What Family Values?

Stella Block

1994

Published in:

The Northwest Technocrat, 4th quarter 1994, No. 337

The brouhaha over Murphy Brown (a fictional character) having a baby out of wedlock was the nadir of silliness. The Vice-President of the United States (!) in his zeal to defend the values of "family" life, embroiled himself in the antics of a fictional TV program! This in the "enlightened" 1990s!

During many centuries any female having a baby out of wedlock was ostracized. The rules were very strict: no sex before marriage! -- For women! Virginity was a virtue prized above all else. The fear of pregnancy kept the girls "nice." For the males? That was different. After all it was the males who made the rule in the first place -- back in the Middle Ages. During the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s this rule has been shattered. Teenage pregnancies are now out of control. Millions of babies are being born who will never know who their father is. But diehard conservatives, clergy, politicians (such as the former Vice-President of the United States) are still longing for that supposedly ideal of the "nuclear family" consisting of the husband, the "breadwinner," the wife who stayed home and took care of the house and children. This was depicted in commercials and TV "sitcoms" of various types. Ads portrayed the "ideal family" as a man and woman, two children -- a boy (older), with a baseball glove on one hand, and a girl, clutching a doll in her arms. This depicted very graphically the different conditioning the two children received. The boy was taught the usual "manly" things, while the girl was conditioned from childhood that her place would be "in the home." The focus was on the dominant white middle-class population; all others were ignored. The African- American, the Asian-American, the Native Indian-American, the Mexican- American were not portrayed.

The concept of the "nuclear family" took centuries to evolve. It wasn't until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that paintings, sculptures, etc., depicting "family scenes" -- men, women and "small people," presumably children, began to circulate. Even the concept of "childhood" had to wait centuries before children were allowed to be "children." It is only in recent times that childhood has been extended into the late teens and early twenties. During the middle ages, children were thrust into adult life almost as soon as they could walk. They were required to do certain chores and participated in the adult life around them. Social stratification was very strict; clothes were a symbol of your station in life. Children of the well-to-do were sent to other households to be "educated" and in turn accepted other families' children for education in their homes.

The heyday of the "nuclear" family -- man, wife and their children probably occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries. The man was the "head" of the family; this was supported by the mores and folkways of the time. The clergy, business men and the politicians all supported it. There was a very good reason why this concept of "family" was supported -- the concept of property ownership. There was a time back in the Middle Ages when men and women could hold property separately -- each could buy and sell without consulting any one. But as the "family" concept evolved, it became easier to handle if property were to be under the control of the "man of the house." This concept of ownership eventually extended to wife and children -- all owned by the man. "The man of the house" was the breadwinner; mother stayed home -- full time, taking care of the children and home. The man, as the "breadwinner," was free to mingle and be in contact with outside influences; the wife was necessarily confined to the four walls of the "home." This arrangement was not questioned until extraneous energy reared its head in the form of Watts' steam engine (1776). Other technological innovations followed beginning in the 18th century. Electricity brought a major revolution into the concept of "home." The vacuum cleaner, the electric stove, the automatic washer and dryer, and the dishwasher was a boon to housewives. But, it left them with time on their hands, and the exodus into the workplace began. They too could work outside the home. Thus began the disintegration of the "ideal family." This was not done by any conscious effort on anybody's part, but the steady decline of the time rate of doing work by the use of extraneous energy applied to the means whereby people made their living pushed social change so inexorably that these changes seemed to take place without anyone being aware of what was happening.

Divorces were beginning to become commonplace as early as 1840 and have increased ever since. The number of households consisting of husband, wife and children had fallen from 40% to 26% in two decades. Today, in most households, both parents work; "latch-key" children are almost the norm. During the 1950s we witnessed the last gasp of the Victorian ideal of "family values." With the development of the "Pill" (medical technology) women no longer feared pregnancies, and the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s and 1970s was launched which knocked the concept of "virginity" into a cocked hat. With millions of children being born without a "father," how is the concept of "property" going to be maintained?

The people who are advocating a return to the old-fashioned values of the Victorian "family" are blind to the reality of today's social conditions. The physical conditions that permitted the development of the "nuclear family" no longer exist. The use of extraneous energy has changed the environment to such an extent that it has made the concept irrelevant and obsolete. Divorce and remarriages have spawned an entirely different combination of "family" life: As the divorced couples re-marry, they each bring their own children into the household, plus their former in-laws, new in-laws and their offspring and other relatives of various kinds and genders. This kind of "extended" family never existed before. And there are other combinations that are vying for attention and acceptance into the concept of "family:" Homosexual couples; lesbian couples; single individuals with "live-in" partners and other combinations with people of similar tastes, et cetera, et cetera!

The above recombination of what constitutes "family" is keeping social historians and economic sociologists scratching their heads to attach a label to this new kind of "family." Some call it "postindustrial," some call it "postmodern," and others have much less flattering terms to describe the ferment of what is going on. Whether we like it or not, it has happened: social change is here -- now. The end is not yet in sight and we cannot go back. The concept of "family values" has gone the way of the small family farm, the slide rules, soda fountains in drug stores and wedding night virginity.

But -- we haven't "seen nothin' yet!" Wait until the computer age hits us with full force. Already its effects are being felt in every phase of our society. Technocracy's technological design is the only concept that has kept pace with the fast changing social climate that has been brought in by the use of extraneous energy.