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UN International Day of Families 2014
International Day of Families Observed at a Forum in Bangladesh
Written by Dr. Robert S. Kittel, Director of Peace Education, UPF-Asia
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Dhaka, Bangladesh - On the the 20th anniversary of the International Year of Families, UPF and the Women’s Federation for World Peace jointly organized a forum at the Sundarban Hotel in Bangladesh on May 3, 2014, to commemorate this special event. The seminar was entitled, “Marriage and Family in Creating World Peace.”
In his presentation the author of this report, Dr. Kittel, drew from numerous sociological studies to highlight seven points:
1. Marriage reduces the risk of poverty for children and communities.
2. As the number of homes without fathers increases, so does violent crime.
3. Marriage protects physical and mental health.
4. Married couples live longer, are happier and healthier (and wealthier).
5. Children born outside marriage have poorer educational achievements.
6. Marriage is the glue that holds societies together.
7. Cohabitation is not the same as marriage.
Prof. Dr. Shamsher Ali, Chairman of UPF-Bangladesh and a nuclear physicist, drew a striking parallel between marriage and family in human society and the behavior of atoms.
First, he noted that the weight of the individual parts of an atom (the protons, neutrons and electrons) is greater than when these entities were united. In other words, the weight of a united atom is sightly less than the individual parts. Dr. Ali compared this to human society, where individuals must give up something, or make a sacrifice, in order to form families.
Secondly, Dr. Ali who was the former chairman of Bangladesh’s Atomic Energy Commission, explained that electrons that are in a closer orbit to the nucleus of an atom are in a stronger bond than those electrons in the outer orbits. The lesson to be learned is that parents need to keep their children close and have lots of intimate give-and-take with them in order to guide them correctly. Children who are distant from the parents (comparable to electrons in the outer orbits) can more easily be separated from their family.
The emcee for the program, which had nearly 40 distinguished participants in the audience, was Mr. Tetsuya Amano, assistant secretary general of UPF-Bangladesh.
To read about other International Day of Families events, click here.
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