chapotraphouse

You really cannot underestimate how deeply ingrained marriage, having children and buying a house are into the average people's sense of how life is supposed to be lived. Add onto that the fact that our society is structured (or at least used to be structured) in a way that turned that way of life into the only "sensible" one. If community building outside of traditional family structures is an impossible thought, what else is there to life outside of those structures? Even if your marriage is disfunctional or even hateful, it still gives your life structure in a way that in our current society basically nothing else can.

Being able to take a step back and look at those structures and institutions not as god-given or obvious is an ability that the vast majority of people simply do not have.