My Western European background had no memories of any way to dance socially, other than with a partner. Even square dancing needed a partner. I wondered — how could two such different traditions evolve parallel to each other on the same continent? As usual, I was asking the wrong question.
I came to understand that, instead of evolving in two directions over the same time period, North and West Europe evolved in a direction unique to itself, while Southeast Europe, and indeed most of the rest of the world, remained dancing in time-honored ways. The way people dance, and the way they organize themselves while dancing, is a reflection of the way they organize their society in general; of their social priorities.
The first priority of a human is survival — living until the next day, the next season, a natural death in old age. The second priority is the survival of your genes — your family. Family can be defined in many ways. Today we tend to think of a simple nuclear family — mother, father, children. Many cultures include godparents, adopted children, clan members — the list varies greatly. An important criteria for what constitutes a family is how many people it takes to provide a sustainable lifestyle for all.
The family needed to be large enough so that pooled efforts created a surplus — to allow for some slack — extra food or shelter so someone could be sick or old, or a young child, or heavily pregnant — without jeapordising the survival of the group. Then there are the issues of self-defense and inbreeding. One needs a number of people to defend the group from attacks, and to ensure a healthy gene pool.
On the other hand, too many people means food sources and natural resources are unsustainably depleted, communication and co-operation become difficult. However the family is defined, it is of extreme importance in most cultures. This is a fact little appreciated by us Westerners, with our mass media and well-developed social institutions, who have among the weakest family ties in the world. For most of human history, people were raised outside of cities or countries that had a direct impact on their life.
