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I don’t know if it’s optimal, but it sure is intimate and stable.

Your spouse will never move to another city for a new job w/o you. Your kids won’t leave the nucleus, at least not until they’re college ready.

Unlike family, different kinds of arrangements between people result in relationships that are less committed and less durable.

So maybe if you take stability and intimacy into account, it might as well be optimal.

I guess it begs the question, what are we optimizing for? And on what time scale?

What might seem optimal for the time being, could unleash a series of unforeseen circumstances in the future.

But I guess we can keep an open mind, allow people to choose for themselves and then report back after 2-3 generations the consequences of different paths taken.




Given the divorce rate and the number of single-parent families in the US (and much of the West?), I don't think I'd call the nuclear family "stable".


Stability rates vary over time. But in the context of this discussion, I meant stable relative to other social arrangements.

Thus relative to the current divorce rates, I would wager that “divorce” rates among friends and other social structures are even greater.




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