True Families

Sun Myung Moon
March 1, 2009
As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen, Pages 223-224

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The Family is the place where we receive true love and learn true love. Children who do not receive true love when they are young live their entire lives hungering for love and suffer pain. Not only that, they don't have the opportunity to learn the lofty moral duties that they must fulfill for the family and society. True love is a value that cannot be learned any place other than in the family.

A true family is a place where a husband and wife each love the other and live for the sake of the other, as if the spouse were his or her mother, father, or sibling. It is a place where the husband loves his wife as he loves God, and the wife respects her husband as she respects God. We cannot forsake our siblings, no matter the difficulties we may face. Neither can we forsake our mothers. So the term divorce cannot even exist. The husband is in the place of the father and older brother to the wife. Just as a wife could never forsake her father or older brother, she can never forsake her husband. In the same way, a husband could never forsake his wife. A true family is a place where each spouse lives with the acknowledgement of the absolute value of the partner.

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Excerpt from Peace Messages

The ideal family is the model for living together in peace. The ideal family is the nest where we live and learn to become one. There we have the foundation of love and respect between parents and children, shared trust and love between husband and wife, and mutual support among siblings.