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Family in The Comedy of Errors is mostly notable for its absence. Family is important to the characters, and particularly so for Egeon, S. Antipholus, and Aemilia. The theme of family can be seen as the catalyst for other themes: lack of family causes isolation, which leads to suffering. Similarly, the characters seem to expect that a unified family will eliminate isolation and end their suffering. The action of the play is defined by everyone fighting to either regain their family or to maintain it. Though it isn’t expressly articulated as everyone’s aim, the play’s comic resolution relies on the physical reuniting of the families in order to come to a conclusion.
This play is less about the importance of family, and more about the potential destruction caused by not having a family.
Family isn’t important to everyone in the play. In fact, it only really matters to S. Antipholus. E. Antipholus and the Abbess seem to have set up perfectly happy lives for themselves, and even Egeon was content with only having one son.