CULTURAL EVOLUTION AND THE NUCLEAR FAMILY: WHITHER CLEAVAGE OF THE FATHER?

As the 21st century continues to unfold, two very distinct versions of the father will compete for ascendancy across the world's community of cultures. One version is of very recent vintage and casts the role of the social father as supernumerary or optional. Cultures which adopt such a version tend to have high levels of divorce and out-of-wedlock births plus a pervasive cash economy as defining characteristics. The mother-child(ren) dyad tends to become the familial unit of such societies. A second, older, version adheres the father to the mother-child(ren) dyad to form the traditional nuclear family. Without commenting upon desirability, it is argued that, when compared to alternative familial structures, those cultures which both minimize fatherless families and systematically restrict women's roles to that of motherhood do and will have — across generations — a demographic advantage. And, in terms of cultural evolution, i.e. across generations, those cultures which emphasize triadic families of father-&-mother-&-children are positioned to systematically displace and/or to replace those cultures which emphasize the mother-&-children dyadic family.