R: All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

Friday, October 5th at 7.30pm

When it comes to creating and maintaining families, are the rules pretty strict or do many roads lead to Rome? What causes some families - and children in particular - to flourish, while others drift into dysfunction and insecurity? Are there characteristics common to most successful families - and certain patterns discernible in failing ones?

This, the opening sentence of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, has inspired historians and social scientists to critically analyze paths to success versus paths to failure in a variety of societal units. If certain features of good families can be generalized, how should we go about universalizing them? Who or what should assist families in eradicating "maladaptive" behaviors or methods? 

This Friday at 7:30 p.m., the illustrious alumni and guests of honor of the Federalist Party will be gracing us with their presence in the Berkeley Mendenhall Room to enlighten us about how the "Anna Karenina principle" is applied to history, society, and family, to diagnose the ills plaguing modern families, and to discuss what makes the family as a unit successful or unsuccessful. All are welcome.