Concept
Family as a model for the state
Overview
The family as a model for the organization of the state is a theory of political philosophy. It explains the structure of certain kinds of state in terms of the structure of the family (as a model or as a claim about the historical growth of the state), or it attempts to justify certain types of state by appeal to the structure of the family. The first known writer to use it (certainly in any clear and developed way) was Aristotle, who argued that the natural progression of human beings was from the family via small communities to the polis.
Many writers from ancient times to the present have seen parallels between the family and the forms of the state. In particular, monarchists have argued that the state mirrors the patriarchal family, with the people obeying the king as children obey their father.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
That society then which nature has established for daily support is the domestic, and those who compose it are called by Charondas _homosipuoi_, and by Epimenides the Cretan _homokapnoi_; but the society of many families, which was first instituted for their lasting, mutual advantage, is called a village, and a village is most naturally composed of the descendants of one family, whom some persons call homogalaktes…
Aristotle, Politics
States what Family as a model for the state is; the author is tied to Family as a model for the state in the knowledge graph.
The word Economy, or Œconomy, is derived from _οἰκός, a house_, and _νόμος, law_, and meant originally only the wise and legitimate government of the house for the common good of the whole family. The meaning of the term was then extended to the government of that great family, the State. To distinguish these two senses of the word, the latter is called _general_ or _political_ economy, and the former domestic or…
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The social contract & discourses
States what Family as a model for the state is.
However, it was not the design of Lycurgus that his city should govern a great many others; he thought rather that the happiness of a state, as of a private man, consisted chiefly in the exercise of virtue, and in the concord of the inhabitants; his aim, therefore, in all his arrangements, was to make and keep them free-minded, self-dependent, and temperate. And therefore all those who have written well on politics…
Plutarch, Plutarch
The author is tied to Family as a model for the state in the knowledge graph.
Related ideas
- Family
- Polis
- Left-wing politics
- North Korea
- Political philosophy
- Patriarchy
- Plutarch
- Republic
- Yi (philosophy)
- State (polity)
- Aristotle
- Bible
- Aristocracy
- George Lakoff
- Virtue
- Pope Leo XIII
- Classic of Filial Piety
- Confucianism
- International relations
- De (Chinese)
- Louis de Bonald
- Arius Didymus
Place in the tradition
Part of Confucianism.
Explore Family as a model for the state in the interactive graph →