Unrestrained individual autonomy is the scourge of the family and the nation!
“Men and women do NOT marry, bring children into the world, and endure the many years of hardship and sacrifice involved in remaining married and bringing their children to maturity merely because of an assessment that doing so will contribute to their personal health and prosperity. (And for those who do so, it is no wonder their marriages and families disintegrate.) The purpose of the family is rather something else entirely. Marriage and family are instituted in order to pass on to another generation an inheritance that has been bequeathed to us by our parents and ancestors. This inheritance includes life itself and perhaps some property, but it also includes a way of life, a religion and a language, skills, and habits, and certain ideals and ways of understanding what is to be valued that are unique to each family, and that others (may) not possess. A man and a woman join together to combine what each has inherited from their parents and grandparents, knitting together an inheritance for their children that combines the best of what each has received – and therefore, if possible, to improve upon it…
“These are not aims that can be attained in a few years, or in twenty. We tend to focus on the way in which parents influence the development of their children in their earlier years, and for good reason. Less noticed is that a significant part of what parents impart to their children cannot even be understood by (the children) until they are twenty-five or thirty-five years of age…”
Yoram Hazony in The Virtue of Nationalism (2018) pages 84,85