NATHANaeL
s. I~E~II~Ahl, ~.I).
4~65
TYPEs oF FAMILIES
The Anarchic Family It has been pointed out in this discussion that there is a hierarchy of roles within the contemporary family. Sometimes the existence of differences in roles becomes obscured by what is meant to be a democratic recognition of the equ,al value of people. When the existenee of different role-status is thus ignored, anarchy results. The confusion which oe,eurs when the relatively close status levels of husband and wife are considered equal has been di~scussed. This eonf~sion is greatly eompounded when the much more unequal ,stat~s levet.s o,f parents and children ,are also ine.orreetly considered equal. The alm.rehie s is :a confused family. Severe blurring of the realit,ies of .social roles .o.ften arises from parentM fears of "injuring" the ehi.ldren "p,sychologieally." If ,children yell lo.udly enough, their ,so-called "expressed needs" are often yielded to, t~as putting a premium on loud yelling. Subjective desires r,ather than o~bjeetive needs be~.ome the prime d~termin,an.ts og w.hat occurs in the family, and the differenees between the t~vo become tho.ro~ughly muddied. For fear of frustrating her enid, the modern p,syehologically-oriented mo,ther often abdicate,s her parental role, and ~allows the mantle of family leadership to. mslip on.to the .shoulders o.f her "freely-expressive" e~hild--and almo,st to smother it. The anarchic family i~s, however, too,st ur~st,able. The parents are unclear about the different social roles e:~s.ting in the gamily. This uncla.rity is aggravated by parental fear, particularly about. possible errors which will mysteriously traumatize the child forever. This fe,ar seems at t~me:s to. be aggravated by the fuzzines~s of the mental health movement., which perhaps oe.ca.sionally creates more aaxieties than it. allays. The children, inerea~singly uncertain themselves under these cireums,tar~ee,s, will often demand more and more, with an increasing gap b,e,tween what they demand and what is po,ssible. Sooner o.r later, p,arental limits are exceeded. Explosive ineonsi.s.tency is then o,ften resorted to by the parents to get. the children "off their backs." Sometimes the adults feel guilty after such outbreak.s and then return to their old, overpermi.ssive anarchic way,s. At other time,s, fear-in.spiring ~o.ut~bursts become the majo.r meehanis~s for resumption and maintenarme .of parentM eont.rol, and the anarchic
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ANARCI-tY~ DICTATORSHIP AND DE2cIOCRACY IN T H E FAMILY
family is thus overfly transformed into a dictatorial one. The transformation of the anarchic f,amfly into the dietatorial one, of~en the result o.f slavish adherence to vague p,sychoanalytie do g~a, has been de,scribed by the psychoarmlyst Hilde Bruch. "The more permissive the p reaeh~ing," ~she writes ~ "the more au~thoritarian the teaching." Hence .the anarchic f.amily structure is ur~stable because the hierarchy of roles objectively existing within it is not unders,tood. "Love is not enough," as the psycho.armlyst Bruno. Bettelheim pointed out. Roles and limits must also be defined.
The Dictatorial Family In the die:ta.torial Zamily, the father is master, the mother is slave, and the children keep out o.f sight. The 1.adde,r-like skeleton of this family ~stands ,out ,stark and clear, bn:t warmth and flesh are blocked o~ut by the operation of fear ~and dread. The dictatorial faznily is, .in a ,serts,e, a feudal family. Its subordinate members--the wife and the children--are trained almo,st as if they were robots. It seems almost as if "their,s no~ to. reason why, their~s ~llt to do or die." The ma.j,or child-raising .defect of the dictato.rial family is its inhibition .of its stlb.ordinate members' thinking, beta.use of its fear-inspired restriction of feedback from below. If the right to dissent peacefully is denied the children, the .abiRties to think do. no.t develop properly. Submis,sion to. dogma from above thus tends to reptace search for tSe truth on whatever level it may exist. But o,ne of the sldlls required in an in dus~trial ,society is the ability to think independently and creatively. This skill tends not to be developed in the fear-ridden atmosphere of the dictatorial family be eaHse: creative thinking must be new and, therefore, different from what has been thought and said before. The degrading effect of the dictatorial family ~on the wife elicits the fear in many Americans that ~or~eelo~s o~f ma,s.e!aline le.ade,rship --~sueh a.s are presented in this pap,er--~ight lead inevitably to feminine humiliation. The role of the woman under the Nazis-"Ki~che, Kirche ~n.d Kinder"--is, however, oppo.site to that advocated in this paper: a feminine ~status steadily rising to.ward that of the man. The Nazi and p,sychoanalytie concept o.f the deep and perpetuM biological inferiority of women is .seen in the dictatorial
~ATttANIEL S. LEttRMAN, M.D.
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family. Woman's role in these circumstances w,as vividly described by Tennyson in Locksley Hall: He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. The dictat~oriM f:amily operates witho.ut the knowledge that accurate defir~tio,n and enforcement of social roles need not in any significant: way interfere: with r es~pect for s~bordinates ~o~with the expression of peaceful dissent. In reaction against the degradation existing in the dictatorial family, the anarchic f~mily tends to ignore the real boundaries and limits of social roles in ,order to, foster what it considers individual "self-expression." While the anarchic family seeks, and fail,s, to foster, creativity, through 1,ack of adequate consideration of the social realities, the dic~u~orial f~amily fosters confo,rmity to these social realities but tends to squelch creativity. Only in the democratic family can creativity truly be fo~s,tered, because freedom of pe,aceful di~ssent i.s permitted within an organization wherein, after discussion, decisions are made and executed by its duly constituted leader,s wLth the support of the whole. The Democratic or Co~.stitutio,n,al Family In the democratic or c,onstitutio.nal family, each person is aware o.f his bio,socially determined role, in the family s,truature. As in cons,titution,M democracies themselves, the rMes o.f each person are clearly and unambiguously s,pecified. The fact that these roles change, with time .dees n.ot disprove their exi,stence. In the demo~c~a~ic-co,ns,ti~tional family, it is recognized that the parents form the axis about which the family revolves, ~hat the major ,determinant of the movement about this axis is the father, and that the mo,vement itself takes place within a fra~mework of rules and law. The mMn advantage of the denmcratic ~am~ly i.s the :same a's the advantage of the .democratic .society: the fullest o p p o r ~ n i t y for feedback from below within a .~tear-cut :system of 1.aw.s and rules. The right to dis;sent peacefully, an integr:M part of the law of political democracy, is an equally integral part .of the law of family democracy. The children's opinions are not only permitted, but are actaMly sought, when appropriate. The children's opinions
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ANAI%CI-IY~DICTATORSHIP AND DEMOC]~ACY IN THE FAiYIILu
are then taken into account as important, but not decisive, fa.etors in family decisions. In the democratic family, however, the right to di,ssent, is not eo~nfused with the responsibility for deci.sior~s. A n y member of the democratic f.aaa~ily ea.n dis:sent, brat the deeisiona are primarily made bY the father, who. can be seen as family "president," and the mo.ther, the fa.mily "manager" or in s:o~me respects "~s,peaker of the legislature." Responsibilities begin by re.sting on parental shoulder, s, and are p.as:sed on to t~ose .of the children .o.nly as the latter demonstrate their ability to assume them. Determination of when responsibiliUe,s are passed on is of course made after tonsultation with them, taking into account social factors su,eh as the surrounding community. But the decisions are made by the marital axis of the family: the father and the mot,her. The encouragement of participation by the children in family deci.sio,n-making he lp,s develop, in them the a~bili,ty to think for the,mselves, a.s well a,s to present their thoughts in :a .socially aecep.table way. Tb.e prime mo.tivatir~g forces in the demoer.atic f,~mily thaws become eo-o~e:rative eft.oft, enc,ouragement and }o.ve. But these are es,tablished within a framework of wide .bu~tprecise limits - - r u l e s ~ w h i e h can be enforced by fear of forte should it be necessary. If the rule o.f law is establis'hed early in a family unit, recourse to force to maintain limits will tend only rarely to. be necessary. In reacti,on against the dictatorial family, particuI.arly of Freud'~s Vienna, we often lose sight o~ the extremely important differenees between the democra.tic and anarchic types of family. The fact. tha~t a family h~s a st.ru:eture and a head does not mean that this head mu~st be a dictator. As indicated, it is aseful to con~sider the husband as the "president" of the democratic family, and the wife ~s its "manager," or as "speaker o,f the legislature," a "legi,s].at.are" whic:h eon.sis,ts of all the children and others in 4he family, to the extent that. they are ~old enough to .participate meaningfully and usefully in the proces,s of discus,s~on. MENTAL HEALTI=I AND I~A1V[ILu ROLES
A neees~sa~ry c:ondit$on for a person's mental health is his correct definition o.f his hio.s,ocial role, and h~s fulfillmen.t of that role. Let as now examine so.me clinical material fr,om t~ae .a.u.thor's p~syehoanalytie and psyehotherapeutie p.raciaice to demon.s.tr'ate the
N A T H A N I E L S. LEI-IRMAN~ M.D.
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importance of correct understanding o.f the,se roles, and of the hierarchy within the family structure which they comprise. Sally F. was a woman in her early fo,rties who came for treatment because of depression and considerable anxiety. This had been going on for some mon.ths, but the on,set of sexual diff~ulties between her and her husband made her ,seek psychiat.ric ~ssi~s,tanee. She felt that if she did not get some help, she would either leave her husband or "go mad." Mrs. F. was an attractive, bright woman, but appeared rather distraught. She told of having been divorced twice, and .of having married a widowe~ with two children some four years prio.r to coming for treatment. She wondered what it was in her childho.od whtch had been responsible for her having been divorced twice, and was causing her third marriage also to go on the rocks. Financial difficulties were an additio.nal strain on the family unit, plus the fact that her husband was in a ra• risky oecupa~tion. As her present-day difficulties were discussed in det~il, it became clear that ignorance of the structure .o.f the family, .and fear o.f making a mistake in the present, were far more important causes of her difficulties than were fears derived from her childhood. Her present household consisted of her husband, herself, hi.s 15-year-o~d daughter and 12-ye,ar-.old son fro.m his fir:st marriage, and her seven-year-old daughter from her second marriage. Her hu,sban,d's first wife had died after a long illness, during which time the adolescent daughter had come to see her,self as the lady of the hobse. When the st epmo.ther entered the scene, however, everybody became uncertain. The daughter resented the .stepmother and frequently tried underhandedly to sabotage her efforts. Inasmuch as the two older children were felt to have suffered so much from the lo,ss o.f their real mother, the p,atient--the stepmother--was reluctant to be decisive, lest the children be "traumatized." Mr. F. did nod; know what to do, so he alternated between doing nothing and being the "imp~artial" referee between lds wife and daughter. When he agreed with his wife, his daughter loudly be,moaned her rejected state; when he sided with his daug~hter, his wife felt that the boetom had fallen out. The main burden of treatment consisted o.f making it clear, both to Sally F. and her husband, that it is the pare.n,ts who determine wlm,t happens within the family, and that mother and danghter
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ANARCHY~ DICTATORSHIP AND DE?Ci0CRACY I N T H E :FAMILY
roles are not equal, as they had seemed to believe. The impo.rtahoe of the marital bond, and of parental agr.eemen.t vi.s-~-vis tile children, was stressed str~ongly. Considerable emphasis was placed on the social fact t h a i Mr',s. P. ~ a s now indeed the m o t h e r in th}s family, and that her c a r r y i n g oust thins role included the necessity for her to place limits on the children. I t was also pointed o~ut that, sho.uld it be necess,ary, these limit,s called for obedience, even if obtained by force, and that both parents had to. under:stand these realities of social role in the clearest po.s,sible way. Fin.aneial difficulties in the F. family prevented ever get.ring at the c h i l d h o o d traum:a which had been su.spected, but things have neverthele,s.s gone immensely better since treatment than they had ever gone before,. The da.ughter is away a,t college, arid the relations~hip between her and her stepmother is such that the latter went to work full time to help defray the college costs of her er~stwhile deadly enemy. Three years after treatmen,t stopped, the intrafamiliM relationships are continuing to get better. TNs considerable improvement in the mental health o.f a woman and her family wras accomplished primarily by clea.r definition of the different roles within her family of today. J o h n B. was ano,ther p.atient for whom more accurate definition of social roles was a moist i m p o r N n t curative factor. T ~ s more accurate definition in.eluded correction o.f his fallaciou.s idea that the woman'.s rol:e in the family is as determinative,ly important as the man's. B. ~a.s a sacces.sful busines,s man whose initial compNint was sleeple.ssne,s~s, restlessne,s.s and irritability. The main problems o.f which he complained seemed to. be. in relationship to his business partner, toward whom he acted in a r a t h e r p.as,sive way, and against whom he consequently harbored considerable resentment.. At the v e r y start o~f treatment, his wife was asked t,o come in with him. ( F o r several year's, the w r i t e r has made it a m a t t e r of routine to have the sp.ou.se of every p.atient come into. the office at the beginning o,f treatment.) She was a beautiful woman, but it became d e a r Mmo.st immediately that it was she, ra.~her t.han " J o h n n y , " who "wo.re the pants." One consequence, which was discovered lat.er, was a te.ndeney on his pLa.rt to. d r e a m r a t h e r o.ften of sexual eseap.e with expensive prostitutes. He hankered intensely for such e x p e r i e n e e s - - " j u s t for me," he would say--despite
NATHANIEL S. L E H R M A N t M.D.
471
the fact that sexual rel~tionship~s at home were highly satisfactory to both him and his wife. Two of the suece,s,sfully achieved goals of treatment were John's assumption .of the presidential role ill the f,amily, and an increased recognition of .his worth in his business. This worth was also raised olbjectively by his coming to understand and overcome some of the fears, fro,m present and from past, which had been interfering somewhat with his functioning at work. Both in the family and at work he assumed his proper role to a much greater extent and learned, so to speak, how to tM~e over wearing the family "pants." Both work and family progressed much more smoothly. In order to reach this treatment goal, accurate definition, in .terrors of contemp,orary rolednaccuraeies, was required. Peggy D. was an Iri, sh-Cathotie woman whose trea,tment did n'o.t .s.ueeeed in ,any ,basic way be.cause o,f irLco~ptete und:erstanding by the ther'ap.i,st of the importance ,o,fsocial roles in the family at the time treatment took place..She had been very depressed following a miscarriage and .came for assistance because .of this depression and its accompanying agitation. She became fairly che:erf~l after about a mon..th of treatmen't, .and was. indeed .symptomatic.ally cured when she left bu~. the Nerapist',s lurking belief remained that little tha,t was ba.s,ic had been ~aeeomp]ished. Like mo,s.t American women, ~she wanted rec.ognition from bet h~stmrtd af tile value ,o.f her rote., and of her o~vn value .as a person. This recognition included that of her right to make her own decisions; she war~te,d to be: .able to control, f.or e~am.ple, if and when .she would become pregn.an,t again. To this, her more rel~gio~ls husband would no.t agree. He had a. job with too,st irregular hours. Somehow he could only rarely find time to telephone her when he had to remain out all night. Hence she worried when he neither came: nor c.ailed. He waks .seen with her a few times, bat there ~a~s not sufficient realization on the thera.pist's part a.t the time that the main problem in th~s p,artieular family was no.t Mrs. D.'s depression but: Mr. D.'s no.t-so-gentle, dogmatic tyranny. His passive re,sis.tahoe against her continuing ,treatment led to its being ir~terru~p,ted a.fter a few months, with co,replete symptomatic "m~provement but, little basic change. This ease illustrates the. importance of recognizing tlhat family tone ~s b:as~cally .set by the father, and that, if ~n antidemocra.tie
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ANARCI=IY~ DICTATORSHIP AND DEMOCRACY I N T H E FA1V[ILY
tone exists in any p,ar.ticular family, considerable effort focused on the father is often required to overcome it, and thus to facilitate mental health. Gloria B. was a "sour pus,s." She came to t r e a t m e n t bitter about the fact that .her husband was not making enough .money, that her best friend had just moved to another p a r t o,f the country, and that she had no: other frien&s on the block to which she had just moved. She complained that :her husband was not eneugh of a man, and that her children were really impossible. SIhe felt t h a t :at 35, life had eheafted her and that it was all her husband's fault. Gloria had been the baby of a family of three children, and all four other members of the family had danced attendance on h e r to a rat~her large degree. N,o.w that she had ~ a r r i e d , a n d had three children tying her to the home, she felt v e r y m a r t y r e d and fall .of self-pity. She maintained that she missed the intellectual life .she had enjoyed at ,college, particularly s~nce her h~sban,d was "not ;sufficiently ir~telligent" to suit her tastes. A maj'or fo.eus of t r e a t m e n t was to point out the ho.norable, albeit secondary, role .of the woman in the family: that is, to manage the family, which included solacing, r a t h e r than belittling, her husband. This to.ok some time, in.a,s,much as she had been brought t~p with the idea that the woman's role in the: family must be equal to t~h.at o,f the man, and that any status or po,wer inequality between the two roles was equivalent to humiliation of the w.o~an. Acceptance of her rote as family " m a n a g e r " under her husband's "presidency" was ,however finally achieved. T o w a r d the end of treatment, she decided t h a t she wanted to teach school .after her children no longer required so. much of her time, ,so she enrolled in a lo.cal e:olle.ge to. obtain the necessary credits. Of co.urse, this represented a.dditio.rLal s.tr.ain on her, but. she carried it off well, inasmuch a.s she saw clearly that her direct duties to her husband and children remained her ,prime responsibility, since her future earnings would be .su,pp!.ementary, r a t h e r than fundamental, to the family',s exchequer. This woman's improvement was aided by the f:aet tha.t even in our society, without m a n y special social provisions for care of the children of working mothers, it is often po,ssible for a woman to. ret u r n fairly comfortably to study or work, once h e r youngest child is
lqATHANIEL S. LEHR~IAN, M.D.
~73
in scho.ol. Middle-class women are no longer always faced with a black-and-white choice between marriage and career'. The choice in America today is often between a career without marriage, on the one hand, and marriage with a possible, albeit postp,oned, career on the other. All four of these ca:ses saggest the importance of correct understanding of the different roles in the family for the existence of mental health. CONCLUSION
Hence, one can conclude that the primary roles in the hmnan family appear to be arranged along a single hierarchical ladder, along which the mo,st significant interaction~s within it seem to occur. The fact of the hierarchical ladder, with information conveyed from above downward, seems to be determined ,by biology: the human infant's tong period of helplessness, and the human female's lesser ability ~o fend for herself, primarily b eca~se of her maternal role, and secondarily because of her lesser strength. The nature of the interaction within the hierarchy appears, however, to be determined by social factors, which can at times even reverse tha~ which biology has determined. Thas, a man can, as John B. did, relinquish his presidency of the family to a stronger wife. The particular character of the feedback from below upward within the hierarchy is determined by the nature of society within which the family exi,sts. The democratic-constitational family, permitting and even encouraging the peaceful expression of o,pinion, even if it is dissenting, appears to be the most effic,ient method for raising creative, disciplined children--and ~such individuals are the cornerstone of democracy the world over. 15 Canterbury l~oad Great Neck, L. I. New York 1.
2. 3. 4.
RE F E E E N C E S ttallowell, A.. I., and Reynolds, E. L. : BiologicM fucters in fandly structure. I n : l~arrL~ge and the Family. P. 25. H. Becket and R. Hill, ec~itors. Heath. Boston. 1942. Fortes, M. : PTimitive Kinship. Sci. Am., 200: 6, 149, J u n e 1959. H~llowell, A, L., and l~eynolds, E. L. : Op. cir, p. 27. taortes, M. : Op. elf., p. 150.
474 5. 6.
AI~ARCHY~ DICTATORSHIP AND DE1Vi0CRACY II~ T H E FAlY[ILY
Be~mal, J. D." Science in History. P. 46. Cameron Associates. New York. 1954. McArthur, C.: Personalities of First and Second Children. Psychiatry, 1 9 : 4 7 - 5 4 (54), 1956. 7. Bruch, H.: Psychiatric aspects of changes in infant and child care. Pediatrics, ]0: 575-579. (Reviewed in Am. J. Public I~ealth, 43: 240, 1952.)