ABSTRACT
The primary function of benign group settings is to protect and properly host their members. Asylum, infamous though the term may now be, derives from the Greek asylos, meaning protection from seizure. Group care for young children and infants especially was, like eating garlic, just not right in a self-respecting society. And like garlic consumption, the dictum failed to take effect at either extreme of the social scale. Entering a society and being moralized into its ways requires the orchestration of familial, peer-group, and broader societal environments. All theory and a substantial portion of the research on dependency implies a reliance on constant, adult-like, competent figures through whom the very substance of life flows. A condition less vulnerable than dependency, though often represented in asylums, is nomocracy. Such a law-and-order relationship, though heavily weighted in favor of the lawgivers, nevertheless contains some protection for the clients.
