Meaning:
Loyalties within a family are the strongest and most important ones.
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Over milleniums, Christianity has watered down those loyalties by systematically
breaking the fabrics of traditional institutions such as the family and the
clan. As a result, blood in the west must feel markedly thinner compared with
the gooey messy bond that ties together an extended Chinese family or a Native
American tribe. This might explain Ben Franklin's observation that while many
whites, men and women, ran away to join the American Indians but not a single
Indian signed up with the white colonists.