Tying benefits to family status is rife with problems.
Autonomy is a very important value.
But in a society with chronic unemployment, underemployment and various kinds of reserve armies of labor, a very difficult value to attain in practice. And autonomy, if not balanced with solidarity and a larger network of freely chosen kindred souls, could become simply the culmination of the individualistic thrust of capitalist relations. I can't possible address all the interesting issues Celia mentions in her message. I will just say that in my view, the main reason it is so difficult to take solidarity out of family networks into a broader context has to do with private property, not only of means of production but also of assets, tangible property, real estate, savings, etc. It would be interesting to discuss the extent to which state policies of universal entitlement to certain benefits of the kind Celia mentions could be construed as a gradual process of eroding the importance of private property at least among the non-owners of means of production.