Natural Institutions

[ClemtheCatholic]

What does it mean to say marriage is a natural institution? And what would be some other examples of natural institutions? Would society, or government, be one?

 

[fisherman_carl]

I would say marriage is naturally instituted because it is established by God through our nature. That a man and a woman are naturally made to compliment each other and produce offspring through their union is both natural (our nature) and the basis of marriage.

Government would not be a natural institution. Although the Bible talks about those in Government being instituted by God I would not call it a natural institution because Government is not based on our nature. I mean anything could be considered based on nature if you wanted it to be since we are natural and anything we do is based on us. But that would make the term in question obsolete. Government is based on our making. Whereas a natural institution is something based on our nature or how we were created. The male/female compliment is the perfect example.

 

[dmar198]

What does it mean to say marriage is a natural institution? And what would be some other examples of natural institutions? Would society, or government, be one?

The Catholic Encyclopedia seems to say the government is a natural institution: “The State is a natural institution, whose powers, therefore, come from the natural law and are determined by the character of the natural purpose of the State plus whatever limitation God has, because of qualifications in the last end of man, ordained in the Divine Positive Law.” source

I wonder if it would be true to say that Any institution made by men for good purposes is a natural institution. Like a cooperative business or a guild: since workers have natural rights, then I wonder if they can create a natural institution by creating an association to exercise their natural rights. It sounds reasonable to me, anyway.

 

[Beryllos]

Perhaps government, or at least leadership, is classified as a natural institution because it exists and can be recognized even in groups of social animals like dogs, monkeys, horses, etc., and it promotes the common good of the social unit. Humans have merely formalized it, as we did with marriage.

 

[Michael19682]

“Fill the earth and subdue it”
Government reflects man’s plan for subduing.
The disorder and chaos government brings to life reflects the complexity of nature’s
uncooperativeness, and not necessarily man’s political variance.
Considering that love of money is the root of all evil,
we could say that inordinate desire for resources, or selfish desire
for their allocation in one’s favor to the exclusion of the world’s other
billions of people is either a teenage mindset reconstituted, or else
reflects the pervasiveness of Satan’s trap, “We deserve better,” meaning,
“We want the choicest cuts for ourselves since we have done all the work.”
Even animals reflect this perverse tendency. Take lions. Their women do all the hunting
and killing, then the males arrive and take the food.
Only until the constituents are seen as family and given equally commonly held resources
without regard to how much work they put in and until I think of my stewardship
as a fatherhood role concerned for all equally, will the institutional aspect of
government be realized as a potential.
All institutions are essentially a boil down to family.
Inasmuch as any family can prosper, so can it fall apart.
When institutions become dysfunctional, they either pull together
and reconstitute (morally) or else they suffer mentally.
The sad thing among many sad things is that when an institution is shattered,
those who will lose their influence often take victims and demand ransom,
thereby forcing any intervention to dismantle by attrition.
And while the attrition is proceeding mysteriously according to plan he says
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You …make one convert, and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves."
Mt 23:15