Sunday 18 May 2014

Moving beyond the nuclear-family "hangup"


We live in a culture of bubbles. Each bubble contains a man a woman and two or more children. This is the nuclear family, designed by leaders of the industrial revolution. Throughout those times, the 'factory' demanded male hands supported by servant-wives. Conveniently for the new capitalists, the wives see to all the workers' personal and domestic needs while at the same time producing more workers-to-come.

Largely bolstered by religious conservatism the same nuclear-family social structure ("Ah, the Fam-i-ly!") has acquired an aura of holiness. But there is a saying that - in my futuristic Syai world - is taken seriously: "It takes a village to raise a child."  Adults in the Syai world live in villages, balancing their life-styles between private and communal activities. Towns are not their homes, although they may stay in them for quite long periods for specialized work and other recognized purposes. Women choose when to have a child, and with whom. Each child has a special carer; usually the mother but possibly the father or a guardian. In practical ways, it is the whole village that 'parents' the child for its first 20 or so years. However, at puberty the child moves into 'supervised' independence with a home cottage-caravan of her or his own.

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