Superfamily is a term that came into popular use around the time that Quiverfulls began to get national coverage thanks to reality television, books, etc. It typically refers to people specifically planning to have far more children than the average.

In the past, people had large families because of a combination of factors, including lack of birth control, high infant mortality rates, and the very real fact that families had to produce little workers to help them keep up with their work. It’s a very different dynamic than how superfamilies today function and why superfamilies make the choice to become superfamilies in the first place.