In his classic work “What’s Wrong With the World?” Chesterton gives us a nutshell explanation of the two foundational realities that lead to the family–the earthquake of sex, and its natural consequences:

Very few words will suffice for all I have to say about the family itself . I leave alone the speculations about its animal origin and the details of its social reconstruction; I am concerned only with its palpable omnipresence. It is a necessity far mankind; it is (if you like to put it so) a trap for mankind. Only by the hypocritical ignoring of a huge fact can any one contrive to talk of “free love”; as if love were an episode like lighting a cigarette, or whistling a tune. Suppose whenever a man lit a cigarette, a towering genie arose from the rings of smoke and followed him everywhere as a huge slave. Suppose whenever a man whistled a tune he “drew an angel down” and had to walk about forever with a seraph on a string. These catastrophic images are but faint parallels to the earthquake consequences that Nature has attached to sex; and it is perfectly plain at the beginning that a man cannot be a free lover; he is either a traitor or a tied man. The second element that creates the family is that its consequences, though colossal, are gradual; the cigarette produces a baby giant, the song only an infant seraph. Thence arises the necessity for some prolonged system of co– operation; and thence arises the family in its full educational sense.

–Chesterton, G. K. (2012-12-05). The G. K. Chesterton Collection [50 Books] (Kindle Locations 5729-5738). Catholic Way Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Soli Deo Gloria