The aim of domestic ethics is to determine what duties are owed to one another by the members of a family. By “family,” we mean a group of people who share a common origin. Some moralists have denied that the family is a good and useful institution, viewing it rather as a kind of unnatural association, a small society formed within the larger mass – one in which people love one another intimately, with greater strength and intensity than can be found elsewhere. To such thinkers, it seems unnatural that people should feel any sentiment other than the love of humanity in general. But we believe that these philosophers – whom we call communists – fail to understand the very foundation on which society rests. A position similar to that of the communists was taken by Plato, who also tried to do away with the family, not for the benefit of humanity but for that of the city.

In light of the fact that such a position has been advanced, the question we'll have to consider first – before asking what duties family members owe to one another – is whether the family has any right to exist. We think it does, for two reasons. First, the family is the sole institution in which children can be properly raised, the only environment in which a child can receive his earliest education and instruction.