Over time, scientific studies have proven revelations made by the Superior Spirits with whom Allan Kardec dialogued while elaborating “The Book of Spirits”. Among these proofs is the answer given by the Spirits regarding the family, which was considered by some intellectuals as a result of a social custom and not an obedience to a law of Nature. This positioning led the Encoder to the following dialogue with the Spirits:

Why, among animals, do parents and children no longer recognize each other, since they no longer need care?

Animals live a material life and not a moral life. The mother's tenderness for her children is based on the instinct of conservation of the beings she has given birth to. As soon as these beings can take care of themselves, she is done with her task; nothing more nature demands of him. That is why she leaves them, in order to occupy herself with the newcomers. (773).

Note that Kardec asks this question only to support the following:

There are people who - based on the fact that animals, after a certain time, abandon their young - deduce that family ties between men are not more than the result of social customs and not the effect of a law of Nature. What should we think about this?

The answer of the Spirits is clear and conclusive:

There is something more in man, besides physical needs: there is the need to progress. Social ties are necessary for progress and the tightest family ties become the first. This is why the second constitute a law of Nature. God willed that, in this way, men would learn to love one another as brothers. (774).

Still, in item 775, to reinforce, Kardec asks: What would be, for society, the result of the relaxation of family ties? To which the Spirits respond: A resurgence of selfishness.

This divine programming for family organization can already be seen in the chimpanzee, as reported by Roger Fouts, an American researcher, who, although he does not make the slightest allusion to the Theory of Evolution, entitled his work with chimpanzees, elaborated in more than thirty years of research, “The Nearest Relative” ⁽¹⁾. It is really impressive the way in which he refers to these animals, which he sees and respects as an advanced outline of a human being. He raised a chimpanzee from an early age, taught her human sign language, never speaking to her in human language, in this case, English. In turn, she communicated with her son through human sign language, taught by herself.

As he had always worked with animals born in the United States, this researcher went to the chimpanzees' natural habitat in order to verify their behavior outside captivity. There, he found that the mother breastfeeds the child until approximately four years old. During this period, she does not get pregnant. After weaning, during the new pregnancy, she keeps the child in her company, and this protection extends until the age of ten. Therefore, a mother chimpanzee almost always has three children under her care. The young chimpanzee does not break free from the mother's authority until approximately ten years of age.

Science has shown that the chimpanzee is the closest thing to the human species, and Spiritism teaches that the spiritual entity that animates that hairy body, in the future – no one knows after how many millennia – will be animating a human form. In view of this, it is concluded that that family sketch lived by the chimpanzee mother and her children is part of a divine programming that will make these beings, when they reach the human condition, already have a program for family life.

As can be clearly deduced, once again, Science proves what was said in the Spiritist Codification: The organization of the family stems from a divine determinism, of permanent effect, and not from a simple social custom.

The basis of the family is marriage, and, as I understand it, Kardec deals with the subject in two parts of "The Book of Spirits": "Marriage and Celibacy" and "Society Law", when he asks the following question to the Spirits: What effect would the abolition of marriage have on society? And the answer of the Spirits was clear: It would be a regression to the life of animals. (775). In a judicious commentary, the Codifier reinforces the indispensability of family life:

The state of Nature is that of the free union of the sexes. Marriage constitutes one of the first acts of progress in human societies, because it establishes fraternal solidarity and is observed among all peoples, albeit under different conditions. The abolition of marriage would, therefore, regress to the childhood of Humanity and would place man below even certain animals that give him an example of constant unions. (696).

In the concept of the Encoder and the Spirits who answered his questions, marriage, as the basis of family life, is far above any religious blessing or the signing of any document before a civil authority. It is a conjugal society, established by the couple themselves, on an eminently moral and ethical level. It is a sacred commitment, which leads one to see the closest neighbor in the other.

As time passes, the advancement of the Encoder’s thinking in relation to his contemporaries becomes more evident, as marriage has lost, over the years, the character of a social, religious act, becoming conceptualized and respected as a personal act, intimate. Currently, a couple imposes itself before society as legitimately constituted, no longer because their marriage commitment was assumed in a temple, under priestly blessings, or even in a registry office, but because of the environment of respect and seriousness in

Furthermore, who gives a man the right to establish this sacred bond between two people, and to say, at the end of the ceremony, "What God has joined together, let not man put asunder"? Marriage, therefore, does not depend on anything external, on any action outside the will of the two. The two creatures marry, for no one has the power to establish bonds between them. In grammar, one learns that the verb to marry can, among other regimes, be direct transitive, but philosophically, morally, this classification is false. One could say, innovating in grammar, that the verb is reciprocal, due to the fact that people get married, without the intervention of anyone. Not even the Justice of Peace promotes marriage. This Authority only records in the annals of society, for legal purposes, the marriage that is declared before him.

With this understanding, it is concluded that the Spiritist couple appears before the civil authority only to declare their marriage, requesting that it be registered for legal purposes, and not to receive any type of legitimation. The legitimacy of marriage is given by the degree of responsibility and love that presided over the formation of the couple, who want to start a family.                       

The more spiritual the couple, the more the marriage transcends the limits of material life, reaching levels of spiritual awareness, which naturally leads to the desire for communion with the High, through a prayer, at the moment when it formalizes, before society, this very important statement. This prayer can be uttered by one or both of the bride and groom, or even by a person affectionately linked to them, because only love can legitimize the condition of someone, in the condition of suppliant, to pray blessings from Above on a new family that form on Earth.

⁽¹⁾ “The Closest Relative”, Roger Fouts, Publiher: Editora Objetiva Ltda., 1998.