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71: The members of a family all have duties and responsibilities towards one… |
The members of a family all have duties and responsibilities towards one
another and to the family as a whole, and these duties and responsibilities
vary from member to member because of their natural relationships. The parents
have the inescapable duty to educate their children—but not vice versa; the
children have the duty to obey their parents—the parents do not obey the
children; the mother—not the father—bears the children, nurses them in
babyhood, and is thus their first educator; hence daughters have a prior right
to education over sons and, as the Guardian’s secretary has written on his
behalf, “The task of bringing up a Bahá’í child, as emphasized time and again
in Bahá’í Writings, is the chief responsibility of the mother, whose unique
privilege is indeed to create in her home such conditions as would be most
conducive to both his material and spiritual welfare and advancement. The
training which a child first receives through his mother constitutes the
strongest foundation for his future development…” A corollary of this
responsibility of the mother is her right to be supported by her husband—a husband has no explicit right to be supported by his wife….
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In any group, however loving the consultation, there are nevertheless points on
which, from time to time, agreement cannot be reached. In a Spiritual Assembly
this dilemma is resolved by a majority vote. There can, however, be no
majority where only two parties are involved, as in the case of a husband and
wife. There are, therefore, times when a wife should defer to her husband, and
times when a husband should defer to his wife, but neither should ever unjustly
dominate the other. In short, the relationship between husband and wife should
be as held forth in the prayer revealed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá which is often read
at Bahá’í weddings: “Verily, they are married in obedience to Thy command.
Cause them to become the signs of harmony and unity until the end of time.”
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These are all relationships within the family, but there is a much wider
sphere of relationships between men and women than in the home, and this too
we should consider in the context of Bahá’í society, not in that of past or
present social norms. For example, although the mother is the first educator
of the child, and the most important formative influence in his development,
the father also has the responsibility of educating his children, and this
responsibility is so weighty that Bahá’u’lláh has stated that a father who
fails to exercise it forfeits his rights of fatherhood. Similarly, although
the primary responsibility for supporting the family financially is placed upon
the husband, this does not by any means imply that the place of woman is
confined to the home….
(28 December 1980 to the National Spiritual Assembly of New Zealand) [71] |