To question a different part of your argument to other commenters: I am very much under the impression that the nuclear family is a fairly unusual mode of socie

To question a different part of your argument to other commenters: I am very much under the impression that the nuclear family is a fairly unusual mode of societal organisation, historically speaking, because it doesn't provide enough security to protect one's small family from the unpredictability of life. Instead most cultures have, when unable to provide large scale welfare programmes, adopted a range of other measures for spreading risk throughout kinship and other groups, such as extended families, where success and failure is spread across family members. edit: I should have also mentioned that I firmly support the greater social freedom, such as the ability to choose the nature of one's family, afforded by our more integrated and (in my view) enlightened states.