Way back in 1965, renowned Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons published a widely read essay called “The Normal American Family.” For him, “normal” was comparable to what today's nurse means when he reports that the patient has a “normal” body temperature of 98.6. For instance, during the 2020 COVID-19 epidemic, certain facilities measured body temperature by requiring would-be entrants to stand before a device that cast a beam on their forehead. A screen on the device then displayed a number alongside its verdict— it told the nurse that the person's body temperature was either “normal” (98.6) or “not normal” (e.g., 103.9).

A reading of around 98.6 reveals two features about the person, both of which were analogous to what Parsons meant by the “normal” family. First, the person's body is deemed to be functioning at an optimal level. S/he is assumed not to be unhealthy. Positive things are probably going on inside the patient's body. On the whole they seem to be in good health; it is unlikely that anything menacing (like COVID-19) is lurking inside them.

Second, not only is s/he assumed to be in a healthy state, s/he gives no obvious evidence of potentially harming the health of those around her/him. And the flip side of assuming a nonnegative influence is the further assumption of a positive influence— besides doing no harm, s/he may be contributing in various positive ways to the health and well-being of others around her/him, that is, the Greater Good.

In the middle of the twentieth century, Parsons (as did most social scientists and laypersons) believed that “normal” marriage and “normal” family were limited to legally joined heterosexuals and were, in essence, one and the same entity. Indeed, we might coin the phrase marrfam to capture that single entity. Persons successfully doing marrfam were perceived to be “normal,” that is, they were seen as socially “healthy” persons. Not only did their normality benefit them personally, but being normal also benefitted their surrounding social context. They served the Greater Good mainly by, among other things, producing children that they then socialized to become “normal” members of society.