According to H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr, Western marriage is a love-initiated, partially economic symbiotic arrangement for bicareer cohabitation. Atomized Western man is dislocated historically: once he goes off to college declaring an independent life, he is a nuclear man without family.
Sok K Lee, "East Asian Attitudes toward Death— A Search for the Ways to Help East Asian Elderly Dying in Contemporary America" 13(3) The Permanente Journal 55-60 (Summer 2009) citing Engelhardt HT., Jr . "The family intransition and in authority." in: Lee SC, editor, The family, medical decision-making, and biotechnology 27-45 (2007).
The concept of a "nuclear man", in the sense of a man without close family ties, is one I've only seen expressed with that wording from the context of East Asian cultures. So, I wonder if it is a translation of a concept that is a more central one, even if defined largely in opposition to Confucian ideals of manhood, in that context than it is in the West. It could also be a physics and chemistry metaphor kindred to the concept of individuals being "atomized" in society.
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