I have often read of the claim that the nuclear family (dad, mom and kids) was a modern aberration, because prior to the 19th century most families included extended members such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. (I encounter the argument again in the comments here.) This assertion is often a pretext for the old "its takes a village to raise a child" canard, and shows up in the arguments of people preferring greater government control over how children are raised, such as the arguments of those who wish to ban home-schooling.
The problem with this assertion is that, when you look at the registries of these towns, every child has but one mother and one father, with the rest of the extended family being designated as aunts, or uncles, or what have you. If it were true that there was no nuclear family at this time, then John of Medievalburg would have had five daddies and ten mommies.
What these people fail to see is that the nuclear family is at the center of the extended family. The nuclear family is not an aberration of modernity. What is an aberration of modernity is the nuclear family standing alone.
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