Charity begins at home ‘Charity begins at home’ – meaning and explanation

Charity begins at home
‘Charity begins at home’ – meaning and explanation
Category: Proverbs, Sayings, Idioms and PhrasesOn April 14, 2016 By SpreadKnowledge
Introduction: Charity refers to aids, assistance, donation, and other help to those in need. Home refers to the permanent place of residence for the member of a family. The proverb highlights that our most important responsibility is towards our family and friends.

Meaning

The phrase ‘charity begins at home’ means that “we should take utmost care and give unconditional love to our family members and friend, and dear ones.”
Charity comes from the Latin word caritas, which means love. Thus, though we may think that charity means giving to an organization known as a charity, charity actually refers to any loving action.
Charity begins at home means that “we should care for those around us first and foremost”. It is our responsibility to assist and take care of our parents, brothers, sisters, husband, wife, children and everyone who are closely related or associated to us.
This proverb means that “kindness starts with those closest to us”. If our our near and dear ones are in need of us, then we should surely be ever ready to help them by all possible means. In other words, we should first direct our love to our family, or other nearest and dearest.This saying also emphasizes that we cannot be loving people unless we care for our nearest and dearest. Those at home might mean:

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  People in our house.
  
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  Our circle of friends.
  
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  People in our town or city.
  

As such, this proverb can mean:

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  Care for people close to us first.
  
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  We cannot care truly about wider problems in the world unless we first take care of those near us.
  

Explanation,Love flows through our heart for our fellowmen. When a new-born baby joins a family, he spends time with his parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and starts loving them. He develops an emotional connect with his family members. As he grows us, he starts understanding about the relationships that he has with other people. This helps him in build connect with other people. He makes new friends at school. Friends are those people with whom we share emotional bond and connect. We share both our joys and sorrows with our friends.
When a person grows up as an adult, he enters the world and get in touch with the society. This provides him with great opportunity to develop relationship with people outside his family and friends. He develops a sense of responsibility towards the society.This sense of love and responsibility towards the society is a natural extension of his love for his family and friends.A person who avoids his responsibilities and disregards parents and family members is an unkind person. Public donation of huge sum of money to charitable institutions for the welfare of public is merely a show. Charity and love is rooted in the form of affectionate relationships among family members and close friends. A person who cannot love his parents and other people with whom he has shared the most important moments of life, such person cannot really love other.