The ‘cosmic scatter’ of 147 of the best known visual binary stars on the Main Sequence is discussed and a new estimation of the luminosity distribution function for multiple star systems is presented. As long as the mass ratio q of a close binary is not smaller than 0.5, the distribution of close binary components is identical to the van Rhijn luminosity-function. For smaller mass ratios (q < 0.5) the number of close companions decreases rapidly. It appears that less than 13% of visual binaries in our sample are simple binary systems.