My memory on this is a bit hazy, but I seem to remember reading that the nuclear family and tee-totalling were related social developments that were in part mot

My memory on this is a bit hazy, but I seem to remember reading that the nuclear family and tee-totalling were related social developments that were in part motivated by social isolation. If I remember correctly, the story goes that in Scotland there was a time that strong spirits were cheap and readily available, and that this led to many of the usual social occasions degenerating into widespread drunkenness. To those wanting to avoid this, the only available option was to withdraw from the now 'toxic' community. These people that abstained from drinking spirits and no longer participated in the usual social occasions became both the tee-totallers and what we now call 'nuclear' families (because all socialising was now only with immediate family - picnics, etc). edit: (from The Oxford Companion to Scottish History) "Temperance was a great radical popular movement in 19th- and early 20th-century Scotland. It affected the lives of millions who organized themselves outwith the accepted structures of a society cemented by the giving and sharing of drink, played a central part in the development of ideologies of self—improvement and of domestic happiness based on the nuclear family..."