ABSTRACT
Modern debates about marriage and family frequently pit the partisans of biblical revelation against the partisans of science and evolution. A 2003 paper featured in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science examines the difference in male and female size in Australopithecus afarensis, a human ancestor said to have lived three to four million years ago. Le Play argued that human behavior did not follow the theoretical schemes of his liberal and socialist contempories. Le Play insisted that the family naturally retained parental control over the basic education of children. The family is the true "cell of society" and the source of stability, progress, and authentic liberty. The most remarkable and perhaps the most desired, human emotion is joy. The natural family is the truest source of this bountiful joy, both in the marital attachment of woman and man and in the gift of marital fertility.
