Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

History, by my reading, seems more replete with examples of extended families, which include additional relatives like grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

eg:

  Some sociologists and anthropologists consider the extended family structure to be the most common family structure in most cultures and at most times for humans, rather than the nuclear family.

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_family

which also provides the common use definitions:

  A nuclear family (also known as an elementary family, atomic family, or conjugal family) is a term for a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence.

  It is in contrast to a single-parent family, a larger extended family, or a family with more than two parents.

Other sources include: Families Across Cultures: A 30-Nation Psychological Study (2006) from Cambridge press by the same author cited in wikipedia (James Georgas) and others: John W. Berry, Fons J. R. van de Vijver, Cigdem Kagitcibasi, Ype H. Poortinga

  Contemporary trends such as increased one-parent families, high divorce rates, second marriages and homosexual partnerships have all contributed to variations in the traditional family structure.

  But to what degree has the function of the family changed and how have these changes affected family roles in cultures throughout the world? This book attempts to answer these questions through a psychological study of families in thirty nations, carefully selected to present a diverse cultural mix.

  The study utilises both cross-cultural and indigenous perspectives to analyse variables including family networks, family roles, emotional bonds, personality traits, self-construal, and 'family portraits' in which the authors address common core themes of the family as they apply to their native countries.

  From the introductory history of the study of the family to the concluding indigenous psychological analysis of the family, this book is a source for students and researchers in psychology, sociology and anthropology.

I can't access the first source for that Wikipedia quote, but the second is a defunct website created by a graduate student. The fact that they're using it in the introduction for an article about the nuclear family is a good reason why people should be skeptical about claims on Wikipedia and should look into the sources themselves, not treat Wikipedia as if it was a source.

Isn't the extended family just a superset of the nuclear (or atomic) family? Defining the boundaries at grand-parents, aunts and uncles (I'm guessing proximity-based living relatives is kind of where you're making the boundary). By that logic an extended family is a nuclear family (formally) as it contains the definition of nuclear families by default, the nuclear family is just the smallest self replicating unit we've got available by default. Sperm (differential change between gens), (egg - really mitochondria) consistent base stability (ground truth) across gens, and the ability to self replicate.

EDIT: If you're arguing mixture of experts works better, than sure, I got you, if your arguing that there's a more non-binary way to do the self replication, that's a harder road to hoe. At least if you want to do it for free, which has a better track record of working for most people.

There's no "logic" here, you're just not aware of the history of the term and the sociological history behind it.

The nuclear family was an oddity that developed in England concomitant to the Industrial Revolution in middle-class families for whom occupational relocation was common. It was enshrined as an ideal sociological familial arrangement in the United States because its normalization was conducive for developing larger pools of productive labor.

> It was enshrined as an ideal sociological familial arrangement in the United States because its normalization was conducive for developing larger pools of productive labor.

As opposed to pseudo-Confucius China where larger pools of productive labor naturally formed?

That doesn't take away anything from the fundamental point where it's the smallest self-replicating unit, logic on behalf of the participants has nothing to do with it because it works out the gate. Of course it isn't the best, it was developed during a time of struggle and turmoil a la the industrial revolution (for the rural poor), it won because it was the the most resilient model (small, mobile, reactive, etc) to hard times.

Edit: I said developed, if formed is a word that helps you understand that it's not conscious then here you go

This is like saying the diatomic vases include monoatomic gasses because there are single atoms in the diatomic gas molecules. The whole point of the nuclear family is that it is indivisible, but easily divisible from other parts of the family. This is very visible in decisions like "can we move away for work?". In a nuclear family, this decision rests almost entirely on whether both parents agree to it and can find work. In an extended family, the grandparents and aunts and uncles (especially the grand aunts and uncles) will have an important word in the decision as well.

The Corporate Family is what you are thinking of. A corporate family includes all immediate branches. Imagine a ranch with a Patriarch and 3 male kids and their wives. If your dad dies your uncles and aunts just pick up the slack. Its usual also for all branches to work the same or related trades.

Its really tertiary education and suburbia that undermined the corporate family, atomising it. The Atomic family is modern.

See my other comment in this thread about anthropologists dichotomizing societies based on nuclear vs extended families. In short, it’s orthogonal to the issue.

The issue is that across the movement of time and generations a "nuclear family" unit of parents and their offspring has all the stability and longevity of a pencil balanced on it's tip .. the clock is ticking on Hapsberg lips and the oddities of pharoahs.

Long lasting societies have a larger formal weave based on outworking and out breeding, formally moieties in the indigenous peoples of North America, Australia, Indonesia and elsewhere.

A single family unit alone is insufficient and historically cycles members in and out over half a generation through marriage and fortune seeking.

I've seen your other comments and they have that kind of first order depth expected of a simple thought and looking things up quickly on a phone.

Here's a very shallow introduction to a family of systems with many variations that lasted some 70 thousand years keeping bloodlines clean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moiety_(kinship)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com