Right now there is a loneliness epidemic throughout the world. More and more people aren't entering relationships. Gen Z men are having significant trouble dating while there are some economic factors in the mix. From my own view and experiences combined with what I've read most Gen Z men are lack the social and communication skills to even enter a relationship. This has and in the future will lead to extreme issues. There's already been a marked rise in hostility towards women by young men (think Andrew Tate and his ilk) that's likely born out of this frustration. I would definitely say there's been a rise in gender hostility ever since the pandemic.
Back in the 50s there was arranged marriages. All a person had to do was just show but now that's gone because it was an unequal system and I think society missed its chance to establish something much healthier and better in its wake. Now we have people that are unable to connect with each other. We just toss people blindly into the mess that is human interaction and relationships and no one knows what to do anymore. We could be have the most fulfilling relationships humans have ever had. Think of the amount of people who would of never have entered abusive relationships had there been someone around them that showed them what love exactly is.
The way we teach is so heavily focused on teaching people how to be worker drones that we forget the human part of the person. This is why a lot of people who do extreme well in school and college fare so poorly in relationships and have higher rates of depression. We are the most educated and advanced in human history, we know psychology, we can teach this shit rather than tossing people blindly into the meat grinder.
While there is evidence of nuclear families existing as far as 5 000 years ago, they were only really for wealthy/high status people. The concept of the nuclear family as it’s own autonomous unit wasn’t really widely financially viable until post-Industrial revolution.
There is even current academic arguments that the previously believed idea that Europe had moved to nuclear families as early as the 17th century may be flawed, as the surviving literature was once again biased towards the merchant/upper classes.
Wikipedia has a good summary, actually, even though some of the claims are conjecture.
I’d say the evidence is in the fact you can find nuclear families in animal species other than humans. Birds and possums didn’t learn that from their wealthy human neighbors. It’s normal for two parents to take care of their young and create a home together. It’s been going on way longer than whatever capitalist marketing campaign you think it came from.
I don’t think you understand what the term “nuclear family” means in a sociological manner. In humans it’s not just “two parents taking care of their offspring”, there is also a caveat that they are doing that WITHOUT the reliance of an extended social group. Then those offspring are expected to do the same once they reach adulthood. The only social support they are expected to have is their own unit.
Furthermore, comparing human behaviours to other species such as birds (who flock together in habitats for survival and for migration) and possums (who are a solitary, nocturnal species) doesn’t really mean anything.
The comparisons should be to species who share similar evolutionary patterns and social habits to humans ie. primates. And across every primate species, whether it be lemurs, gorillas, baboons, simians, etc. they are all connected to a LARGER SOCIAL GROUP irrespective of their family structure (pairs, group family, homogeneous male or female) well into adulthood.