Why did humans choose family-centered society as the way of living?

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evolution

protection of genetics and all that

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Kin selection is the evolutionary strategy that favours the reproductive success of an organism's relatives, even at a cost to the organism's own survival and reproduction. Kin altruism is altruistic behaviour whose evolution is driven by kin selection. Kin selection is an instance of inclusive fitness, which combines the number of offspring produced with the number an individual can produce by supporting others, such as siblings.

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Bill Hamilton, an Oxford biologist who tragically died of Malaria in 2000 while on an expedition to Congo to test his theory about the origins of HIV, solved this cross-species puzzle. Hamilton did so by moving the level at which selection operates, from the organism (as per Darwin's theorizing) to a gene-centric perspective. In other words, if the gene is the most fundamental unit on which selection pressures operate, then kin-based altruism makes perfect sense. This mechanism known as kin selection was formally described in highly sophisticated mathematical detail in a paper Hamilton published in 1964.2 Other evolutionary scientists had intuited this fundamental insight, albeit using less rigorous formalisms prior to Hamilton's seminal work. This was the case with the British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane, who had famously remarked when asked if he would save a brother who was drowning: “No, but I would to save two brothers or eight cousins.”3 Since brothers share on average half their genes, and first cousins share one-eighth of theirs, Haldane was providing the “genetic break-even” points that would justify his laying down his life (from a gene-centric perspective).

Kin selection is related to a broader mechanism known as inclusive fitness. In biological terms, fitness refers to the extension of one's genes. The most obvious way to increase one's fitness is to have children, and individuals can augment their direct fitness via reproduction (reproductive fitness). On the other hand, individuals can also boost the propagation of their genes by investing in those with whom they are related. If your daughter, your grandson, or your nephew were to have a child, this child would be indirectly increasing your own fitness. Hence, this form of indirect fitness is part and parcel of the more general term known as inclusive fitness.

One direct implication of kin selection is that organisms including humans will provide differential investments to kin versus nonkin, as well as providing greater investment to those who are closer kin.4 Numerous studies have indeed established this fact, several of which are relevant to the consumer (spending) context. For example, support for higher education is greater for biological children as compared with stepchildren (when comparing between families in which both parents are biological with families in which one parent is a stepparent).5 Not surprisingly, stepsiblings are less educated than biological children within a given family.6 The distribution of hypothetical lottery earnings is correlated to genetic relatedness and is shaped by the extent (if any) of paternity uncertainty of a given relationship

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Support system, raising kids who hopefully won't tell you to frick off when you get old and unable to take care of yourself

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