In what is euphemistically known as “Western:” society the concept of family has come to mean “Husband, Wife and 2.25 children”. This is an explicit structural and to some extent “biological” definition of family. The Odal Family Model presumes a functional definition of Family. Thus instead of defining Family by it’s components family becomes defined by the social, psychological, emotional and economic purpose it serves. Under the Odal Model, Family is only “Family” whilst it is serving the functional purposes of a family.
The concept of family is perhaps the cornerstone of societies everywhere. All societies and tribes in history seem to have had a concept of family. These concepts have ranged from perceiving an entire tribal group as a family to the prevailing "Western" concept of the Nuclear Family. I have placed "Western" in quotation marks because although the concept of nuclear family pervades what is known as the Western World, it is in fact Middle Eastern in origin and a Jewish concept in particular.
Why Odal?
Odal is an ancient Anglo-Germanic symbol of property, home, the tribe and family. It represents that protective fence placed around the family. It represents the safety and security and bonding of the tribal family group against outside attack.
Some people have described the Odal Model of Family as being Tribal concept of Family. Whilst this is not strictly true, the Odal Model does contain elements of a tribal perspective.
The Odal Social Model is often associated with the concepts of Polyamory, Poly Fidelity, Group Marriage, Intentional community. It is essential that within these concepts as within the OSM, that issues such as sex/sexuality and jealousy etc are addressed through Communication and More Communication!
The Odal Social Model addresses all of the functional aspects of Family, and does not rely on stereotypes , pre-conceived ideas of how a family should “look”, or indeed, preconceived ideas of function.
The Goal of Family
We have already mentioned that The Odal Social Model focuses on Function with flexible structure. If society is a building and "Family" is the social brick, then it is essential that the "brick" does what it is intended to do, otherwise social failure is the inevitable result. This allows us to introduce the words "specification" and "social unit". If "family" is to be the fundamental social unit of society, what should be the characteristics of this social unit which warrant it's role as the building block of a functional society? I emphasise that this specification needs to be functional. A brick that looks like a brick but is made of polystyrene is not going to support a building and will fail. Just as the aesthetics and appearance of the brick are less important than the fact that it will do it’s job as a brick.
Specification:
This reduces the specification of "Family" to essential functional factors and recognises that many of the sacred cows relating to the prevailing concepts of family are just that "sacred cows" and in fact may mitigate against a stable social unit.
Why?
It is increasingly obvious to the unbiased observer that the current prevailing social model of the “Nuclear Family” of One Male, one female and several children is in a huge number of cases, dysfunctional. Ignoring ideals of what we “believe” a family should look like, if we look objectively at the social outcomes of the nuclear family social model we come up with a situation which would horrify any reputable statistician.
Family breakdown and break-up is at record levels. Whilst 40 % of existing marriages will break down, it does not provide a true perspective of the extent of the problem
· Projections indicate that 60% of those that marry today will end up in relationship breakup
· Relationship break-up statistics do not reflect the incidence of relationship and family breakdown and dysfunction. People stay in dysfunctional marriages and families for a variety of reasons including fear.
· Children have record levels of delinquency, as both parents are forced to work, and children are increasingly left to their own devices without supervision.
· Children are frequently unmotivated, and addicted to television, internet, and electronic games and are losing social and interaction skills.
· Children are often observed as having no personal goals
· Both adults and children are being deskilled
· Social relationships and interactions appear to be devalued in favour of individual pursuits.
· Those social interactions which do occur are often focussed on antisocial or criminal activities.
We constantly hear people from politicians to Christian Church leaders, to the person in the street,, bemoaning the fact that children have lost direction, high youth crime, families are breaking down, children are hyperactive and out of control, spouses are cheating on each other and ripping each other and their children apart in nasty divorces. We have a massive and increasing divorce rate that is well in excess of 50% for new marriages. Statistically this has to be regarded as an abject failure of a social construct. It beggars belief that church and government continue to promote this system as an ideal family system.
The solutions which are suggested are also bizarre.
1) Punitive action against parents and children. You are punishing parents who have uncontrollable children and forcing parents to keep them off the street. HOW? Have any of the people advocating this ever had to deal with any of these feral violent delinquents? Parents have a snowball’s chance in hell of pulling this off. This approach will encourage family violence between parents and children.
2) Counselling: Parents who have minimal parenting skills and children who have no insight into the problem or that there is even a problem - Hmmmmmm OK!
3) Education – start with literacy, and just what else are you going to teach them or are we also going to hand that over to the Churches?
4) Give it to the schools to fix – too late!
The FACT is you are in the majority of cases NOT going to fix it because the social model is fatally flawed.
The reality is, that in general, it is unlikely it will be fixed at all. Many people have tried and many people have failed.
There is a possibility that some small amount of people may salvage something by moving past the sacred cows of the Nuclear family and choosing functional family over structure based family.
The Odal Social Model is ONE way of attempting to redress the problems of the Nuclear model.
The Sacred Cows of "Family"
Sex:
Our society has a lurid interest in sex. Sex, the lack of it, the type of it, and who has sex with whom is probably the most fundamental issue in the social unit known as family today. For the sake of sex, or some aspect of it, the entire social unit can stand or fail. The modern social unit is built on sex, people form social units based on sex and demolish them based on sex. Other far more important factors barely get a look in with this incredibly nebulous issue. The whole concept of sex being important in relationships, arose from the Christian concept of women as property and the concept that paternity was such an important thing in heritage. Sex was something that could be controlled and manipulated and thus attracted taboos. We confuse sex and love too easily, often employing sex to do the work of love and love to do the work of sex. However there are without a doubt sex/sexuality issues to be addressed with in the OSM. The principle in the OSM is that it is no-ones business except those involved. Typically the OSM would deal with sex/sexuality in the manner similar to that described in PolyFidelitous relationships
Gender:
There is an assumption that a family must consist of a male and female. This is enshrined in Law throughout Western Society through the "Marriage Acts", based on various fallacious assumptions. It is based on the assumption that genetics and gender are more important than environment. It is also based on the fallacious assumption that religious rules and mores can legitimately be applied to people who do not subscribe to that religion or philosophy.
Numbers of Adults:
There is a belief that the ideal family structure is what is known as "Nuclear" and consists of a male and female adult and any number of children. This has been promoted as an "Ideal" and Natural state of being where it is patently and obviously not. Throughout history and pre-history there have been various configurations of "family" based on social and economic needs and yes, even religious persuasion. What is obvious is that the concept of Nuclear Family has derived from a Middle Eastern Judeo-Christian socio-cultural perspective and that numbers and configuration of adults in families are a social construct. This means there is no IDEAL number of adults in a family but rather a family may be structured functionally, with any number of adults, provided it meets the above criteria.
Children
One of the prime justifications for some sort of stable family unit is the provision of a stable, loving, and caring environment for children to grow up in. This is the case regardless of whether there is one adult, two adults or 10 adults in the family unit. Despite the prevailing wisdom that children are best catered for in an traditional nuclear family, there in no real evidence to support this assertion provided the family structure meets the above requirements. Throughout history children have been effectively brought up in a wide range of family structures and been very badly brought up in a wide range of family structures. The statistics in our society demonstrate very effectively that the current prevailing family unit is actually very bad at bringing up children.
Economics:
Your own house in the burbs with a white picket fence. More and more this dream is out of reach, increasing densities of housing at prices where the average person cannot dream of ever owning their own home and where even an average mortgage requires 2 people working to afford it. Where food, clothing, oil, and utility prices are increasing exponentially and childcare prices are beyond the pale.
The human Jekyll and Hyde mentality.
When it comes to cooperation and social interaction, human beings have a Jekyll and Hyde mentality. We speak glowingly of the benefits of cooperation, communication, loving thy neighbour, tolerance and understanding and working together toward common goals, yet this is rarely displayed in reality. Our social conditioning has produced a counter survival mentality, even amongst the most well meaning of people. This counter survival mentality is displayed in selfishness, greed, self centeredness, reactivity, anger, hatred, intolerance, illiteracy, loss of sense of community, violence as a problem solving tool, etc etc. That someone has likened this as too many individualistic rats in a cage is not accidental.
There are a number of issues which must be addressed for the Odal Social Model to work.
Under the Odal Social Model we need to redefine “Family” in functional terms.
“Family” is a social and economic unit of one or more adults and any number of children.
Under the Odal Social Model, a family must have all of the elements of social and economic cooperation to be considered a Family. Thus, in theory a family may consist of people who are genetically totally unrelated, provided the grouping is performing the FUNCTION of social emotional and economic support.
Within the OSM, issues like gender, sexuality, and numbers are agreed within the “Family Unit” and are nobody’s business but the family unit.
The OSM recognises that a wide range of understandings of Polyamory exist, however, OSU (Odal Social Unit - The implementation of the OSM) does not incorporate all, or even most of them. An OSU is a committed fidelitous relationship, promoting safety and security for all participants and members. Ventures outside of that relationship are made with the informed consent of all adult participants in that relationship.
Additional within the Odal Social Unit, the members are fidelitous within the family unit. There are those who would argue the merit of this, but the Odal family unit is about a social structure and not a sexual escapade. The Odal social unit aims to produce STABLE and permanent Family units. Thus there needs to be boundaries set which minimise disruption to the function of the social unit. Responsibility to the family unit becomes before self. The people incorporated into the social unit must therefore be carefully selected for their abilities to
Be compatible in most ways
Committed to the Odal Concept
Contribute to the Social Unit
Have similar goals and values
Have or develop skills which contribute to the OSU
Be able to live compatibly in close proximity to others
Be prepared to make appropriate financial and skill contributions to the OSU
RESPECT the private property of all OSU members.
Functional issues in an OSU:
Communication, Communication, Communication
Honesty, Honesty, Honesty.
Hard Work, Hard Work, Hard Work. Any successful relationship requires hard work. The more people in that relationship the harder the work. HOWEVER the bigger the reward IF it works for you.
Remember it is also about wiring, you will rarely make a poly out of a wired Mono!
Compatibility: All parties must be compatible in a large amount of areas.
If you would not be prepared to marry someone, do not bring them into your OSU.
Finance: All members will commence with making different financial contributions to the OSU both in the form of assets and in the form of income. An OSU does not demand all of a members income, far from it, only a reasonable contribution based on expenses balanced against income levels and other non income contributions to the OSU.
No matter what level of asset and income the individual is capable of contributing to the OSU. A financial agreement is essential, in the same form as a prenuptial agreement.
This guarantees the individual assets of all members against claims by other members of the OSU. General assets of the OSU should be managed by a trust. In principle each member of the OSU may aim to contribute to the asset value of the OSU trust, either on entry or over a periodic contribution plan or in the form of further asset. Thus there maybe Asset Contributory members and Non-Asset Contributory members. Voting on Asset related issues, where necessary, is restricted to Asset Contributory Members with one vote for every dollar invested in OSU asset. Exit penalties may apply depending on the nature of the trust and the contract. Equally, OSU liabilities should be divided equally between members based on percentage of contribution to asset.
Recurrent Expenditure
Recurrent Expenditure is the expenditure required for normal living and should consist of food, utilities, maintenance, upgrading, debt servicing, reasonable running expenses of OSU property and vehicles.
In principle this should be divided amongst OSU members, being mindful of services each member contributes to the OSU, modified by the income and other benefits that a person brings to the OSU.
This means that peoples functional contribution to the OSU eg. Home maintenance or child care may be recognised to the level that some members of the OSU may receive a NET income from the other members of the OSU.
Advantages of an OSU
Economy of scale
Group wealth building and creation and financial security
Support of children
Peer support network
Safety nets for individuals within the OSU
Disadvantages of an OSU
One bad apple can ruin the whole OSU
Social pressure from outside the unit - you are different
Pressure from other family members
Stereotyping
Employment discrimination
LINKS
Institute for 21st Century Relationships
PolyOZ - Australian Poly Support Group
Polyamory - What it is and what it isn't!
Commitment in
Monogamous and Polyamorous Relationships
Understanding Opposition to Polyamory
Contact Wood Henge Odal Community
Wood Henge Odal Community is located in South Australia