This chapter introduces the idea of the social bond by showing how it applies to an extended episode in a family. Since I borrowed the videotape of this episode from a larger study of corporal punishment in families, the episode contains several such incidents. But the present study interprets corporal punishment within a general conceptual framework. The theory of social bonds proposes that personality and basic behaviors and attitudes arise from the nature of relationships with others. The theory suggests that the extent to which children become effective and responsible adults depends upon the quality of their social bonds. My analysis of the discourse in this family shows the main thrust of the idea of bonds: spanking, along with other frequent behaviors, such as parents lecturing and threatening children, can be viewed as aspects of alienation, of insecure bonds with the family. This chapter will serve to introduce the basic idea of the next chapter (on social integration) by showing concrete aspects of alienation, insecure bonds, as they can be inferred from actual events.

This chapter proposes that the state of social bonds determine wide reaches of human conduct. General theories of social relationships and their effects on behavior are very rare. The major theories focus on individuals, with little or no attention to relationships. Certainly behaviorism is completely individualistic, as is psychoanalytic theory, at least in its orthodox form. Marx's analysis of social systems allows for the importance of human relationships in theory, in its emphasis on alienation.