Bhagavad Gita · Chapter 1: Arjuna's Despair

Bhagavad Gita 1.40

kulakṣaye praṇaśyanti kuladharmāḥ sanātanāḥ | dharme naṣṭe kulaṃ kṛtsnamadharmo'bhibhavatyuta ||

When a family is destroyed, its age-old traditions perish. When those traditions are lost, lawlessness overwhelms the whole family.

Modern context

Arjuna now looks past the battle to its aftermath. When the elders who carry a family's ways are gone, the ways go with them. What a family or a community knows about living well is held by people, and it takes a generation to rebuild once it is lost.