ABSTRACT
In the foregoing chapters the main emphasis has been on a particular person or relationship, though the family setting has been kept in mind, while in this section the main focus will be on the functioning of the family as a whole. The question will also be raised whether there is anything specific about the ‘personality’ and make-up of the du families to differentiate them from the control families. Some differences between the two may be expected because certain characteristic balances of forces have been discovered not only in the marital relationships but also in the mother-child and father-child relationships. A greater amount of psychosomatic illness has been noted among the parents of the du children. On the other hand there were no differences between the du families and those in the control sample regarding open disruption of marital ties. These facts as well as the very close family relationships in two of our three case studies would not lead us to expect a dramatic lack of cohesion in the du families in contrast to the families in the control sample. Rather, the du families may emerge as closely knit units, characterized by relationships that contain certain tensions beneath a well-functioning surface of ‘cosiness’. From the knowledge gained about the parents' high standards of behaviour and conscientiousness and the mothers' ambitions, more social ambition might be expected in the du families.
