The Central Place of the Nuclear Family

For women and their children, the nuclear family is obviously the vital center of their lives. They are together much of the time, cooperate in much of what is most important to each of them, and are united by strong emotional bonds. For men, the situation is less of a piece. Men have few close ties, but the closest of all are with their wives (see chap. 10). Their relations with their children, especially their sons, can be rather distant, and their relations with both sons and daughters are not close in comparison with those between the mother and children. Still, these are the closest relations the men have from

an emotional perspective and the most responsible from a material and social perspective.

We have seen that neighbors and nonnuclear family kin play crucial parts in people's lives, but this does not diminish the role the nuclear family plays. Much of what all group members do is either with other nuclear family members or, as regards men's work, viewed as largely in the interests of those members. Members are in constant contact with one another and are interested in almost everything done or happening to any of the others.

In nuclear families that do not break up through divorce, one would assume that members' activities are guided by similar understandings about the way the family life is and how it ought to be. If the members did not share these beliefs and values initially—as when a couple first marries and as children grow up—there is ample opportunity for mutual socialization, so that the importance of cultural sharing is accompanied by what may be a unique opportunity to achieve that sharing.

Thus, the cultural elements concerning this group, it would seem, are at least as likely to be shared among its members as most others. In the following chapter, the extent of this sharing will be examined and it will be shown that it is, in fact, substantially less than complete.