The Nuclear Family Is A Scam

It has long been a recognisable image - a married mother and father, and their two to three kids. As broader social change has led people to move away from the nuclear family, conservatives have begun to cling even more stringently to the narrative that this familial structure can offer an inherent good and, in spite of these changes, the pressure to fill the roles prescribed by the nuclear family persists.

Placing these often heteronormative and rigid family values into an economic context is important to understanding why they are so difficult to escape. Historically, familial systems have played an important role in driving social and economic development. Families have existed not only as collectives based on kinship and connection, but also as a locus for economic production and redistribution, and gender and class struggle are often played out within family units.

In pre-state societies, economic, and cultural change were predominantly affected by kinship groups and tribes – these groups made decisions about how to share resources, how to redistribute land, how to settle disputes, and how to build new settlements. Over time, power was drawn away from kinship groups and towards the state. As states grew to replace kinship groups as political and economic decision-makers, emerging states often sought legitimacy by atomising kinship groups and boosting patriarchs as the heads of their houses. A useful example of this is the process of state formation that took place in England and Wales between the 8th and 15th century. Emerging rulers in this period consolidated their power by winning the allegiance of men away from their kin – for example, by allowing men to usurp some of their kin group’s authority, particularly over land, women, and children. These developments laid the foundations for the shrinking of family units, and the bolstering of patriarchs at their head.

In spite of this exclusivity, many systems of social support continue to be geared towards the nuclear family. It is easier for married, heterosexual couples to adopt, and owning property or withdrawing loans often requires the pooling of incomes. Social customs and traditions, such as Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day, also continue to celebrate heterosexual dual parentage. Attempts made by governments to mitigate the trend away from nuclear families – such as attempts to increase marriage rates, push down divorce rates, and boost fertility – also often have the effect of making the problem even worse.

There is a common conservative narrative that there is an inherent benefit to growing up in a nuclear family. Advocates for the nuclear family point to the fact that coming from a two-parent household continues to be a strong predictor of economic mobility, that children of divorce are likely to divorce themselves, or that children of single parents tend to have worse health outcomes. The common line that “people should be able to choose the kind of family they want to have” is, while true, not particularly useful in addressing the actual issue.

However, considering the nuclear family as an economic model as opposed to merely a model of kinship explains the flaws with this line of argument. The issue is not necessarily that being born to a married mother and father predisposes a child, emotionally and developmentally, to success. Rather, it is that it’s economically easier for nuclear families to access the resources that make this success possible. Replicating the economic unit around which much of Western society is built predictably makes it easier to find success in that society.

David Brooks writes that “when we discuss the problems confronting the country, we don’t talk about family enough. It feels too judgemental. Too uncomfortable.” But in any discussion of economic and social reorientation, it is important to consider the role that kinship and family units play in restructuring. Heteronormative and misogynistic expectations are often grounded in complex economic and social processes. To consider the family as an economic unit makes these expectations easier to understand and unpick.

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