The families of the not too distant past were orientated along four axes. These axes were not mutually exclusive. Some overlapped, all of them enhanced each other.
People got married for various reasons:
1. Because of social pressure and social norms (the Social Dyad)
2. To form a more efficient or synergetic economic unit (the Economic Dyad)
3. In pursuit of psychosexual fulfillment (the Psychosexual Dyad)
4. To secure long term companionship (the Companionship Dyad).
Thus, we can talk about the following four axes: Social-Economic, Emotional, Utilitarian (Rational), Private-Familial.
To illustrate how these axes were intertwined, let us consider the Emotional one.
Until very recently, people used to get married because they felt very strongly about living alone, partly due to social condemnation of reculsiveness.
In some countries, people still subscribe to ideologies which promote the family as a pillar of society, the basic cell of the national organism, a hothouse in which to breed children for the army, and so on. These collective ideologies call for personal contributions and sacrifices. They have a strong...