Russell Perspective on Family

and Marriage

Russell’s Introduction
• Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872–1970) was a British philosopher, logician, essayist and
social critic best known for his work in mathematical logic and analytic philosophy.
• His most influential contributions include his championing of logicism (the view that
mathematics is in some important sense reducible to logic), his refining of Gottlob Frege’s
predicate calculus (which still forms the basis of most contemporary systems of logic), his
defense of neutral monism (the view that the world consists of just one type of substance which is
neither exclusively mental nor exclusively physical), and his theories of definite descriptions,
logical atomism and logical types.
• Together with G.E. Moore, Russell is generally recognized as one of the main founders of
modern analytic philosophy. His famous paradox, theory of types, and work with A.N.
Whitehead on Principia Mathematica reinvigorated the study of logic throughout the twentieth
century
 Book- Marriage and Morals
• Marriage and Morals is a (1929 book) by philosopher Bertrand
Russell, in which the author questions the Victorian notions of
morality (Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of
the middle class in 19th-century Britain, the Victorian era)
regarding sex and marriage.
• Russell argues that the laws and ideas about sex of his time were a
potpourri from various sources and were no longer valid.
• The subjects range from criticisms of social norms, theories about
their origins and tendencies, evolutionary psychology, and
instinctual attachment to children (or lack thereof), among others.
• "Marriage is for woman the commonest mode of livelihood’

Russell On Marriage And Family

• This is an area where few philosophers have dared to approach. In spite of
strong advocacy of scientific outlook in all other spheres of knowledge, any
scientific investigations into sex are considered as wicked and viewed with
suspicion and alarm. Somehow sex and sin are still regarded as
synonymous (same meaning of another word) terms.
• Russell has set forth some of the conditions for making marriage a happy
companionship. According to him, the aim of marriage is not only sexual
satisfaction. For making marriage a happy one’s love plays very important
role. Love is something far more important than sexual intercourse.
• Another condition which makes marriage happy is the similarity of
tastes of both the partners. People with multifarious (many) tastes and
pursuits (chasing) will be apt to desire congeniality (friendly, pleasant)
in their partners. If they do not get this they are bound to feel
dissatisfied.
• Third condition which contribute to the happiness of marriage,
according to Russell, is "paucity(presence of a women) of un-owned
women and absence of social occasions when married men meet
respectable women." If there is no possibility of sexual relations with
any women other than one's wife, most men, except in abnormally bad
cases, will find it quite tolerable. The same thing applies to wives. .

• One of the most important causes of unhappiness in marriage, thinks Russell, is bad
sexual education. Most men, for example, do not realize that a process of
wooing(support, love, favor) is necessary after marriage, and many educated
women do not realize what harm they do to marriage by remaining reserved and
physically aloof (not friendly relationship). All this could be made right by better
sexual education.
• On account of bad sexual education presently there is a widespread belief among
women that they are moral superior to men on the ground that the have less pleasure
in sex. This attitude make frank companionship between husbands and wives
impossible. To avoid unhappy conjugal life, which may be caused by any of the
above reasons, many thinkers often suggest divorce as an easy solution. But Russell
does not recognize divorce as a solution of the troubles of marriage.
• He thinks that where a marriage is childless divorce may be
often the right solution, but where there are children the
stability of marriage is a matter of considerable importance.
• Russell puts the above points tersely thus :It is... possible for a
civilized man and woman to be happy in marriage, although if
this is to be the case a number of conditions must be fulfilled.
• There must be a feeling of complete equality on both sides;
there must be no interference with mutual freedom; there must
be the most complete physical and mental intimacy; and there
must be a certain similarity in regard to standards of values.

• (It is fatal, for example, if one values only money while the
other values only good work). Given all these conditions, I
believe marriage to be the best and most important relation that
can exist between two human beings.
• If it has not often been realized hitherto, that is chiefly because
husbands and wives have regarded themselves as each other's
policemen. If marriage is to achieve its possibilities, husbands
and wives must learn to understand that whatever the law may
say, in their private lives they must be free.