Family appears as a distorted concept in the environment presented throughout Beloved. Slavery in America supplied an environment where African Americans grew up without any kind of family. The women were bred and the males sold as breeders. Children sold without even knowing their parents. Baby Suggs had 7 children all of which were taken from her except for Halle. She expressed the grief in giving up her children and the mountainous joy in living with Halle- having him present in her life. Furthermore, the relationship between Sethe, Halle and their children proves of utmost importance. Through their relationships, or lack of, tragedy and joy results. By Sethe severing her relationship with Beloved when Beloved was a baby, their relationship becomes toxic- smothering and almost killing Sethe as well as Denver. On the other hand, Denver's relationship with Sethe, although strained, provides an essential source of love for both characters. Contrasty, Paul D.'s family is ripped from him causing him to "love thin." His heart is rusted shut, his feelings bottled up. Without a family, there appears no safe place, no refuge to call home. Such was the dilemma for the majority of the slave population here in the United States. The family unit was simply absent and if it did exist it was broken.
Therefore, when observing the characters' effects on society their family background must be considered. First, we must look at the overall societal effects of slavery and the individuals coming out of slavery such as division, hate, fear, poverty, insecurity, crime, and lack of education. While not all of these can be contributed to the lack of the family unit, it must be considered as a feasible contributor. With no family, their is no security, no source of encouragement. With no security, fear and insecurity arise. With fear and insecurity, crime protrudes. Similarly, with no family and a divided society to begin with, education lacks. With a lack of education, poverty and crime result. Society disintegrates if the family disintegrates. Noticing specific examples from Beloved, Sethe had no real motherly figure (she was in the fields all day and soon hanged). Therefore, her methods of handling, caring, and protecting her own children tended toward the extreme (murdering Beloved to keep her from slavery). She acted more as an animal than as a human. "You have two legs, Sethe, not four." Baby Suggs did have a mother figure (because she came over from Africa) and appeared successful in raising Halle (the only son she was permitted to raise). Furthermore, she acted as a mother, caring and loving, for the freed African Americans and they loved her for it. Paul D.'s thin love (resulting from his enslavement as well as his absent family) leaves him searching and unsettled. Such insecurity leaves him hardened yet fragile. He doesn't trust many others and moves around regularly. He even refuses a home when it is offered to him after he leaves Sethe. However, when he finally finds a place to settle down, he concurrently finds a family to become a part of. His rusted box of a heart comes to rest only after he finds a place to call home.
