#1, Sovereignty: Sovereignty means to have supreme power and overall authority. If you are sovereign, that basically means that you have overall authority over a specific place or thing. For example, I am sovereign over my books. Another on is, God is the Supreme Sovereign over the whole universe. Now, I used the term Supreme Sovereign because he is number one in the universe. Now, how does sovereignty fit into family government? One example is the dad is sovereign over the household, or the mom is sovereign over her stuff. There are a lot of examples of sovereignty in family government.

#2, Hierarchy: Another word for hierarchy is authority. A hierarchy is basically a system or organization in which people are ranked above others, and those people are ranked above others, etc. An example of this is my Trail Life troop. This is kind of like Boy Scouts, but different in a lot of ways. We have a hierarchy of First Officer, then Second Officer, then Quartermaster, then Junior Patrol Leaders, etc. In family government, the dad is above the mom, the mom is above the kids, etc. So you can see that hierarchy is present in pretty much every family government.

#3, Law: Laws are a system of rules established by a specific group or organization and are seen as regulating the actions of its members. Laws are everywhere in the world and govern almost every aspect of life. Every single type of government has at least some rules. There are lots of laws in a family government. Some common ones are “Do your chores”, “Do your homework”, etc. Some governments use people to enforce the laws. Family government may have the dad or the mom enforcing their rules, while other types of governments may use police officers to enforce the laws.

#4, Sanctions: Sanctions are basically ‘what I get if I obey the laws of the government’. Sanctions can be either good or bad. For some governments if you break the law you have to go to jail, or pay a fine, etc. But, if you obey the law, really nothing ever happens. But in family government, if you break the rules, you might have to get a spanking, get grounded, sent to bed with no dinner, etc. However, if you obey the rules, you may be able to go to a friend’s house, play your video games, earn some candy, etc.

#5, Succession: According to Google, succession is “the action or process of inheriting a title, office, property, etc.” So basically, succession means to be ‘ranked up’ in a government or something. In several governments, people get ‘ranked up’ all the time. In family government, a child might be ‘ranked up’ to dad when he gets married and has a child of his own, and the father becomes ‘ranked up’ to grandfather, and the grandfather becomes ‘ranked up’ to great-grandfather, etc. Succession also means to inherit something, like some old tools, or you might inherit a piece of property that someone had.