The Four Generation Rule in Families

The Three or Four Generation Rule states that success in a family lasts on average up to 3 or 4 generations.

This has been known to many writers.

Our source is Ibn-Khadlun who wrote that prestige lasts at best four generations in one lineage.

He also wrote about group feelings which matches the wave-nature of Superphysics and the moral sentiments theory of David Hume and Adam Smith.

The Mechanism: 2 Forces

The Four Generation Rule matches waves having 4 cycles or periods. This is because there are 2 Forces in Nature as Positive or Yang, and Negative or Yin i.e. A family or dynasty is still a society which has 4 social cycles. Each generation represents a cycle.

The world of the elements and all it contains comes into being and decays. This applies to both its essences and its conditions. Minerals, plants, all the animals including man, and the other created things come into being and decay.

Prestige is an accident that affects human beings. It comes into being and decays inevitably. It reaches its end in a single family within 4 successive generations.

I

Ibn-Khaldun Muqaddimah, Chapter 2 Part 13

How Family Prestige Lasts for 3 or 4 Generations

1. The success of the family starts with its founder who has extraordinary qualities. In the 4 properties of waves, this is commmonality that glues the family together as a single unit.

2. The son who comes after him and learns from him, but is inferior to him. This is the density property of waves.

3. The third generation is content with imitation, with reliance on tradition. This member is inferior to the second generation, in as much as a person who relies (blindly) upon tradition is inferior to a person who exercises independent judgment. This is the balance property of waves.

4. The fourth generation is inferior to the preceding ones in every respect. This member has lost the qualities that preserved the edifice of their glory. This is the spread property of waves i.e. the energy of the family-idea becomes spread thinly.