It’s not just a nuclear family, but the nuclear family is still the foundation of the larger structure. Everyone is precisely situated in relation to durable marital bonds between two specific people. It’s not some free for all. Yeah, the cousins all play together and the aunties cook dinner together, but there’s no ambiguity or imprecision about who is married to whom.

Asian multi-generational family structures are often invoked to justify fatherless children raised “by the community,” etc., and it drives me nuts. There is nothing liberal about us—we have some of the most rigid marriage norms and gender roles around.