The Explanation of Ideology: Family Structure and Social Systems

An Anthropological Explanation of Ideology?, September 19, 2004

An amazing book that is, unfortunately, very difficult to find. Todd provides an anthropological definition of family structures and shows how many ideological structures have mapped, with remarkable precision, to certain family structures. There are seven definable family types, which are defined by attitudes towards spouse selection, attitudes towards symmetry in family/social (inheritance & law) relations, and attitudes towards whether married children can live at home. Spouse selection within these families can be decided by custom - usually the preference is cousins - or parents, or the two getting married are free to decide. Laws of inheritance can be egalitarian, show more non-egalitarian or indifferent. That is the inheritance is either divided equally between all - in practice this usually means all sons, or divided unequally - one son only receives the patrimony, or any which way you please. These family types are defined as follows:

1. Absolute Nuclear Family:
a. Spouse selection: Free, but obligatory exogamy.
b. Inheritance: Indifference - no precise rules, frequent use of wills.
c. Family Home: no cohabitation of married children with their parents.
d. Representative Nations, Peoples, Regions: Anglo-Saxon world, Holland, Denmark.
e. Representative Ideology: Christianity, Capitalism, `Libertarian' Liberalism, and Feminism.

2. Egalitarian Nuclear Family:
a. Spouse selection: Free, but obligatory exogamy.
b. Inheritance: Egalitarian - equality between brothers.
c. Family Home: no cohabitation of married children with their parents.
d. Representative Nations, Regions: northern France, northern Italy, central & southern Spain, central Portugal, Greece, Romania, Poland, Latin America, Ethiopia.
e. Representative Ideology: Christianity (Catholicism); the "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite" form of Liberalism.

3. Authoritarian Family:
a. Spouse selection: Parents, little or no marriage between children of brothers.
b. Inheritance: Anti-Egalitarian - inequality between brothers, transfer of patrimony to one son.
c. Family Home: cohabitation of the married heir with his parents.
d. Representative Nations, Peoples, Regions: Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Bohemia, Scotland, Ireland, peripheral regions of France, northern (Basque) Spain, northern Portugal, Japan, Korea, Jews, Romany Gypsies.
e. Representative Ideology: Fascism, various separatist and autonomous (anti-universalist) movements.

4: Exogamous Community Family:
a. Spouse selection: Parents, no marriage between the children of two brothers.
b. Inheritance: Egalitarian - equality between brothers.
c. Family Home: cohabitation of married sons with their parents.
d. Representative Nations, Regions: Russia, Yugoslavia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Finland, Albania, central Italy, China, Vietnam, Cuba and north India.
e. Representative Ideology: Communism, Socialism.

5. Endogamous Community Family:
a. Spouse selection: Custom, frequent marriage between the children of brothers.
b. Inheritance: Egalitarian - equality between brothers.
c. Family Home: cohabitation of married sons with their parents.
d. Representative Nations, Peoples, Regions: Arab world, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tadzhikistan.
e. Representative Ideology: Islam.

6. Asymmetrical Community Family:
a. Spouse selection: Custom, prohibition on marriages between the children of brothers, but a preference for marriages between the children of brothers and sisters.
b. Inheritance: Egalitarian - equality between brothers.
c. Family Home: cohabitation of married sons with their parents.
d. Representative Regions: southern India.
e. Representative Ideology:

7: Anomic Family:
a. Spouse selection: Free, but without obligatory exogamy; consanguine marriage possible and sometimes frequent.
b. Inheritance: Indifference - uncertainty about equality between brothers, inheritance rules egalitarian in theory but uncertain in practice.
c. Family Home: cohabitation of married children with parents rejected in theory but accepted in practice.
d. Representative Nations, Peoples, Regions:
e. Representative Ideology: Buddhism, Christianity, and Communism, but potentially anything.

This translation dates from 1985 though it was published earlier in that decade in France. He predicts the fall of the Soviet Union because the satellite states (like Poland) and internal (Moslem) `satellite states' will prove non-absorbable. He also predicts that the USA Islam were heading towards conflict because of, in large part, Anglo-Saxon feminism. The predictive power of this anthropological approach is also visible in the deep anti-universalism of the authoritarian family. The gypsies, for instance, refuse to be absorbed by other cultures even though they have no identifiable ideological commitments. Naturally, in this short note I cannot bring out all the insights, originality and subtlety of the text, though he does leave the impression that family structure can explain everything - it can't. ...Still, this text is well worth hunting down. show less