Changes in family structure

[Post-Something]

I read somewhere that in the final stage of communism, Monogamy wouldn't necessarily be the typical family structure. Is this true? And if it is, would love cease to be interpersonal?

[Kwisatz Haderach]

In the final stage of communism, the typical family structure would be whatever the typical person wants it to be. One of the purposes of communism is to liberate people from the weight of tradition and to allow them to choose whatever lifestyle they desire.

[mykittyhasaboner]

yes it is true, there wouldnt be a common family structure ,and as edric said you could live however you want. this wouldnt be the end to interpersonal relationships though, its the persons choice whether they want to form a relationship, or 'couple'.

[Niccolò Rossi]

The best source of reading material in regard to this is The Origin of the Family Private Property and the State (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm). It is a ridiculously long and monotonous work and I don't at all expect you to read it, instead I might post some important excerpts later if time permits.

In it Engels tracks the development of family relations with the progress of history and the corresponding relations of production. He concludes that for the Bourgeoisie, monogamy is family structure corresponding to the laws of inheritance and the division of labour, binding woman to her husband out of necessity. This means within the Bourgeoisie "immorality" in the form of prostitution and adultery are rife.

Monogamy for the proletariat on the other hand, due to the lack of an inheritance relationship remains vulgarized and is based solely on "sex-love". From this he foresaw in a future communist society, not monogamy as was seen in the era of primitive communism, but rather a monogamy based on sex-love.

This work is certainly high dubious in it's facts and predictions but is a highly interesting read.

I would agree, as has been said above. The family structure may change, matter of fact, it most certainly will. I believe it will become less rigid in it's structure, with free love and potentially polygamy and group infant rearing becoming common place.

[Faux Real]

Here's a part of an essay I wrote for my anthropology class on this subject. For the most part I'm just explaining how this rigid family system came about, but I do raise the issue of polygamous family systems being able to 'make a comeback' if the trend of extreme individualist priorities revert to community oriented ones.

Highly industrialized countries, such as the USA or the United Kingdom, are founded on the basis of capitalist economics, with private enterprises taking over the roles kinship systems previously held and operated in pre-capitalist society. This takeover of daily activity in production and distribution to survive erases the need of kin to survive together. In turn, the kinship system is disrupted, with kin taking to move out of the household. With this breaking down of the family system, the trend becomes a movement towards the 'nuclear family' system.

There are exceptions. In urban environments, those near complete poverty tend to keep an extended family so there are people to depend on in times of need to provide for each other collectively, is it polygamous? No. However, this does decrease the prevalence of individualism, and fills quite a few gaps left by economic and social hardships.

Perhaps it is possible for kinship systems to “revert” towards their former communal or socially responsible duties after already having gone through the process of industrialization, all the while retaining the benefits created through industrial society and possibly even expanding upon it in a technologically advanced manner.

Compared to individualistic cultures, in pluralistic cultures there is much more of a safety net (one that isn't liable to be privatized at that) for one's social upbringing due to the dynamic forms of support indirect relatives, even if not related genetically, are required to provide. Whereas this is the case in those cultures, the decline of prevalence with matrilinear and patrilinear societies has led to increased social isolation, alienation, and individualism. This is not always the case seeing that poor urban families remain a strong connection with each other. Immigration can be a contributing factor to this re-integration of the kinship even within industrialized society, albeit for the most part at the expense of a “not-so-well-to-do” socioeconomic situation.

Serial monogamy has overtaken polygamy in stratified societies such as the United States and the United Kingdom, and has been ever since the Industrial Revolution, with the onset of the modern centralized state, private property, and profession culture. It may be in large part due to, as mentioned before, the state undertaking the jobs held before by a group of kin that extends for more than direct descendants. The need to obtain and share property, as scarce as it is in individualistic cultures dominated by capitalist economics, still exists as it did and does in communalistic cultures. The benefits reaped from said property are shared just between the couple and stay there rather than reaching any other ends of the kin.

[wes]

Engles said It was more important to anaylze the family and where it came from in history because it is the job of the people who are there when the time comes and not his to speculate.

[Hit The North]

In the final stage of communism, the typical family structure would be whatever the typical person wants it to be. One of the purposes of communism is to liberate people from the weight of tradition and to allow them to choose whatever lifestyle they desire.

This is already a reality in the advanced capitalist societies, which are no defenders of tradition. Marriage is at an all time historical low for bourgeois society and there are a number of competing family forms which are serious rivals to the statistically dominant monogamous couple. The difference is that individual free choice about how one wants to live is largely absent from this move towards plurality. Instead, economic compulsion drives the process.

As Banned In Algeria's essay indicates, capitalism has generally been the enemy of family relations, despite the moralistic rhetoric of bourgeois ideologues. Under the pressures imposed on people from regimes of capitalist accumulation, it is a struggle for people (especially the poor) to maintain strong, familial bonds. The ironic contradiction is that these same regimes of accumulation make the family a valuable economic resource of last resort for the poor at the same time as they create the social conditions which undermine it.

From the perspective of Historical Materialism, all superstructural forms such as the family and the ideas which justify and sanctify them are shaped by underlying forces and relations of production. This is even more true in capitalism where the economic sphere dominates over the political and ideological spheres.

Under communist society - which is nothing but the free association of people - we would expect family forms to reflect that.

[Demogorgon]

It will reflect the wishes of each individual. Already in liberal Western countries we see that emerging with the most popular family structure consisting of two people of the opposite sex in a long term but not life long relationship, but of course there are many different structures as well.

You cannot say "the family will look like x" because people have a vast variety of sexual and social preferences, meaning that the "right" structure will be a bit different for each person.