So, are you saying that the variety is blanketed by deviation? That would mean that parents don't leave children to alternative families and lifestyles for any reason, beyond control. Car accidents, terminal illness, murder, war casualty, job related fatal accidents, mothers dying by childbirth, adopting children out of cultures or homes that can't afford to support the kids, loss of jobs, loss of homes, relocating to out of state for countless reasons, including, but not limited to work, military, etc...
You can't blanket everything with deviation as a cause.
And whether the life that children live is by their family's choice, or bestowed, it doesn't matter, because in reality, all you have is variety. Variety has always been there. We live in one culture. There are hundreds of cultures and ways of life around the entire world, each family within having their own way of life, their own home rules and practices, etc.
This has gone on for as long as we can document and through each generation, let alone century, we see more variety, documented throughout history.
I don't see the point in going backwards. I think its perfectly acceptable to acknowledge different ways of life, because everyone has always been different.
I've seen plenty of marriages get canned (google searching statistics tell it better than I can) and I've seen plenty that work. It is as viable, these days, a being someone's boyfriend or girlfriend. Marriage works, just like any other form of commitment, but you need commitment for marriage to work. Its not the other way around, so I know where my roots are.
