Tolstoy thought all happy families were alike and all unhappy ones were different in their own way. I’m not so sure about the latter. The seven deadly domestic sins, which have delighted theatre audiences for two and a half millenia from Euripedes and Sophocles through Shakespeare, Ibsen and Chekhov to Arthur Miller and Sam Shepard, just keep on recycling as constants in the human condition.
The way to achieve a happy adult family, opined Robin Skynner (John Cleese’s group shrink), was to have had a happy childhood family. Which, were it to become the norm, would put agony aunts, novelists and dramatists out of a job. And it leaves the Philip Larkins without hope – the poet of ‘your family screws you up’ thought. His ‘This Be’ sonnet, raging against the faults landed on children by parents, themselves f***ed up by the generation before, finishes by recommending all procreation ceases. What fun would that be?
A similar theme runs through the ancient Greek Atreus myth, which relates heinous crimes perpetrated on children by one forebear, leading to mayhem down each succeeding step of the family tree, ending in the sister/father/mother murders of the Oresteia. Cheerful stuff, but symbolically and psychologically on point. As an antidote to Larkin’s nihilism, the final offspring, Orestes and Elektra, did go off ultimately to settle into domestic bliss. Except it was never recorded, since who writes a play about contentment?
Getting zoomorphisistic for a moment and looking to the animal kingdom for answers isn’t much help. Baby hyenas still in the nest try to tear each other to pieces; ditto owls where the first hatched steals food from the smaller late entrants. Elephant families are more reassuringly supportive with aunties and grandma ensuring infant relatives are protected. But then they are matriarchal as are Bonobo chimpanzees who also live in harmony. Male bears and lions dislike step-offspring, dispatching them to oblivion to ensure only their progeny survive. Food, sex and power still drive the drama out in nature.
In the West, when the family ambience becomes destructive to one member, the advice is to get out. Leave and hope that a decade’s absence will allow for a better reconnection. In regions of the world and cultures where the grip of the family is stronger, that isn’t an option. Reading stories about honour killings always make me think about Lady Jane Digby, a 19th century English aristocrat, with an infamous sex life. Her biography relates her family was ruined by her scandalous behaviour. Nowadays, three hundred years later, no one would raise an eyebrow. A black sheep? Shrug. Every family has one, no reflection on the rest of us.Where the bonds are too tight, there is no room for individualism. Identity resides solely with the family tribe, usually championed by male relatives. The sexuality of the women in the family is strictly controlled, not theirs to dispense as they please. Despite best efforts to keep the insidious creep of western lifestyles at bay, these old-style attitudes will eventually be overtaken as they were in the west. Female education and the US entertainment industry’s pervasive pull will make the difference.
Whither the family once the old chains are loosened? In the Age of Aquarius ahead, however mythical a concept, some say the biological bond will have less pull. Though I can’t believe we’ll morph into totally separate beings. The blood tie will be there, as it always has been, as an irrational itch that no amount of scratching will banish. Apart from anything else, we’d get bored without the visceral drama of family splits and feuds, whether as players in the action or vicarious bystanders.
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