Louise de Marillac: Some, with Their Income, can Barely Mantain a small Family
Benito Martínez, C.M.
November 4, 2016
Louise de Marillac: Some, with Their Income, can Barely Mantain a small Family
“Monsieur, I am taking the liberty of writing to you to let you know how things are going in the matter concerning my son. I would like to say that the whole thing is a great affliction for me, but as a Christian I must embrace the scorn which normally accompanies poverty which is the only reason why our cause is not being advanced. To tell you the truth, Monsieur, I am beginning to share the feelings which human prudence is giving this fine girl. Knowing my son, and knowing the little I can give him, she feels that he could never hope for any acquisitions since, between them, they have only enough to maintain a small family. She is afraid to risk this danger since she is aware that expenses usually come to those least able to support them, and in the event of death, poor orphans would be left. And even though people connected with the matter have given them reason to hope when hope seems lost, it seems, Monsieur, that they only believe what they see.”
Louise de Marillac, letter to the Count de Maure, husband of Anne d’Attichy, Louise de Marillac’s cousin (l. 274)
Reflection:
- The style of this letter is that of a commoner to a nobleman. Marriage in that century was an economic and social business among families, parents arranged it through a third party. Young people were not involved, and love meant nothing. Sometimes young people saw one another for the first time at the altar.
- Michael had married secretly in 1645 with a young daughter of a vintner. Louise convinced Michael to achieve the declaration of nullity, as all clandestine marriage was considered null. So she manifests the pride of not accepting for his son’s wife, a woman without social category, in a century where social status was the main way out of poverty. It would have meant the confession before the Marillacs of Louise’s inability to achieve the rise of her only son, who was going down to the bottom of society. Accomplished declaration of nullity, his mother tried to get him married with a young woman, who refused him when she knew the few possessions he had. She tried again to marry him with another young girl and, for fear of being rejected again, she addresses to Conde Maure with this letter, asking to support him with his prestige and category.
- Today, there is no consensus on a definition of the family. The traditional family of father, mother and children is, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the natural, universal and fundamental group unit of society. The Catholic Church has in effect this concept of family, although in the West it has weakened, as specialized institutions are strengthened in the education of children, by the need to incorporate both parents to the labor field, leading sometimes to delegate this function to daycare and school.
- However, the traditional family does not prevails nowadays. The modern family, in addition to traditional families, includes homosexual families, composed of two mothers or two fathers and their children who are usually only natural children of a parent, or adopted.
- A task for Christians is to vitalize family as proposed by Pope Francis: “where parents become the first teachers of the faith to their children.” You can not leave the children to others to give them faith or unbelief.
Questions for dialogue:
- How is your family? What is your mission in it? Are you looking for the union of all the members? Are you sign of harmony or discord?
- Do you try your family go to church together on Sundays? Do you try that children in your family attend catechesis?
- Do you help and cheer your friends to build a decent family?
Benito Martínez, C.M.
Tags: Louise de Marillac
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