break out in hives when self identified progressive interlocutors position that the problem of modern alienation is located in the fractured nuclear family. like, if you want, you can lament that it in the west, there are no longer large, expansive family units tied together by kinship and marriage that labour toward a common purpose. except this has been a violent form in all the history i know. in parts of the world where the family still represents this feudal image the price paid by victims of its inevitable violence is escalating. the social control the average hindu joint family is capable of enacting with a police empowered to serve the family when recognised explicitly by the state as an engine for organising productivity is terrifying. please stop fantasising about the benevolent patriarch and the loving matriarch.
the greatest single contributor to much of my childhood happiness compared to many of my peers was being raised in a nuclear family, my parents financially indepedent and physically removed the hindutva fascists that pepper my family tree.
since this is getting attention just wanna reiterate that i originally tagged this post my fave is family abolition etc because im pro abolition of the family. which also includes the nuclear family! this specific post was pushback against the characterisation of the extended family as a solution to alienation by highlighting how insidious its control can be. my personal experience was positioned as a counterweight, with how a smaller family can give young people a certain degree of autonomy.
the one thing that the hindu nationalist push for the uniform civil code reforms in india i expect will continue to preserve is the legal fiction of the hindu undivided family and the tax benefits hindu owned businesses get to claim by incorporating as such.