The Nuclear Family

Submitted by: Jamila Ferguson

Ideally, society teaches us that the typical family consists of two married people, which are a man and a woman, plus their offspring. This is called the “nuclear” family. In before times the man was the breadwinner and the women stayed at home and took care of the children, etc. Yet in today’s time we are learning that there are many deviations in the family. I’ve noticed that in the previous neighborhood that I lived in, Polygyny has become more popular than it has been in recent years due to the number of people converting their religion over Islam, where primarily the husband is married to more than one woman. This usually happens when the primary wife cannot bear children or become seriously ill and can no longer tend to the house or the children. The second, third, or fourth wives are considered “co-wives”. In addition, the percentages of married couples in the U.S. are becoming smaller and smaller due to the independence that women are gaining. Michelle Obama is a great example of this. Also, many families are beginning to be ran by female figures. For instance, my cousin got married and pregnant when she was 18 and immediately afterwards she divorced her husband because of infidelity reasons. My cousin’s husband then abandoned her and the baby and does not support the child in any way. Now she’s all alone, a single-mother stuck, with the responsibility of raising a child and taking care of the household on her own. However, some men in Nepal and Tibet allow their wife to be married to more than one man so that the amount of limited land that’s inherited can be shared. In this case the woman usually marries brothers (Richard Shaefer, 2011), this is called polyandry. To me this sounded weird because in the United States it is generally considered “adultery” or cheating when anyone has other relations with someone else outside their primary marriage. It is considered degrading to date more than one man, let alone brothers. Despite my opinion about multiple spouses and my belief in the traditional nuclear family, I also understand the motives behind why spouses marry more than just one.