A human couple with children and one or more dogs



Note that there are few things in the humans' diet that the dog will not eat, and many things in the dog's diet that humans do not compete for. So for access to the humans' food scraps and help in the hunt, the dog offers very great service to the humans. The progeny of this couple are a burden during their early years, but afterwards they contribute to the family food supply and may even feed the parents after they become too old to survive on their own.

All of these stone-age institutions persist today. Subsistance is not enough for humans. They have always tried in various ways to save for bad times. A few thousand years later, Confucius taught that in their old age humans risk going wrong because at that stage in life they are particularly devoted to accumulating wealth in its many forms.

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