2nd Lamentations

I realize that the first book of Lamentations is written in beautiful poetry and is about the destruction of Jerusalem as a symbol for the loss of an era. So, I know that this second little lamentation is not comparable in most of the significant regards. But, I still feel compelled to write a small lamentation.

3000 years ago, in the mideast, families really did ban together. In fact, brothers felt strongly enough about familial care that if one of the brothers died, the brother left took his brother's wife to care for. Even in the book of Ruth, great care is taken to reflect the idea of familial care. Some of the Old Testament's most famous words are between Naomi and Ruth. Naomi loses her husband and sons, so wants to make sure that Ruth is taken care of. But Ruth pleads, "Don't ask me to leave or not to follow you home... your people are my people, your God is my God..." Also, once back in Judea, Cousin Boaz takes care of Ruth. In Nigeria, just 300 years ago, there were more women than men, so men made sure that the women were all cared for by marrying them and building compounds for them to live in. If something happened, the wife's family took the daughter back and then gave a dowry to someone else who would marry her for his compound.

Examples abound through history, but these two illustrate an age-old tradition. Now for the modern tradition. Brothers and sisters grow up, marry, move to far off places, call each other, 3 times a year, enjoy a holiday together in the fall, visit each other once every five years at best, take the grand kids for an annual visit to grand parents, and call it a close-knit family.

Independence is good. Women's roles have certainly changed. Mobility has lent itself to more opportunity for work. Transportation has made it easy to close distances between spread out family members. Phones and laptops make connecting easy and fast. Life is good, but families are split. The nuclear family, though good in concept, has no advantage over the non-nuclear family at this stage of a family's development.

Brothers and sisters in far-flung places replace their roots out of necessity with the "friend that sticks closer than a brother." As sad as it is, the direction won't change in the forseeable future. There's no advantage to the nuclear family. That bothered me at first. But why? It's reality. So, I just need to blog about it. Paradigms shift. End of story.