emotional support. In the words of Danica Whitfield

“The best part of life is when your family becomes your friends and your friends become your family.”

Most people seem to believe that friends can replace family.

Is it really so?

The importance of the family

We often ask why family is so special. After all, no other animal lives in a family. If animals can live without family, why can’t men?

The answer seems to be that if men had not conceived the institution of the family, they would have been nothing more than animals. It is the family that has made a man out of an animal.

It is a fact that a son of a man is the weakest of all animals. He can’t even walk for a year. It takes more than 15 years for a man to grow into his full physical strength. It is in these years, when the role of the family is more crucial. The family supports the man in these crucial years of his life and teaches him not only the knowledge of the books but also instills in him the traditions acquired over thousands of years. These are the most beautiful years of life. Joyce Brothers said,

“When you look at your life, the greatest happiness is family happiness.”

The family’s requirement is not only of the child but also of the parents for their spiritual and emotional growth. Only the family can provide a man with emotional satisfaction, since he alone can get all forms of love from the family.

The different forms of love

While animals are known to only have physical or sexual love, men are known to have many other forms of love that are not physical. Human love can be due to compassion, affection, respect, reverence, friendship, or faith. It really isn’t possible for friends to provide all forms of love.

The need for affection can only be satisfied by children. When you have parents and elders in your family, you respect them for what they have done for you without expecting anything in return. You learn selflessness from your parents and absorb it into your life. A child raised on the street can never develop respect for society since he has never selflessly obtained anything.

Family also teaches a man to have faith or trust in each other. Being faithful is primarily in the context of the family. As a husband or wife, you must be faithful to each other and not walk out of the marriage for any other man or woman. You can change various friends in your life, but you can never change your spouse. This forces the man to understand his partner more as a human being and learn to make compromises and even transform to suit each other.

Faith and trust are extremely important in a family. It is due to mutual faith that a father spends all of her income on her family and a mother spends all of her energy on raising children. Children also reciprocate and obey their parents in their lives. They provide emotional and financial support to their parents in their golden years.

In a family, members distribute their labor and share each other’s fruit. This gives specialization to all members. The child just has to study and play. The father just has to win. The mother also has to take care of the family. None of the family members have to take care of everything, as the family becomes a complete unit that, together, performs the complete task as an individual. Individual identities dissolve in a family in the interest of others.

family victories

A man with a good family has a better chance of winning the battle of life than a man who has grown up without a family. He is emotionally more stable since he has experienced all forms of love. He is financially more stable as his parents are there to support him until he can support himself. He is more intellectually stable since his family has taught him values ​​and traditions. He can make good and lasting friends because of his balanced approach to life.