ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the ways in which the various themes of the adult life stages mesh, or fail to mesh, with the extended family system in which these themes emerge and are expressed. If the nuclear family represents an authentic circle of hell, then the extended family is our life in Eden, before the fall from grace. The extended family is valued in rural settings, in cultures which resist change, and which value stability over innovation. If the extended family offers community at the price of freedom, the city offers freedom at the price of community. The extended family allows some of the unfolding developments of later life to take place in benign circumstances, in a setting which accepts the "childish" needs of the old man as these emerge. The extended family is particularly useful to men who are preparing to relive the past rather than shape the future.
