ANARCHIST QUESTION AND ANSWER Q What role will the nuclear family play in an anarchist society? A Human beings are capable of an infinite variety of human relationships. A cursory glance through the historical records combined with a journey across current cultural and geographical boundaries, throws up a myriad combination of possible human relationships. Anarchist relationships are ultimately based on choice. Not a choice limited by necessity or curtailed by cultural or gender issues but a choice that9s based on access to resources and power. What relationships occur in an anarchist society will develop over time. Access to wealth will not determine the type of relationships which will develop. As everybody has access to the wealth created by community they live in, access to resources can9t be used as a bargaining chip to determine what type if relationships develop. This doesn9t mean that emotional factors don9t play a role in the type of relationships developed, what it does mean is that emotional factors will take precedence over economic factors. Allowing a wide range of human relationships to exist within a community, does not mean that problems that develop within human relationships wont occur, they will still occur with the same monotonous regularity. What will happen is that individuals will have a greater range of emotional choices to explore within an anarchist community. Whether the nuclear family will survive or even prosper, is a matter for conjecture. What is important is that structure are created which offer choice and protect the more vulnerable members of the community. As for human relationships are concerned. Predators will still exist in an anarchist society. What type of role they are able to play and the damage they are able to cause will be minimized in an anarchist community, because of the open nature of that community. At the end of the day, we need to understand that the majority of the sexual abuse that occurs in our society, is perpetrated by people who are able to abuse the trust they enjoy and the power they exercise, creating structures that limit the power people are able to exercise will decrease the amount of abuse that people can get away with.
