The main institutional pillars of Maltese society are politics, education, the economy, religion and lastly the family, considered as the most basic and fundamental. The traditional family is that basic structure consisting of a man, woman, and one or more of their biological or adopted children. In most traditional families, the man and woman are husband and wife.
Two main forces that threaten to destabilise the family are postmodernism and radical feminism. To appreciate these movements, one has to have some knowledge of what the famous American sociologist, Charles Wright Mills dubbed as the Sociological Imagination.
Wright Mills in The Sociological Imagination states that we need to, "think of ourselves away" from the familiar routines of our daily lives in order to look at them from a new point of view.
The Sociological Imagination thus helps to become aware of the dynamics of everyday life which can be threatening, which are usually taken for granted, and which are influencing the family and society as a whole. If one were to take divorce, for instance, this, in itself is a personal traumatic experience but it is also a significant public issue that puts pressure on the country's financial resources. In addition, the country cannot afford to have a high divorce rate as this can destabilise other social institutions. In Malta, divorce was introduced in 2011 and Civil Unions and thereafter Civil Marriage in 2017.
Postmodernism and radical feminism are two perspectives that have given rise to a situation where the family is viewed as not having a single dominant family type but where a variety of relationships based on diversity are possible and even encouraged.
We are seeing the propagation of gender ideology with the idea that a person's gender identity can be freely chosen: there are not two sexes, but an unlimited number of them, which everyone can conveniently accommodate and define to suit his or her own purposes. Postmodernism may be the vehicle to encourage, "normalise", and promote homosexual and transgender lifestyles even through the educational system.
Postmodernism emphasises fluidity based on a pick and choose, mix and match of various life-styles which can change over time. Ken Browne in his book 'Sociology' states that "postmodernists see these changes as simply reflecting individuals making their consumer choices just like buying goods in a supermarket and going to another one if the quality and price is not right".
Can the values of trust, loyalty, love and respect be traded in such a manner? Postmodernist thought implies a cheap and convenient way to view family life, this is becoming an inescapable, and unfortunate reality, that society lives day in day out as we see single parents with children, sometimes from three different relationships.
The welfare state is also seen as indirectly encouraging such arrangements by providing welfare benefits rather than preventive approaches to strengthen the family and encourage self-help measures. This puts pressure on state coffers as many agencies are set up to cater for the myriad needs that these relationships bring.
Indeed, postmodernism has given rise to alternative family units in Malta such as cohabitation, multiple partners and more diversity in sexual relationships, with greater tolerance of homosexuality, IVF, surrogacy, and even an abortionist lobby group. These alternative approaches threaten to make the notion of the traditional family as a social institution redundant as it is replaced with a huge range of ever-changing personal relationships and household arrangements in which people choose to live.
In the last few decades, Malta has seen a steady increase in the birth of children and sexual relations before marriage and outside marriage. This pick and choose individualistic mentality may even be encouraging the culture of death continues as the ideas of abortion and euthanasia continue to threaten the fundamental right to life.
Radical feminism is a strong voice in civil society and its reverberations in are being felt in that there are also those who view the Maltese family as merely a patriarchal institution in which men dominate and exploit women and where wives are seen as getting less out of marriage than husbands get. One might even say that some radical feminists even profess a rebellion against men by going to the extreme of encouraging and justifying lesbian marriages.
Radical feminism in its extreme form may be viewed as a rebellion of women against men and women have good reason to feel and believe they are exploited as unpaid household work is still prevalent. No political party would ever dare introduce compensation for female household work as both main parties encourage higher female participation in the labour force. In effect, women are seen as a reserve army of cheap labour where they can be employed at will by employers on short-term contracts such as flexi-time and lower pay in part-time employment.
Radical feminists would argue that although the proportion of female graduates is always increasing (compared to their male counterparts), this has not seen a corresponding rise in high-level job positions occupied by women in say the Law Courts, political posts and managerial positions as men continue to hold more important positions in society.
The Sociological Imagination helps us think outside the box and understand that postmodernism and radical feminism are forces and societal waves to contend with and cannot be halted. In like manner, the family as the most basic institution also needs to be protected. Society needs a stable family for societal harmony to reign. This requires the family to remain the primary source of socialisation of children (learning of values, norms and history of the society) and the stabilisation of adult personalities.
Anthony Zarb Dimech