The birth of [the nuclear] family happened after the French Revolution:
the birth of the basic contours of the family that we've known as the traditional family,
which in Marxian terms is the feudal family. In that traditional family,
the wife had the position of a feudal surf. She lived in a domicile, some kind of rental or home
that was in the husband's name. And she got a share of what she produced: the food,
the resources of child care, the cleaning the cooking, the taking care of her husband.
She got a share of what she produced- really in exchange like a feudal serf-
for working on property owned by her husband. This was put into motion after the French Revolution
because after the French Revolution, things were very chaotic in France. What happened was that the
old order broke down. That was the order of serfs and lords, the feudal order which was blessed
by the Catholic Church all around Europe. And there, the father of the family was the father:
the oldest living male who gave birth to children, and his first lieutenant was his firstborn son,
and they decided the futures of everyone else in the family. When feudalism broke down, that family
form broke down because the serfs left for towns that were starting. They had to get off of the
land because the feudal lords wanted to use huge tracts of land for raising livestock and sheep.
And therefore, they didn't need all these little family farms and these little family feudal surfs
offering up a share of their produce to the lord in exchange for working the lord's land. So,
they were thrown out, and the whole feudal order broke down. People went to little towns where some
of them had jobs. Children were born outside of any kind of wedding or any kind of way of
supporting them because there was no structure in place. And so after the French Revolution,
those who still had the means saw an emergency. They were what was left of the French nobility
that hadn't been killed, what was left of the Catholic clergy who owned vast tracts of land
and some of the newly rich people from the towns realized they had to do something. The reason
they realized is one of the big demands of the French Revolution was state support for children,
and the rich realized, "Uh oh. If there's state support, who's going to be able to pay for it?
There'll be taxes on us. That can't happen." And so they came up with the nuclear family idea:
that the man would be the feudal lord of his own little household.
The wife would be there because she would have protection through pregnancy,
and in exchange, she would work full time on the care of the home,
on production in the home of the foodstuffs they ate, of cleanliness and child care.
Now, that was documented in an incredible book by Jacques Donzelot called "The Policing of Familes."
It's not good reading. It's written in the turgid, difficult prose. But he documents very carefully
and historically what these meetings were and the agreements that were drawn up. And the way they
enforced that kind of family is that no one was given a job unless he had that kind of family:
a dependent wife and children, and people were desperate for work. Because, the society had
broken down and there was nothing available. And in that way, they enforced the new family form.