Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

In Act 2, Scene 2 of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the young couple mourns the fact that their respective families are sworn enemies.

Juliet just doesn't think it's fair. What's in a name, she asked? That which we call a rose

by any other word would still smell as sweet. In other words, Romeo's surname is only a word. No matter what

we call it, the long-stem flower with the thorns and the petals will still be itself. Now, Shakespeare's

analogy works because roses are a real flower that grow in the real

world. It's the thing itself, not the words we use to describe the thing, that makes it what it is.

Playing with language, however, can be a tricky game, and sometimes we end up confusing ourselves.

For example, our cultures in the midst of a decades-long experiment with language, especially the word family.

The news on almost any day of the week offer plenty of examples.

Recently, a New York trial court judge ruled that three adult men in a polyamorous relationship

should be entitled to the same family benefits as married couples, at least when it comes to eviction law.

Quote, the definition of family has morphed considerably since 1989, wrote the judge in her decision,

referencing the year that a New York state court first recognized a same-sex relationship.

But can the definition of family really morph?

The question isn't whether we want to change it, but whether family is like a rose, a real thing that exists as one thing and

not other things, or whether the word family is a mere placeholder for any relational arrangement

we want to use it for. Well, family is not merely a name. G. K. Chesterton called the family a triangle

of truisms with the three sides of father, mother, and child. The love of man and woman, he

wrote, is not an institution that can be abolished or a contract that can be terminated. It's something

older than all institutions or contracts, and something that is certain to outlast them all.

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