Dr. Anapol begins her article by going over the history of families and then addresses the issues among families today. She goes over why the current situation for women- working full time and taking care of a family/household full time- is not working and how it poorly affects the children. So, she offers a new kind of family to remedy the situation:
"First let me describe what a combo family is and how it functions. Three to eight adults, of any mutually agreeable age and gender mix, form a marriage-type partnership. Possibly they incorporate or form a family trust, since there is no legal means of marriage for more than two people in the United States. They live with their co-parented children in one large or several adjacent houses or flats. They share domestic and economic responsibilities, just as an old-fashioned family does, but there are more hands to join in the workand the fun! Impossible? Too complicated? Unworkable? No more so than our current arrangements! Of course, we could simply reduce the average work week to 20 hours per week so that two parents could work half-time (for full-time pay) and parent full-time, but that would be even more difficult to bring about! And the combo family has the potential of utilizing a group synergy not found in single-parent or two-parent families. Even more significantly, it transforms humanity's polygamous nature from a liability to an asset. Combo families may seem like a big leap on the evolutionary path, but consider the advantages for children."
http://www.lovewithoutlimits.com/articles/The_Future_of_The_Family.html
I do not support Dr. Anapol's opinion because I do not think that humanity has a "polygamous nature," but it was still an interesting article to read.
I just wanted to pose some questions and thoughts about the article, I agree it's very interesting:
ReplyDelete-I agree with you that people don't have a polygamous nature. Simply, if we were polygamous, there would be no laws against it and most families would have more than 2 adults. It'd be considered normal. Unless you consider serial monogamy a type of polygamy. But to me, the key determinant of polygamy is that a person is in a relationship with at least 2 others at once, not just 2 or more over a lifetime. So most people aren't.
- Even if most people in marriages are actually adulterous, divorce is still a minority, and most marriages work.
-Would you have to limit the number of kids in a combo family? Because if 2 kids are hard for 2 parents to financially support, wouldn't having 6 kids with 4 adults be as much or more of a problem? Maybe it would result better because she's saying there would be a better chance for someone to always be taking care of the kids.
- It doesn't sound bad because its similar to having grandparents take care of kids while parents work (a type of multi-adult household I'd say)
- Why does she say the one-on-one parent-child bond is often unhealthy?
- I guess sexual jealousy might not occur because all the adults are committed to each other, so it doesn't matter who is sexual with who.