Family in Snellman’s philosophy
This publication is based on three former studies concerning the
Finnish national philosopher J. V. Snellman's philosophy of family.
The position of family in Snellman’s thought has been clarified
with versatility by paying attention to the philosophical background
and personal attributes.
J. V. Snellman’s conception of the family must be understood
in relation to his entire philosophical system. The main idea there
is the idea of morality (Sittlichkeit) as understood by Hegel. Close
study of the substance of morality penetrates Snellman's entire
scope of political, moral, and pedagogical thinking.
The nature of the family according to Snellman is morality
manifested in family love. Marriage is not an arbitrary agreement
between two people, but rather the basis of morality in family life.
The roles of spouses as parents in child rearing, changes their
natural relationship into a moral relationship. The task of rearing
children together brings into the couple’s relationship an objective
rational purpose, which is necessary for the manifestation of moral
life.
According to Snellman, raising children at home creates a
foundation for the realisation of moral life in the individual as well
as in the nation. Like Aristotle and Rousseau, he feels that raising
children at home by parents cannot be replaced by training
received outside the home. It is an inseparable part of the moral
world system and a necessary part of a continuing progressive
process by which individuals and nations attain and realise moral
living.
Morality in the life of an individual also includes self-raising in
which the individual creates a personal relationship with the
traditions of his culture, and at the same time realizes rationality
and freedom. Raising a child at home gives a foundation for
individualistic progressive development of the self-consciousness
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by affixing the individual to his cultural traditions; in the end the
task of public education is also to contribute to the same process
of self-raising.
Snellman emphasizes the autonomy of family life in
relationship to the laws of society and the state. The family, civil
society, and the state definitely belong firmly together and are
dependent upon each other, and as upholders of morality they are
inherently valuable modes of life. The family has certain
responsibilities toward the state, but at the same time the state
has a responsibility to protect the family. In its own circles, a
family which embraces morality is a family that becomes the
starting point for the realisation of moral living in civil society and
the state; that is the basis for free and rational action in civil
society and the state.
Generally speaking, Snellman's conception of the family is
patriarchal and familial. Understanding this helps one to
understand certain conservative emphasis in Snellman’s
educational political thinking and endeavours. Snellman’s views
regarding the philosophy of the family are founded primarily on
Hegel's philosophy of right even though the French political
philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment – as a part of the total
development of his philosophical ideas – affected the moulding of
his views about the family, and of course the habits of his own
people.

Family in Snellman’s private life and public action

In the study, the expression of J. V. Snellman's philosophical
conception of family both in his private life as husband and father,
and public life as journalist and senator was examined. The study
is a continuation of the author's earlier study, in which the nature
of Snellman's philosophical conception of family from the point of
view in question was analysed.
The source material of information in this study consists of
Snellman’s letters to his wife and children, biographies of
Snellman, his newspaper articles, and records of the Finance
Department of the Senate and plenum at the time of 1863–1868.
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The interest of the study has been philosophical rather than
historical.
Snellman got married in 1845 at age 39 to 17-year-old
Johanna Lovisa Wennberg. According to the source material, his
marriage can be seen as an effort at putting into practice his
principles concerning the family, marriage and child rearing, which
he had outlined earlier in his philosophical and political writings.
Snellman applied in his family life ideas that were mainly
adopted from the Hegelian tradition. The most essential ideas for
his family life were his conceptions of woman and child rearing.
Also, Snellman’s conception of the great importance of family for
the development of society and history of mankind directed his
strivings and action as father and husband. Snellman expressly
interpreted his own life through Hegel’s philosophy.
Snellman’s conception of the tasks of man and woman in the
family and society was traditional: the role of woman expressive,
the role of man instrumental. According to Snellman, from the
point of view of morality, it is necessary that women primarily take
part in child-rearing at home. Activity in the civil society and in the
state is the duty of men.
According to Snellman the purpose of domestic education is to
convey the national traditions to children. This includes above all
moral and religious upbringing of children and the ABC of
intellectual teaching. Snellman believed that home education lays
the foundation for successful studying and learning at school. In his
opinion child-rearing at home cannot be replaced or compensated
by the public teaching organized at schools or in kindergartens.
The study confirmed and supplemented the image of
Snellman’s conception of the family, which was based on his
academic writings and lectures. Defending the family and
emphasising its importance in the society can be seen a main
theme in Snellman’s programme. It can be found in many of his
newspaper articles regarding social life. For example, his opinions
on educational policy cannot be understood without knowing his
conception of the family.
As a father, Snellman was quite strict and exact. He
emphasized discipline and was pretty disciplined himself. Social
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activities required Snellman to be often away from home and to
put in long hours at work. Probably he was ”a great soul” as a
father and husband as well, although detailed instructions to his
wife about homemaking and child rearing and emphasis on
teaching of good manners instead of more spiritual striving in
raising children, portrays human smallness.
Snellman’s conception of the family is always up-to-date,
because his viewpoint is common. He has analysed and
described family-life and the societal status of the family
conceptually as a part of his own system of practical philosophy.
Some of Snellman’s key ideas are obviously old-fashioned, but his
basic line is still viable.
The family is as Snellman emphasises the basic unit of social
life. Therefore, the philosophy of family is always current.
Snellman’s interpretations may give a perspective also to
empirical family research and the examination of the increasing
problems of contemporary families.

Connection to the old-European tradition of social and political
thinking

J. V. Snellman’s concept of family was also analysed from the
point of view of the Aristotelian tradition of the philosophy of
family, and as an extension of this tradition and expression of the
old-European social philosophy. The old-European social
philosophy discussed the social and political meaning of the
family. The moral, political and pedagogical analysis and
formulations of question meet there.
The early tradition of the philosophy of family has its roots in
Plato’s State and in Aristotle’s Politics, where Aristotle criticises
Plato’s conception of family. The questions of family life and its
significance both in individual and social life have been part of the
Aristotelian tradition of social and political philosophy from the
very beginning. Snellman also stuck to this tradition alongside
Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquin, Rousseau and Hegel. Even some of
the most brilliant interpretations of the Aristotelian tradition of
philosophy of family can be found in the philosophy of Snellman.
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In the Aristotelian tradition, the family has been primarily
interpreted as a natural institution – not as an institution based on
an external contract between people. However, at the same time,
the family has been seen as a basic form of social life which bears
irreplaceable significance to the state and civic society. This
significance is based on the educational task of the family. On this
basis, marriage is more than a binding of two individuals, although
it is in the form of a contract.
The tension between "nature" and "freedom" is the main line
of the Aristotelian tradition of social and political philosophy, also
of the philosophy of family. The basic themes of philosophy of
family – marriage, parenthood, bringing up children and the
relations of family with state and the institutions of civic society –
have been considered from the point of view of this tension. At the
same time, the stress on historical understanding has been
emphasized.
The starting point of the Artistotelian philosophy of family is
the thought that human beings by nature form families and live in
families. On the basis of this, family autonomy is a crucial item of
the Aristotelian concept of family. Autonomy has been seen as a
natural right of family; i.e. the independence of marriage, the
autonomy of parents to bring up their children and the right of
family to property and a household of its own. Generally, the task
of the state is to guarantee this right – which primarily is not a
positive right but a moral form of life in accordance with human
nature.
Why do Aristotle and the representatives of the tradition
bearing his name tend to see the family primarily as a natural form
of social life and only secondarily as an institution based on a
contract? Is it reasonable to suppose that in a so-called natural
state, a human being would rather set up a family than live in
promiscuity? According to the Aristotelian philosophers, human
beings are naturally social, i.e. being social is a part of human
nature. Together with the state and the communities of civil
society, the family is an expression of this. The representatives of
the Aristotelian tradition think that social life without the family is
not in accordance with human nature and is somehow impossible
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or at least harmful from the point of view of society and the state.
As an institution which maintains morality in society, the family is
irreplaceable.
Although the Aristotelian philosophers’ attention has been
drawn to the social, political and moral significance of the family,
their argument about the naturalness of the family is not primarily
about its consequences, but rather about its place in human
nature. To them, the family seems to mean something which is in
accordance with human nature and at the same time rational and
moral. The crucial meaning of the family lies in its task of bringing
up children, through which it becomes the basis of the moral of
society in the totality of human life. The point is not only in the
socialization of descendants and teaching of values and norms of
society, but in the opportunity to bring up virtuous, rational and
free personalities.
The Aristotelian philosophy of family is connected with the
epistemological and methodological basis of the tradition. It
concentrates on the concepts driven from the historically
expressed essence of phenomena, i.e. on the dialectical logic of
the tension of nature and freedom in the history of nations,
cultures, states and societies. The forms and functions of family,
marriage and parenthood can be interpreted and understood in
their historical context. This discussion comes to a climax in
Snellman’s philosophy of family, in which it has been debated that
the ”natural” in the subjective emotion-based affection between
two human beings reaches an objective meaning in the marriage
legitimated by the state and in the common task of bringing up
children protected by the law.
The concept of love plays a central role in the Aristotelian
tradition of the philosophy of family. Love has been seen as a
basic dimension of family life – in the relationship between
spouses, between parents and children and between siblings.
Family love is the basis of the morals of society and of the justice
legislation of the state. The moral quality and development of
individuals and institutions finally depend on human relations of
the family. The origin of individual and institutional virtues is in
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family love. The roots of "social" are in family life, which pertains
to individual living with others in a loving environment.
In the Aristotelian tradition of social and political philosophy,
from Aristotle to Hegel, the family has been interpreted with positive
attributes. The philosophy of Marx and Engels meant an essential
change in this connection. In Marxism, and after the political death
of classical Marxism in some forms of feminism, the family,
marriage and parenthood were defined as institutions of oppression
and as causes of societal inequality. This reversal against the
family and the hostility to it can be partly seen as a return to Plato’s
concept of family. The family was not longer seen as an institution
which by nature belongs to the human form of life, but as an
element which threatens ideals, especially the ideal of the
ideological and political conformity of the state and citizens.
Not only is J. V. Snellman’s concept of family rooted in
Hegel’s philosophy of right, but when taken in its deeper meaning,
it can be regarded also as a bough of the tree of Aristotelian
family philosophy. It must be interpreted in the light of the
Aristotelian tradition of social and political philosophy. Although,
the main ideas of Snellman’s concept of family are inspired by the
philosophy of Hegel, especially by his concept of morality
(Sittlichkeit), they are also connected with the ethics of
Aristotelian-Tomistic virtues. According to Snellman, in the sphere
of family life, the tradition bears virtues as habits which are
transmitted by parents to children during the process of home
education.
Snellman does not explicitly cover virtues in great detail but
connects the development of moral qualities of individuals and
institutions with family relations, especially with the bringing up of
children. To Snellman, family love is a form and source of morality
in which the seeds of love are germinated so truth and right can
blossom and in which the shoots of love towards own country and
culture also blossoms. For him, it is the basis of the development
of the human spirit in all its forms.

Snellman’s concept of family and modern times

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Snellman’s concept of family, family life and the significance of
family in social activities had come to become a social reality in
Snellman’s era. In the light of today’s criteria, many of his points
seem outdated. For example, separating the male and female
roles so distinctively seems, at least, peculiar in the light of today’s
standards, although it simply described the social reality of the
agrarian class society in the 1800s.
Undoubtedly, Snellman was conservative in his views of the
family. He opposed women’s emancipation and all efforts
questioning traditional family life, which had developed over the
centuries. However, his line of thinking was clear and consistent
since it took its course from the ideological roots of Hegelian
philosophy. Defending family was a principal question to him.
In Snellman’s time, life in class-based society was not even
as remotely eroticized as it is today, basically because of religious
thinking and the social need to foster child rearing. Even though
the religious arguments are no longer popular, the need to secure
child upbringing still is. For this reason alone, interpreting
Snellman’s views from today's liberal and individual perspective is
problematic. Based on today’s criteria, it is extremely difficult to
dispute over his thoughts – his favourable attitude towards
eroticism, and at the same time, his support for absolute sexual
morality or his opposition of the hedonistic sexual image.
Despite the fact that some of Snellman’s thoughts are
nowadays invalid, or at least outdated, his line of thought as a
whole is hardly obsolete. Statistics show that on average modern
families experience lack of well-being. Weakening families have
negative consequences on the society as a whole as well as on
individual lives. Social policy, in line with Snellman’s thinking,
may, in part, strengthen the weakened position of families.
There is no evidence pointing that family and marriage should
be regarded as obsolete institutions, although some, mostly
sociologists, have concluded so by studying divorce statistics.
These statistics have only shed some light on how things are, and
not on how things could be. Above all, Snellman examined
questions of family life and its significance through 'moral and
social philosophical glasses’. His intellectual roots evolved from
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the Hegelian concept of moral life and from the thought of the
moral world order.
Principally, Snellman did not consider family as much from
the individual mental-health- or need-for-closeness- point of view
as from the moral point of view. He argued that family is
inseparably a part of human activities in organized society and
that underrating it would sooner or later lead to moral corruption,
and wreckage of social life and the state. According to him, moral
foundation is created in the family – along with family, social life
and the state will perish.
From the sociological angle, the functions of family and its
changing social status is a part of the social-structural change that
took place in the 1900s, and, likewise, a part of a wider change in
social ways of life during that period. Its roots lie in the enormous
social changes that swept the world at the turn of the century,
which gradually developed into a modern, urbanised and
industrialised way of life. This kind of development introduced
women to the working world outside of home.
Family legislation has tried to follow social change by
liberalising divorce laws. Through social policy it has been tried to
alleviate the mental ill-being and social problems that follow from
the weakening of the family institution. Since the connection
between the present ways of life and the previous generations has
snapped, we can hardly discuss about tradition in modern,
urbanized and industrialized families, at least, not in the
Snellmanian context.
From Snellman’s basic line of thinking sprouts the modernday
demands for supporting families in difficulties. However,
Snellman defended quite strongly the autonomy of family in
relation to society and the state. He did not, at least, directly,
stress the possibility of support by society or the state to families
in their daily coping. Families in Snellman’s time did not have the
same coping difficulties as the modern-day family nor were they
familiar with active family welfare policy.
”Had Snellman lived today” -speculation is hardly relevant in
assessing Snellman’s line of thinking and its importance to modern
times. Generally speaking, social activities promoting family
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autonomy and, at the same time, coping are in line with his
thinking.
The social significance of family has radically changed since
Snellman’s days. The transition from the agrarian way of life to the
industrial social phase instigated the mushrooming of care
institutions and the transfer of family-care tasks partly to the
society. Keeping the family together by economic and moral
commitments does not anymore bear the same significance as it
did in the agrarian way of life. As a consequence of social change,
the emotional significance of the family – taking care of satisfying
the needs for closeness and belonging – has long displaced other
significances.