posted
Hi, I rarely post on here, although I do read some. I have a question and you guys, who are intelligent and willing to back up your assertions with facts, seem like the people to ask.
I just finished reading Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein, not the best book I've ever read, but an entertaining one all the same. It pushes the idea of group marriage and comunistic living, which isn't an unusual idea when speaking in utopian terms.
My question is...Has there ever be a LASTING (at least a couple hundred years), DEVELOPING (improving their way of life) society that has been built on (the majority of the society practices it) any family unit other than man, woman, children?
I can think of many that were built on man, WOMEN, children, but I can't think of any any societies built on group marriage, gay marriage, many men with one woman or no marriage all with children taken care of by the origional type of group or society at large. Am I right? Why do you think this is?
quote:Originally posted by Rien: Hi, I rarely post on here, although I do read some. I have a question and you guys, who are intelligent and willing to back up your assertions with facts, seem like the people to ask.
I just finished reading Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein, not the best book I've ever read, but an entertaining one all the same. It pushes the idea of group marriage and comunistic living, which isn't an unusual idea when speaking in utopian terms.
My question is...Has there ever be a LASTING (at least a couple hundred years), DEVELOPING (improving their way of life) society that has been built on (the majority of the society practices it) any family unit other than man, woman, children?
I can think of many that were built on man, WOMEN, children, but I can't think of any any societies built on group marriage, gay marriage, bigamy or no marriage. Am I right? Why do you think this is?
Polygyny (having more than one wife) lasted for thousands of years. Biblically, both Jacob and David did it, not to mention Solomon, who carried it to extremes.
We live now in the Western world, which is dominated by a Christian ethos that doesn't accept such things. When you look around you and don't see thriving cultures with any of them, it's because you're living in a bubble of history and in a place where the Christians have imposed their views on everyone.
Jews living under Christians banned polygyny only a little over a thousand years ago. Jews living under Muslims didn't.
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Has there been a LASTING culture based on the standard man/woman definition? What is the definition of lasting?
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Also, even in the Christian world, it wasn't uncommon to have extended families (grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins) all living together in some form.
posted
Thank you for answering. I do understand why I don't see these types of cultures now, but that is why I asked about them in history. Is there any historical culture that thrived, at least for a little while with a different type of family unit (other than monogamy or polygyny)?
I believe Spartans were supposed to have a fairly gay culture while in the army, but after they were out of the army they developed the currently accepted family unit of man, woman, children. I could be wrong on this since it has been a while since I was exposed to the information.
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How would any other culture not die out in the first few generations? Some sort of communal birthing setup -- breeding females/males and adoptive families? I doubt it's ever been sustained if it's even been attempted.
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I bet almost everything has been attempted at one time or another, but that is what I'm getting at WHY don't these other family units work? Why do monogamy or polygyny seem to be the only type of family unit that creates a stable, developing culture?
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Don't really have any factual examples here, but what about tribal communities that have been around for hundreds and thousands of years?
Granted they may not be technologically advanced, or "civilized" in our current sense of the word, but I'm sure there are tribes that have existed without the standard nuclear family - on almost all contintents - at some point in time.
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quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: Granted they may not be technologically advanced, or "civilized" in our current sense of the word, but I'm sure there are tribes that have existed without the standard nuclear family - on almost all contintents - at some point in time.
I thought of these tribal communities too. But why don't they advance? And why when they start to advance do they seem to move towards a nuclear family set up? And I'm not just talking about nowdays where they may want to conform to the majority of the rest of the world, but in the past they seemd to move towards monogamy or polygyny as they advanced wether they started that way or not.
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How many stable, lasting cultures have there been which did not practice racism as an explicitly good thing? Or freedom of religion, for that matter?
How many stable, lasting cultures have there been which had progress as an ideal?
That an old culture practiced something superficially similar to our marriage, does not mean that the nuclear family was the basis of its society. For example, in Greece, men saw their wives when it was time for sex, and not otherwise. Try that in America! Not to mention the arranged-marriage bit.
Keep in mind that state licensing of marriage, and interference in personal lives, is a rather modern invention. If two male villagers decided to live together in some hamlet in Outer Rural, France, who was going to stop them? Likewise consider Achilles and Patroclus, or Alexander and Bagoas. Not much state interference there. In short, looking at historical societies through modern eyes is a bad idea.
posted
One culture in recent history followed a non-traditional, non-nuclear family structure. They were burned out of everywhere they tried to settle until they went to a more-or-less uninhabited area and set up a society there. When the rest of civilization moved into the same area, they abandoned their non-traditional, non-nuclear family structure in order to get along, as they had no where left to run.
quote:Originally posted by Rien: I thought of these tribal communities too. But why don't they advance? And why when they start to advance do they seem to move towards a nuclear family set up? And I'm not just talking about nowdays where they may want to conform to the majority of the rest of the world, but in the past they seemd to move towards monogamy or polygyny as they advanced wether they started that way or not.
I always assumed it was because of a lack of resources. Europe and Asia I believe broke out of the tribal lifestyle with techonology thanks to the rich metals there.
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quote:I thought of these tribal communities too. But why don't they advance? And why when they start to advance do they seem to move towards a nuclear family set up? And I'm not just talking about nowdays where they may want to conform to the majority of the rest of the world, but in the past they seemd to move towards monogamy or polygyny as they advanced wether they started that way or not.
Why don't they advance? Read Guns, Germs, and Steel.
Why did they move towards a nuclear setup? Because those people who conquered them wanted them to, or because the missionaries who brought all manner of wonders from the civilized world wanted them to.
Look back to the great civilizations of Sumer, Babylon, and Greece. Did they have the modern concept of a nuclear family, or modern values regarding sex?
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Look back to the great civilizations of Sumer, Babylon, and Greece. Did they have the modern concept of a nuclear family, or modern values regarding sex?
Yes, this is what I'm asking. What was their concept of the family unit and what were their views on sex and WHY did it not last? Is it because societies that practiced monogamy or polygyny were innately more violent and conqured everyone else or do the other societies naturally lack something found in monogamy or polygyny that creates stability? Or is it some other reason?
By the way, I LOVED the Guns, Germs and Steel National Geographic Special.
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quote: But why don't they advance? And why when they start to advance do they seem to move towards a nuclear family set up?
I think that communal living can only work in very small groups. When people advance, the groups get larger and communal living doesn't work so well.
As to the other question, I think that by definition any lasting society has to produce children. That rules out a society based on gay marraige unless there was a very weird setup going on with the man and woman getting together just to make babies. Actually, that does sound somewhat like what people think happened in Sparta/Greece.
btw, you might want to edit your title Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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The longest lasting civilization on earth (Roman Empire) collapsed for reasons that had nothing to do with the nuclear family.
Civilizations rise and fall, and it's not their views on sex or family that cause it. After Alexander conquered most of the known world and died with no heirs, Greece fell into disarray. The early fertile crescent cultures fell when a larger, stronger military would roll in to conquer them.
As technology changes, so does society.
In some cultures, it was important to have many wives and many children to ensure civilization's survival. With so many women and children who would die in childbirth, to put all your eggs in one basket (pardon the pun) would be foolish. These days, survival is less of a concern.
Also, if you view people as property, it's easier to justify having many wives (or husbands) or concubines, or whatever. Modern cultures are less likely to function along those lines.
There are all kinds of factors, but I don't think the idea of a nuclear family has destroyed or built civilizations - though it is a byproduct of the success of more recent civilizations (mainly, christian ones).
As an addendum: With population on the rise, it becomes less important to our society to have children, therefore making "productive" marriages less necessary - which gives a lot more justification for same-sex marriage from a biological standpoint.
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Hmmm, by your definition, I would think they did count as lasting civilizations. If you're defining a lasting civilization as one culture not changing for over 100 years, I'm not sure that such a thing exists. Sexual mores and the family unit in America today are very different then 150 years ago.
Why did they fall? Babylon was taken over by Alexander the Great and Sumer was absorbed into the Greek empire. Then Rome took over Greece. The reasons involved politics and military might, not sexual mores or family structures.
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posted
In terms of stability, I know of a fair number of niche family setups. For example, there are (or at least were) several African tribes in which people lived in communal dwellings according to their sex.
Also, there are a few small groups in Asia that did not have any real concept of marriage until it was encouraged by the national government. Family was essentially done on a matrilineal basis, where individuals would live with their mother's family for their entire lives. Sexual relationships tended to be fairly temporary, and the family of the mother is generally responsible for raising the child.
Neither of these societies ever really "advanced", but they have definitely proven to be stable.
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posted
Very interesting information! I think FlyingCow and ricree101 have good arguments that point to the makeup of the family unit not being the most important aspect of creating a stable society. But then why is it that in so much Utopian literature the nuclear family is denounced and a "better" way is talked about or shown? It almost isn't utopian if it doesn't have a significant change from the current prevailing family structure or sexual mores. Why?
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quote: But then why is it that in so much Utopian literature the nuclear family is denounced and a "better" way is talked about or shown?
I think that a lot of people who write Utopian literature do so because they want to question the current setup of society. The family structure and sexual mores are a big part of the setup of society, so it gets questioned.
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1) On NPR yesterday afternoon they spoke to a woman from Africa, the only conservationist ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. One question that was asked refered to an incident where women were protesting by stripping naked. The interviewee clarified.
"In our country, any woman old enough to be your mother is considered your mother. A group of women came to me, whose sons were in prison for political reasons. We began protesting these poor young men, the government became worried. They had many, many young men in prison. They sent in soldiers to make us be quiet, and the soldiers started beating us. A woman can not fight soldiers. They are strong and have weapons. All we could do was lift off our tops. That was an insult to the soldiers. It is an African insult, saying "Poor boy, you beat your mothers. Shame." In Africa, when a woman shows her nakedness to a man not her husband, it is an insult. This discourages sexual assault.
Here is proof of another way of life, not a strict family, but a family village, where all the older women were everyone's mother.
2)There was an archeological theory that the Ionic Greeks were a matriarchal society. Women ruled the family and the government. Kings were either Generals during war or sacrifices to be made yearly to Persephone to insure a good spring. However the Doric Greeks, or others, came riding out of the Eastern European Steppes with their mastery of horses and war. Much of what we know of as Greek Mythology tells the story of these cultures clashing. City heros from Hercules to Perseus to Jason are merely the victors spin on their manly conquest of matriarcle societies.
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There is a society in Africa we learned about in Anthropology (I don't remember specifically WHERE) that is living a rather modern lifestyle. They have schools, cars, jobs, etc. They have a "family unit" that is structured strangely. People "marry" only to conceive children, but the "nuclear" family actually consists of brothers and sisters, so that an uncle is that "father figure" in the childs life, and the biological father is mainly only making congical visits. There is slightly more interaction than that, and a strage way of dividing up expenses as well, but that's the basic breakdown.
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In ancient Sparta young boys were taken away at about 7 years of age to join other boys in the agoge, a system of education which revolved heavily around military training. They would live from then on in barracks, eating with their syssition (mess group - the same people they would go to war with, should it be declared) every night, until about 30 years of age or so.
Despite the more unusual aspects of Spartan marriage and family customs however (the wife would be dressed up like a boy and the man would chase her, and to consumate their marriage the man would sneak into his wife's house at night and leave afterwards to return to his barracks), the actual structure of the family was still a man, a wife and some children. I will have to look up who, but I think it was either Herodotus or Xenophon who said that when a wife was having problems getting pregnant, a man might ask his friend to lend him his wife. (Sparta always had a problem with having too small a population)
Take the above with a grain of salt, though, because ancient Sparta is a topic which is notorious for having very few and often sketchy sources. Anyhow, Sparta isn't the example you're looking for - the family structure is still the same.
I remember seeing something about a village in China where the male and female roles typical in most cultures seemed to be reversed (i.e. the women were out in the field, the men stayed home). I'm not sure how the family unit was organised though, so that might also be a dead end.
Hippy communes and utopianist camps are out, because you want mainstream stuff...
Of course, there is always Pol Pot's Cambodia, but that lasted about half a decade, and can hardly be characterised as 'stable', whatever that means.
Interesting question, Rien. Let us know if you find something concrete. I'm sure there are some good books on the subject, if you look around a book store with a big anthropology/social sciences section.
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Sparta changed a lot over time. State sponsored pederasty was a large part of their society, and it should be noted that for a couple hundred years, it was common practice for the women of the family to live in a separate housing unit behind the house where the man lived.
Boys were assigned to men to show them around, though that isn't all it involved. Later in life their "mentor" would help them pick out a wife. They had a custom of "kidnapping" the woman for marraige, but really it was more like a "Hey, I'll be out by the lagoon around 6 if anyone should be out trolling for wives I'll be undefended." And so captured they would be, but the "family" unit of Sparta is almost laughable.
Women lived in the houses full time, and were probably the freest, most powerful women in the ancient world at the time. They were given training in economic, owned property, and were expected to run the household in all ways while the men were away. Men came home or snuck away from the barracks to have sex with their wives to create more little Spartans, as it was state law that they had to produce children every so often, or swap wives to get the deed done.
Men of the military order lived in the barracks until very late in life (depends on the time period, this changed over time), and the children were taken to the agoge at a young age, then assigned into military orders and spent their lives in barracks.
But the class system in Sparta is what makes this difficult. That was life for the full Spartiate warrior citizenry. The merchants, and lesser warriors had a totally different lifestyle. But when you consider Lycurgan Reform as the mainstay, and reason that Sparta was so powerful for so long (by the way, they had some beautiful art and poetry), and considering their non-"traditional" family unit, I think they're a good example of what you're looking for.
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Lyrhawn, that's true, the role of women and marriage were very unique in Sparta (especially, as you say, the surprisingly 'liberal' role of women), but despite all that and the institutionalized pederasty, a son was still a son of a man and his wife. There was still a household to begin with, and sending a boy to the agoge was more like a modern English family sending their child off to a rather involved and scary boarding school. Your hereditary roots were still extremely important (e.g. the dual kingship, though a diluted oligarchic institution, was hereditary).
And as far as I know, family units among helots and perioikoi were nothing special for classical Greece.
No argument about the fact that these things changed over time, or that Sparta had some beautiful art. Both very true, but covered up under all of Sparta's propaganda.
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posted
Well in that case, you are almost never going to find what you want.
The only alternative is either some sort of commune, where everyone has sex with everyone else and the children are raised by the community at large, or you'll have some sort of homosexual thing where men/men relationships only meet with women/women relationships every now and then for the sake of producing offspring.
Sons will always be sons of men and women. That's biology, not societal experimentation. I think the standards set in looking for an alternative family unit are unachievable with the exception of the two examples I listed above.
Part of the problem too is the words "married," "husband," and "wife."
We're treating them as if they all mean the same thing, and that is some sort of distant cousin of what we have today in Western Christian culture. They aren't, and until we define them and separate them, it's a fruitless argument.
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quote: But why don't they [communes] advance? And why when they start to advance do they seem to move towards a nuclear family set up?
I think that communal living can only work in very small groups. When people advance, the groups get larger and communal living doesn't work so well.
I agree with Amanecer. I read a study a long time ago that researched why modern communes either fail or grow to a small size and then stabilize. The finding was that above around 200 people, trust that others are pulling their weight in the community dissolves, which leads to instability. When the group is smaller, everyone can see who is working and who is slacking. Also, there are the smaller-scale family unit issues, which vary depending on how the commune is set up.
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The wikipedia article on Sparta says this about the Spartan family unit, I don't know how accurate it is.
quote: Despite modern conceptions, homosexuality in Greece was only contained to a few select city-states. Yet one can not deny that the 'moral lines' of sexuality were less defined in ancient times as they are now. In Sparta, because of the boys military training beginning at a young age, it is suggested that Spartans were also homosexual. Such conceptions are false, and adhere modern standards to ancient times. In fact, in Sparta homosexual relations between a man and a child, or a man and a man were considered shameful, strongly discouraged, and highly disciplined. Women, on the other hand had a differen experience. Bisexual relations were common place among Spartan women, and it was often considered acceptable for married Spartan women to have affairs with unmarried women in their prime. This, by modern standards, would be considered adultery, but the Spartans did not consider it as such, and therefore Sparta was also one of the most monogomous city states in the known Greek world. There is one exception to the normal rule regarding marriages in Sparta. Women were more independent than in other Greek societies, and were able to negotiate with their husbands to bring their lovers into their homes. According to Plutarch in his work Life of Lycurgus, men both allowed and encouraged their wives to bear the children of other men, due to the general communal ethos which made it more important to bear many progeny for the good of the city, than to be jealously concerned with one's own family unit. However, some historians argue that this 'wife sharing' was only reserved for elder males who had not yet produced an heir. For this reason, Plutarch claims that the concept of "adultery" was alien to the Spartans, and relates that one ancient Spartan had said that it was as possible to find a bull with a neck long enough to stand on a mountain top and drink from a river below, as to find an adulterer in Sparta.
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Well in that case, you are almost never going to find what you want.
The only alternative is either some sort of commune, where everyone has sex with everyone else and the children are raised by the community at large, or you'll have some sort of homosexual thing where men/men relationships only meet with women/women relationships every now and then for the sake of producing offspring.
Yes it is difficult to find a pure example of what Rien was asking about. Sparta is close, but I still think that Spartan marriages are close enough to what we call marriage today, for us to consider Spartan family units as similar to our own. I think it was the agoge which was extraordinary.
A man had one wife, a woman had one husband, and they had children which were their own. A child was Cleomenes, son of Pausanias; not just Cleomenes. And it was the mother of a young hoplite who gave him the shield and said, "With it or on it", not just any mother.
The Spartans probably would say that their children belonged to the polis, but to an extent they considered themselves to be instruments of the state as well. I think that has more to do with the Lykourgan language used in our sources on Spartan law, and the propaganda the Spartans themselves spread.
That said, you're probably right that Sparta is about as close as we can get to a long-lasting society with a communal family system.
---
About the wikipedia excerpt:
Mostly that appears to be correct (though my memory is foggy on bisexual Spartan women).
Here's a quote from Plutarch on Spartan homosexuality:
quote:If out of admiration for a boy’s personality a man of the right character himself should seek to befriend him in all innocence and keep his company, Lycurgus would approve that and consider it the finest training. On the other hand if someone was obviously chasing after a boy for his body, he regarded that as an absolute disgrace and laid it down that at Sparta lovers should refrain from molesting boys just as much as parents avoid having intercourse with their children or brothers with their sisters.
There is the possibility though that homosexuality was considered acceptable in certain contexts only. For example in Athens a homosexual relationship with a boy might be acceptable, whereas fornicating with another man might be seen as a defilement of a full-citizen's body.
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posted
I did a little checking. There seem to be quite a few sources about bisexual women, Plutarch included.
In terms of what was acceptable in terms of pederasty, there was also a major difference between anal fornication (considered a defilement by Greeks in general, but it certainly happened), and intercourse between the thighs.
Xenophon, who is a great fan of things Spartan, says that homosexual relationships in Sparta were spiritual, and that the man would serve as a role model. But at the same time many plays in Attica poke fun at Spartan pederasty, and Xenophon is obliged to admit that most Greeks don't agree with him. Cartledge even believes that pederasty was an institution of the agoge.
There is also mention of Spartan hoplites in battle being lovers.
In any case, I'm derailing the thread - these homosexual relationships weren't the basis of family units.
quote: can think of many that were built on man, WOMEN, children, but I can't think of any any societies built on group marriage, gay marriage, many men with one woman or no marriage all with children taken care of by the origional type of group or society at large. Am I right? Why do you think this is?
History ain't over yet.
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What about the ancient matriarcle societies? I'm thinking of the advanced one that existed on Crete before King Minos.
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