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As Mia
told me,
"I chose happiness over comfort.”
Whereas women once pledged
devotion to one man in exchange for protection and security in marriage, most
Western women can provide for themselves. This development distresses traditionalists
who are rightly reluctant to throw out old mores that have evidently succeeded.
Most of us were conceived in marriages. Yet we often fail to live up to
the "unto death do us part" part.
Are we failing the traditional mores or are they failing us?
In the West, birth rates have plummeted
with many females bearing only one child or none at all. Their birth or
adopted children have no siblings to become aunts and uncles, and families die
out. This is fine if we are planning for the demise of our homo sapiens
branches. If not, we need a better reproductive strategy.
In Sweden, most child births now take
place out of wedlock. The vast majority of the fathers are committed to
care for the child and remain present in their lives. There is a very good chance that
the birth parents will "live in sin" or at least continue a close relationship.
In a secular society such as Sweden's, this carries little or no stigma.
Indeed, if there is at least one parent to ensure that the child does not become
dependent upon the state, there need be no public dimensions except for
violations of the rights of the child (which need to be more graduated).
This includes the parents' gender, number,
and sexual proclivities.
The ability to keep
commitments to children is paramount. Good couples all recognize this and
many remain together "for the children's sake". However, infidelities
usually happen and generally limit growth of the parents and of the children.
Should divorce occur, the
children should be able to benefit from newly opened doors. It
is simply stupid when, after much investment in each other and children,
partners shut down communication.
Liberation from the
expectations of lifelong cohabitation allow parents to develop close
relationships with diverse others, choosing those
to whom they may have the most to give and
from whom they may have the most to learn.
But can adults really
separate their innate yet juvenile and genetically motivated jealousies and
pride from their actual needs, and those of their children? And more, can
the religiously driven be pried from out-of-date texts, and aim to make heaven
on earth instead?
Towards a New Definition of Family
The superrich have often had
unconventional arrangements. Now that the American middle class is increasingly
filling with international travelers having a high level of material
security, won’t it inevitably change its mores to take advantage of the
opportunities to intimately discover the world?
Those of us who believe
that we are in control of our destinies will
be more inclined to write our own codes of conduct. The inheritance of a flawed
genetic lineage is not one of our children's needs. Quickly evolving
technology that identifies and corrects genetic defects will
inexorably lead to selection and insertion of desirable traits. The availability
of such reproductive technologies can only make people question their sexual
practices and mores even more. Reproduction by random recombination of
the genes of parents who happen to have “fallen in love” is unlikely to be optimal. Geneticists, here to mitigate the more serious risks today and engineer evolution tomorrow have the most interesting practice in medicine,
alongside neurologists.
Revision History
Written by Bruce A. McHenry.
First draft for Tania Nanevicz, 1991. Thanks for Shirley Nanevicz for her
support.
Multiple subsequent revisions with thanks to numerous people for revisions.
First posted on the web 2/2/2003.
Edited and reposted,
2/7/2003
. Edited
2/9/2003
,
10/1/2003
,
3/9/2004, 8/22/2005
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