The Problems Facing Modern Civilization

whole western world will acquire second class status in international politics. The solution, according to one critic of the book, lies is slipping back to “the traditional woman as exclusive child-raiser.”28 The place given to woman in modern civilization bears no true relation to life’s realities. Now western thinkers are beginning to feel that in order to have a successful life, the ancient concept of woman shall have to be fully reinstated. DEPRIVED OF GUARDIANSHIP A report entitled “Teen Suicide” published in Time magazine reveals that the incidence of suicide among the 10- to 20-year age group is rising sharply in the U.S., the annual number having tripled since 1950. In 1985 out of 100,000 people, if there were 60 adults who committed suicide, there were also 60 young people who took their own lives. We reproduce below the impressions of three women concerning the suicide of American children. “I don’t think they think about being dead. They think it’s a way of ending pain and solving a problem,” says Barbara Wheeler, a suicide-prevention specialist in Omaha. “Everybody is in such a rusk that we don’t take the time to listen to our youngsters,” states Elaine Leader, cofounder of a teen crisis hotline at Cedars-Sinai medical Centre in Los Angeles. And, Barbara O’Jeary, a hostess at a local diner, says: “When something like this happens, I think about my kids. I have to hope I raised them right. These are the dangerous years. You don’t always know what’s going on inside their heads.”29 The American public responded with a spate of letters, selections from which were published by Time magazine. One of the letters reads: “My heart bleeds for the families of the teen suicides. I know. My 16-year-old grandson committed suicide by hanging. Our family will spend the rest of our lives wondering why, and we will never know” (Eloise Gradin, Pensacola Beach Florida). 30 What is the reason for this suicidal tendency among the younger generations of the developed countries? One major contributory cause is their being deprived of the kind of guardianship which a united family would hitherto have provided. Another is their development of unhealthy complexes in the absence of the loving care of the family circle. The breaking up of the family as a social unit must ultimately be recognized as the main underlying factor in the suicidal tendencies of the young people of today. There are two principal reasons for the break-up of the family system in these countries. One is the concentration on pleasure in married life, rather than on responsibility. Couples marry now as if they were on a pleasure-seeking jaunt, so that when no further pleasure is to be extracted from the marital state, they go their separate ways. This has led to an erosion of the sanctity of marriage, and divorce, in consequence, has become common. Any children born to such couples, who subsequently opt to separate, are little better than orphans, though both parents are alive. Another cause of family fragmentation is traceable to the end of the joint family system, the main symptom of which is the increasing number