Family Stage 2/11/20

RECAP

Of the eight stages of social evolution, the Family stage initiates society with sustained cooperative behavior between two adults. The binding is the commitment to cooperate with a spouse and to parent children.

INTRODUCTION

In the pre-social Individual stage there was no sustained cooperation between adults. In the Family stage two adults sustain cooperation in a committed relationship. This is a major change in behavior and survivability. Instead of attacking each other they defend each other. Instead of taking food from each other they share food with each other. Instead of watching for each other they watch out for each other.

PRIMARY BEHAVIORS

The defining behavior of the Family stage is the sustained cooperation between a mated pair of adults which created the first human society. This cooperation is eventually enhanced by the desire for family, the desire for spouse, the desire for children, the desire to care for family, spouse, children and subsequent generations. 

Dual parenting is an extension of single parenting in the Individual stage but that extension had powerful consequences. In the Individual stage mothers teach their children what they were taught by their mothers plus what they learned in their lives. This is the beginning of traditions: retained knowledge passing from one generation to the next. In the Family stage children can learn lessons from both parents with twice the opportunity for knowledge, twice the knowledge retained from previous generations and twice the knowledge accumulated in the life experiences of the parents. This blending of knowledge from two family lines, one from the male and one from the female, would extend the wisdom of their children and accelerate the evolution of traditions. Although the mated pair benefited from their combined retained knowledge it also created a conflict between the parents as they attempted to select the best traditions from each lineage. That process goes on today in the most advanced societies.

Children in the Family stage have a much better chance of survival with two adults to feed and protect them. In return, two adults who cooperate to protect and feed each other as they raise children have a much better chance of passing on their genes to future generations. Both parents would have longer lives and more children. Individuals with the behavioral tendency to cooperate with a mate would have more surviving children with the same instincts or learned behavior. Children with appealing behaviors would be most likely to survive childhood.

Families would be likely to compete with each other for food and territory. This lethal competition between families provides the same function at the social level that individual competition and survival provide for biological organisms. Competition serves to select superior behaviors, cull inferior behaviors and support diversity among the families so they are more resilient to cyclic environmental changes.

In the Family stage, the survival of the family becomes paramount to survival of the individual. This ancient instinct to protect children and spouse at all costs shows up in modern behavior where parents will even sacrifice their own lives to save their children. Spouses will do the same to save their partner. Survival instincts are among the most if not the most powerful motivations we have. 

ORIGIN OF SOCIETY 

It seems like the origins of cooperation and social behavior fall in the midst of the violence of the Individual stage. It happened when a parent stayed with her child or brood rather than abandoning it. This simple behavior seems to be the rooting of cooperation, conformity, tradition, retained knowledge, intelligence and society itself. Even if the parent did nothing more than wait for the child to follow, the child's survival would be strongly improved by imitating what the parent did. Without that guidance young would  have to start from only their own instincts and figure everything out on their own. The better they were at learning from the parent (INTELLIGENCE) the more likely their genes were to survive. The more likely the child was to survive (EVOLUTION) the more likely the parent's genes were to be passed on reinforcing the parenting behavior. When these children allowed their own children to follow them around, they were not only passing on what they had learned in their lives but what they had learned from their parent and tradition (KNOWLEDGE) was initiated. As the individual parents (if there were two parents it would be a Family stage society) learned to feed and protect their children the survival of their genes was enhanced again. This also provided the bridge to the Family stage when the other parent cooperated with the single parent.

BULLYING

Children with tendencies to cooperate with their parents, to follow them and to mimic them have a better chance of surviving. Although they are likely encouraged to cooperate with their siblings their Individual stage instincts are to compete with them. This allows the strongest children to survive if they are competing for survival. Older, stronger children would have the tendency to batter younger and weaker children, taking food from them when they could. This would encourage the survival of the most belligerent. This would encourage the survival of the elder children which does have survival benefit since younger children are quicker to replace than older children.

FIDELITY

The mated pair would need to stick together to get the full benefit of their cooperation. Any time they were separated they would be living at the higher risk level of the Individual stage. The male would need to be around the female all the time to protect her from other males except when he is poaching other females. Males who continued to impregnate as many women as they could would greatly increase the chances that their genes would be passed on. Females who accepted impregnation from other males would increase the possibility that her genes would join with a stronger child. Females would always put their energy into raising their own children. As a result, there is a high probability that the children in any family would have come from different fathers. This would increase the diversity in the gene pool and would also decrease the efficiency of males raising their own children to pass on their own genes.

This is likely the source of modern conflicts around monogamy. Infidelity by either partner is often dismissed as “not meaning anything” as the commitment to the casual lover is subordinate to that with the bonded partner. Since fidelity is often taken as a symbol of dedication to the partnership it is hard for the other partner to see infidelity as anything other than betrayal.

SECONDARY AND INDIRECT SURVIVAL BENEFITS

In the Individual stage organisms have freedom of behavior limited by instinct and survival. As they progress to the Family stage they have to trade some of their freedom to support their partner. This lowers their individual survivability as they put themselves at risk to protect their partner. Participating in parenting also lowers individual survivability as they put themselves at risk to protect their progeny. In both of these cases they lower their own survival priorities in order to improve the survivability of the family. The same thing already happened in the Individual stage when a female started parenting her progeny. In return partnership improves individual survival and even more importantly family cooperation improves survivability of the progeny and the continuation of the parents' genes. It is an investment that yields long term gains for the individual's genes and the survival of the species.

Solitary living is limited by low food density. If two people search together, they get half as much to eat. If they search separately they lose the mutual protection survival benefit. Protohumans had to develop clubs and spears to improve hunting yields in order to support family based living.

PROGRESSIVE BEHAVIORS

The transition from the Family stage to the Tribal stage seems to have been facilitated by cooperation between families.

As a family's children survived to maturity they would be inclined to choose partners from other families. Inbred families resulted in fragile genes less likely to survive. The bonding of partners between families was the glue for extended families and clans. The difference between a clan and a tribe is that the clan is based on shared ancestry and personal commitment while tribes are based on a shared belief system. Both are grounded in tradition.

REGRESSIVE BEHAVIORS

Anytime one of the two adults in a family died, the social stage automatically regressed to Individual stage behavior until or unless the surviving adult cold find a new partner. If both adults die, the children may try to survive by continuing to cooperate with each other or they may regress into Individual stage primary behavior abandoning cooperation. 

Before modern times, ending a committed relationship between adults was pretty much a death sentence for both adults and children. Survival was a tenuous thing and partnership significantly increased longevity.

In prolonged desperate situations abandoning a family might improve individual survivability in the short term at the expense of gene survivability in the long term. In shorter intervals of desperation sustaining the family would improve individual and gene survivability. The decision to abandon the children or the partnership is problematical. If the lethal situation continues long enough individual survival favors abandonment. If the lethal situation is short enough individual survival favors persistence. Nature tends to resolve these indeterminate issues by splitting her bets. Some families will scatter and some will persist. Both instincts are retained in the Rule of Opposing Influences.

In modern times the termination of a committed relationship returns the partners to Individual stage secondary (subordinate) behavior.

COORDINATION

In the partnership of the Family stage, one of the adults needs to be the authority to provide immediate coordination. In an Individual stage environment, pausing to consider options would very likely be fatal for the individual. In a Family stage environment, pausing to discuss or argue about options would very likely be fatal for the family.

Cooperation without coordination tends to be chaotic. The powerful survival benefits of the Family stage can be easily defeated with the two adults bickering over decisions. In survival situations “follow the leader” has to be paramount. Although there are always benefits from negotiated decisions drawing on two perspectives authority must rule in critical situations. Authority's decisions may be fatal but arguing with them will more often be. Arguing with authority weakens cooperation but can improve decision making.

MODERN IMPACT

In post instinctive societies Family stage behaviors make major contributions. Before the advent of public education the retained knowledge of family traditions and family lineage were the respected institutions for managing and ruling. The progeny of wealthy or ruling families have been allowed and expected to continue their traditions. The “divine right” to rule or wealth is a rationalization of this as the church allies to support generational continuity. “To follow in his father's footsteps” is a cliche reflecting this at a more mundane level.

Training of children in individual families contributes to diversity in a society while schooling children in groups counters with supporting conformity in the society. This is another example of the Rule of Opposing Influences.

The impact of Family stage behaviors on modern society can't be overestimated. Our family of origin relationships repeat themselves over and over in our lives. Our bosses, teachers and leaders serve largely as parents. Our close friendships reflect siblings of choice. God is defined as Father and prophets as Brother in many religions. The instinct to blindly follow leadership starts with the child relationship to an authoritarian father. The same survival benefit of coordination reinforces this instinct in Tribe stage behavior. In the Nation stage there is often friction between those who regard leaders as managers and those who regard them as father figures. Leaders often maintain symbolic and actual distinctions from subordinates to enhance authority. Teachers and nurses are usually mother figures. Peers in close relationships are often seen as siblings.