It is odd that I have ended up asking this question, given the starting point over breakfast this morning. The stimulus to my train of thought was the perpetual fuss in the media about the way in which the Covid-19 restrictions have disrupted family contact. This can be summed up in the chief topic of an interview on the radio, namely, “When can I hug my Granny?” This appears to have become the litmus test of progress towards social normality in this country.
Then I began to think about my own life, and the relative unimportance for me of hugging my grandparents. I was born in 1942, and as my father was in the RAF at the time our existence for several years was peripatetic and my mother followed him around various bases, until he was posted to the Indian Ocean. We then did settle close to where my paternal grandparents and my maternal grandmother lived, in rural Norfolk. Indeed we remained there for two years after the end of the war, while my father was in theological college. At that time, however, relationships between even quite close members of the family were far more restrained than they are today. I have quite warm recollections of my grandparents, but close physical intimacy was never a part of that.
When Dad graduated and entered the ministry his first church was in Lancashire, a long way from Norfolk. My paternal grandparents died shortly after that, and although my mother’s mother lived with us intermittently during the rest of her life my recollection is that she was a very retiring person, and hugging was not really a central element of our relationship. In any case, from the age of 12 I was sent to a boarding school, and hugging was not often on the horizon anyway …. except during the holidays, with my mother. After leaving school I went to University, and on graduation married and emigrated to Canada. Even when I moved back to Britain there was never an occasion when I lived in close proximity to the rest of the family. Even so, I don’t remember that on our occasional re-unions there was a great store set by the opportunity to hug.
Thinking about this during the day, however, I came to realise that physical intimacy of one kind or another has been a very important part of the evolution of the human race. Like our other primate ancestors physical contact has always been an important mechanism for the creation and maintenance of solidarity within the group. Yes: “hugs” have been pretty important to us as a species. I just had the misfortune to grow up in a culture and a period when restraint was identified with civilisation, apart from the problems posed by my mobility and physical separation from the family. Then I had another thought.
Solidarity within the kin-group has not been the only important evolutionary advantage we have enjoyed as a species. Possibly more important in many ways has been our superior adaptability. We have been able to adjust to living anywhere on the globe, and eating anything that is available. The variety of forms of our social organisation has been quite incredible, surpassing anything developed by any other primates species. It is debatable whether solidarity or adaptability has really been the more important key to our success.
So: I like hugging. I do it often. I would not be without it. But we do need to adapt in order to cope with changing aspects of our situation. Let’s face it: the current pandemic will probably be quite a temporary phenomenon. Is the disruption of our opportunity to hug each other really such a disaster that it has to feature as the main item on the national radio news? Isn’t it time we learned to adapt …. just a little, and for the time being?