Coop Living Palestine Ils 106 by Henrik F. Infield

Author:Henrik F. Infield [Infield, Henrik F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415757379
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2015-08-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VI

THE REMODELLED FAMILY

The most profound change produced by comprehensive co-operation is within the family. This is so basic that one can hardly speak of a family in the usual sense. The modification has not brought about anarchy, nor a weakening of emotional bonds between husband and wife or parents and children. On the contrary. These relationships, according to unprejudiced testimony, approach the bourgeois ideal more closely than does the bourgeois family. Love between husband and wife remains free of material implications. The group provides. The individual affections are not swayed by economic considerations. They may come straight from the heart. Similarly, the upbringing of children is impersonal. It is a communal duty. The children are independent of their parents economically. Genuine affection supplies the only bond.

Disagreements between family members are not, of course, eliminated. “Dissociational” processes do not arise only out of private property. Dissociation is the correlate of association, necessary to any society. Nevertheless, there is notable progress in the Kvutza. Absence of private property has much reduced the scope and intensity of family conflicts. That arsenal of aggression, personal economic difficulties, is no more. Marriage is relatively stable. As Ben-Shalom says of Kibbutz Arzi, divorces range from 10 to 15 per cent. of marriages.66 In America the range is 16 to 17 per cent.

In the Kvutza frictions arising out of temperamental differences and the shape of thought is a chief cause of divorce. These are more basic evidences of individuality than the economic inequalities of our society.

Those who wish economic inequality to endure hold that “uniformity” and the end of individuality would result from co-operative living. Even a biochemically and “hypnopædically” equalized society, such as Aldous Huxley imagined in his utopian satire, Brave New World, cannot entirely end individual differences. His “Alpha Plus” Bernhard Marx became an outsider when a few drops of alcohol were added through negligence. How much less can uniformity obtain when, as in the Kvutza, the only variant is the abolition of possessions!

Individual self-determination seems to be increased by family relations as they occur in comprehensive co-operation. Freedom of choice in our society is often abrogated by social position, family interests, wealth, ability to support a spouse. Here they are irrelevant. The selection of a mate is determined only by personal attraction. If this is great enough to lead to a common life, a room is requested from the “econom”. With the moving of the beds, the marriage status is achieved. In this atmosphere of universal comradeship, there are no flowers, candy, or engagement ring. Yet there are the usual signs, as in seeking each other out at meals, at meetings, at dances, and for walks. It is said that nothing else leads to this love like the common pursuit of some study, and so when a boy and girl are seen poring over books together, those who know it see the bond as sealed.

Marriage does not alter the social status of the spouses. The wife continues to use her name; the husband acquires no new obligations.

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