Make MIne Matrilocal

If extended families lived together in America, as I think they might in a society with fewer government benefits, would we be more likely to become matrilocal or patrilocal? I think matrilocality would be more attractive to families for a number of reasons, especially where a more “traditional” division of labor between the sexes obtains.

Matrilocality would be helpful for many women since they would be living among their own family members who would, in most cases, be supportive of them against an abusive or neglectful spouse. It might be less problematic for men to move away from their families. In a patrilocal environment, the women in the household are not kin to one another and are more likely to come into conflict over dominance within the household. I have observed in multigenerational households in Yonkers that the most satisfactory arrangement was matrilocality. Mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law were believed to be incompatible, and it was said that “you can’t have two women in one kitchen” in such situations. This saying did not apply to mothers and daughters.

In a society where women, even those who work outside the home full time, are mistresses of the home and guardians of the hearth, this would work out better if the women were related, as in a matrilocal household, versus one where they are unrelated and in conflict for dominance, as in a patrilocal household. Men, even nowadays, don’t take much responsibility for domestic arrangements; therefore, the relatedness of the men in the household makes little difference. Men are said to go out into the world into distinct spheres, and when they come home they tend to defer to women in domestic matters. In truth, we tend to avoid doing our fair share around the house.

Unrelated men are less likely to come into conflict than unrelated women, and husbands in matrilocal households have the option of the “visiting” relationship with their wives, i.e. they may live most of the time with their natal families and visit their conjugal families from time to time. This would be convenient only if the two households were not very far apart. The men would live most of the time with their own kin, and children might have closer relationships with their uncles than their fathers.

If this happened, some folks would doubtless seek to enshrine the matrilocal household as the only legitimate family form. The “family values” fascists among us would try to subsidize matrilocality and penalize other alternatives on the theory that what works for them should work for everybody.