“not entirely accurate”, well isn’t that an understatement. Weave in deconstruction theory, add in a whopping dose of Marxism and you have historical revision writ large.
When you delve deeply enough and expose the obvious and very deliberate gender bias, based on denigrating men, capitalism and even the poor old nuclear family, it’s downright disgraceful and has no claim to being taken seriously at all. . But Sair, it is you who are doing all the neat Marxist tricks of putting labels on people and turning them into juxtaposed ideologies. Very Marxist. You even labelled yourself!!
Considering that much of history, up until the feminist revision, was written by and for men, and largely ignored women’s role in society except as virgins, mothers or whores - yes, there’s that labelling again, but this time imposed by the mainstream - any attempt at revision is worthwhile simply from the point of view of challenging the received ‘wisdom’. You know, epistemic duty and all that…
Ooh, Sair, isn’t that a wee bit condescending?
You would know, being an apparent master of the art yourself.
And the evidence shows that this is a wrong notion, which is why I pulled examples, poetry included, from various times past. Your notion is one derived from a revisionist perspective on history. Indeed, but it does show that very strong relationships were formed because of romantic love and not because of the economic expediency you would have us believe.
The evidence doesn’t show any such thing. You might recall that I did not dispute the existence of love, even occasionally in marriage. Your examples stand out precisely because they were the exception, not the rule - at least, those examples which were actually of loving marriages (though one of those, at least, occurred well into the modern period, at which point the idea of romantic love in marriage had ceased to be such an anomaly). As for the poetry and the tragedies, well, they illustrate my point, not yours.
Extended family was a big feature of western societies until very recently. There are even people who lament the fall away in importance of the extended family right here on CAF. The extended family has been replaced by using governments to take the place of family members looking after their own kith and kin. Now that’s another product of feminist left wing politics. You know, freeing the woman from home duties so she can have a fancy job and party like a man.
Because goodness knows, we couldn’t have women claiming the privileges men have taken for granted all that time
You do realise, of course, that the nuclear family, as a separate economic unit, was a feature of modern life well before the second wave of feminism - if anything, it seems likely that the domestic isolation of women in such circumstances only added fuel to the fires of social revolution.
That quote from Margaret Mead is from 1963. She is there lamenting exactly what I pointed out, which is what even people here on CAF also lament; the isolated family. That is in contrast to her quote stating that the nuclear family has been a part of human civilisation since the dawn of time. She wrote that in the 1950s. The nuclear family was a part of an extended family, all there to help.
Certainly parents have existed and taken care of their own children since the dawn of time! That is not the same thing as the modern conception of the nuclear family, as you well know, though you’ve tried to mangle the terminology for your own ends. Considering that from the beginning, this argument has been about social norms, and my claim was that the nuclear family - conceived as the isolated unit it presently is - is comparatively a very recent social norm, your attempt to muddy the waters is simply missing the point.
I put it to you that the break up of the extended family, which is causing the isolation of the nuclear family, is the direct result of the adoption of socialist principles as demanded by groups such as the radical left wing feminist groups.
And I put it to you, in turn, that the nuclear family as it currently exists, and has existed for the past couple of centuries or so, is an economic expedient that serves the interests of post-Industrial-Revolution capitalism, and an arrangement that pre-dates the advent of both socialism and feminism as political movements. The claim that the move from extended family collectives to small independent units that isolated women and overburdened them with domestic duties is a socialist, feminist innovation is clearly inaccurate - an obvious attempt to put the cart before the horse and place the fault at the feet of the victims rather than the perpetrators.
But even that fails. For instance, two thirds of a majority Catholic population supported gay union in Spain. Many more people were swayed by a simple appeal to civil rights than the complicated notion that the institution of marriage is somehow protected, rather than damaged, by forcing gays to live out of wedlock.