Notes for a conflictual analysis of civil society-families in Cuban transition

A rule of law or conscience of legality must assure the people, the great majorities, against any autocratic deformation; it must subordinate all, social, political and mass organizations, State and individuals, to the exclusive rule of law, which implies legality in a climate of observance, of compliance with legality; it must also be the result of the popular will most widely consulted; it must ensure the enjoyment of human rights and the decisive participation of citizens in political and economic decision making. It must therefore ensure social justice.

As in all societies, for the Cuban society its existence, its reproduction, its survival is not possible without the protection of its precious seed, its fundamental and highly specialized cell: the family. However, at present, we can no longer speak of the traditional family model known within Cuban civil society: the traditional family founded on heterosexual civil marriage, the patriarchal and patrimonial model of the Roman-Judaic family of antiquity.

Today there is no traditional model of family and the concept of family life is not reduced to marriage, because it must include other de facto ties where the parties have life together outside marriage, which is consistent with the criteria of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which recognizes that «family refers to a variety of structures», not family in singular, but families in plural and various types of these, members, in their own right, of civil society, to which it is indissolubly associated and of which it is a part.

Written by Osvaldo M. Álvarez Torres.PhD in Political Science. Diploma of Advanced Studies in Philosophy of Law.