It is far more difficult to manipulate and maneuver families than it is to deal with family-less individuals.
To achieve certain objectives, one has to destroy this unit.
Sometimes, the urge to destroy, or flee, the family comes from within.
In many contemporary societies, the disruption of the family is caused mainly by the individual's growing desire for the unhampered pursuit of self.
Despite all the attempts made throughout history to destroy the family, this ancient unit—precisely because it is so primitive and so deeply embedded within us—eventually regains its place.
It is such a basic unit that it is not exclusively human; families also exist among many other creatures in the world.
Moreover, they exist not only in highly developed life-forms, but among relatively primitive creatures, such as birds.
The fact that family is not a uniquely human phenomenon demonstrates that it is not just a concept, an artificial social construct, but a part of nature itself.
It may be irrational and inefficient, troublesome and inconvenient, but it endures, because it goes deeper than reason.
Although numbing the instincts may break their compulsion, instincts never disappear completely.
Individuals—even a large number of them, if the culture and spirit of the times allow for it—can live without family ties.
But the human spirit as a whole will stick to them.
Cultural fashions are essentially ephemeral; instincts are not.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From Simple Words by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz