21, no. 2, Spring 1975. It all worked once, but now it can be a pain in the ass to outsiders, and like it or not outsiders are now in the 1960s a part of life in the South and will increasingly become a part of all life everywhere for the next few hundred years or so. Family life in the North Carolina Piedmont, while similar to that of some Souths, has been markedly different from family life in Souths where sons of plantation owners, occasionally daughters, were expected to read books, attend universities, and travel abroad. Teenage sons and daughters will have problems separating from parents. The parents, you see, will have come from that South described above, a South where family harmony was apparently essential for survival and thus unconsciously mandatory.
Harmony is essential, self-imposed, recognized as mandatory.
This pattern is not uncommon during much of the history of humankind. The forced movement of culture in America will be toward bodily harmony. Now, in 1969, many North Carolina Piedmont children are raised by parents. Daniel and Linda courted harmony, sentimentality, faithfulness, the potential vengeance of God, and obedience. Whatever Else would have meant death.