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.

This is because everything in the universe is cyclical.

“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.”

How Family Presige Lasts for 3 or 4 Generations

1. The success of the family starts with its founder who has extraordinary qualities.
2. The son who comes after him and learns from him, but is inferior to him.
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.
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.