Gabriel Marcel’s

The Mystery of the

Family
Value, Presence
Who am I?
What does it mean to be
human?
What does it mean to be?
Who am I?
To be is to be part of a family.

What, now, is a family?

Family as Mystery
For Marcel, the family is a
mystery rather than a problem.
In the first place, the family
does not just suggest a problem,
but an infinity of problems.
Mystery vs. Problem
But more important than this
is the notion of mystery
contrasted with problem.
What is a problem?
What is a mystery?
Mystery vs. Problem
A problem is a fact exterior
to me.
A mystery is greater than a
problem.
A mystery is a reality that is
bound up with my existence,
that influences me.
Family as Mystery
The family is a mystery
because its reality is bound up
with my existence. My family
influences my existence.
 “[The family] belongs
to an order of realities…
of presences…I am
effectively and vitally
involved in these realities.”
Mystery vs. Problem
While a problem is something
outside of me, a mystery is rooted
in me.
Family as Mystery
The family is near to me
because it evokes a
“certain pattern or
constellation of which as a
child I am the center of.”
As a child,
“I am an incarnation of the reply to
the reciprocal appeal which two
beings flung to each other in the
unknown, and which, without
suspecting it, they flung beyond
themselves to an incomprehensible
power whose only expression is
the bestowal of life.”
Family as Mystery
For Marcel, the family is less a
problem to be solved than a
mystery to be evoked, a reality to
recapture, a presence to awaken
in the soul.
Family as Mystery
However, this evocation is
difficult to do because of the
contemporary problems of
divorce, birth control, choice of
lover, etc.
Family as Mystery
The philosopher has to discover
the roots of this social crisis, which
is linked to a weakening or denial of
a sense of holiness, of reverence for
life and death.
Family as Mystery
Instead, we give way to the
pressures of pride, pretentiousness,
boredom and despair. And it is in the
family that the dire consequences of
this giving way first becomes
apparent.
Familial Evocation
To evoke the reality of the
family is to see it as:
Value
Presence
Family as Value
The family is a value because
of the sentiment we all must
have experienced as a child, that
of being proud of belonging to a
certain community.
Family as Value
To be part of a family is to be
proud, to have constructive – not
vain – pride, helping with a
foundation for my conduct.
Hierarchy
I feel proud of my family
because I recognize it as a
hierarchy.
 “I do not merely have to
integrate myself into it. I have
actually been caught up in it from
the origin. I am involved in it, my
very being is rooted in it.”
Hierarchy
When I fail to recognize the
family as a hierarchy, the family
loses its value.
Family as Presence
As a child, I experience the
family as a “protective skin” placed
between me and the foreign,
threatening, hostile world.
 “There is nothing more painful
in the destiny of an individual than
the tearing away of this tissue,
either by a sudden or slow
continuous process, carried out by
the pitiless hands of death, or
rather of that nameless power of
which life and death are but
alternating processes.”
Family as Presence
This “protective skin” is actually
the privileged “us” of family life,
inseparable from a home of our
own.
This “us” is connected with a
permanent habitation.
Family as Presence
The family gives us a
consciousness of an “always”,
associated with familiar objects
around us, with the setting of our
daily tasks, and with feelings of
presence in the background.
Imagine the trauma of a child
experiencing a house-move.
Nomadic Lifestyle
For Marcel, one of the chief
causes of the disappearance of
family consciousness is the
nomadic life.
Growth
Growth in being in the family
speaks of no distinction between
the outward and the inward.
The Home
The home is not just the
environment, but the setting that
forms the person.
Rituals
The rituals of the family that
make up its tradition bear upon the
continuity of family, securing its
bond between generations.
Every family produces certain
rituals to secure its solid
foundation.
Why?
The family is a mystery, a
presence and a value.
Why?
Why should the family be
valued? Because…
The family is the incarnation of
the pact – a sacred agreement –
between man and life – for life to
prolong, so life will go through you
ever after.