There are only three major ways to build successful families: 1) be born into structure that works for you, 2) marry into structure 3) build a structure that works for you.

2 is hard because you have to adapt, 3 is harder because you need self-discipline to do what it takes.

I don’t think 3 will work for most people. 2 and 1 are not available to everyone.

Finding a set of well-reasoned and justified best practices for how to do 3 might be our best shot at helping a larger number of people build successful families again.

Religion used to serve this role. Maybe it’s become too stale? In any case it seems difficult to get secular populations religious again.

Maybe it’s possible to build a secular version of religious family values based on evolutionary biology and utilitarianism? Dynasty as value?