What is  Family?  Explain its features and types of Family in detail.

What is  Family?  Explain its features and types of Family in detail.

Introduction

According to Oxford Dictionary of Sociology: – ” The family is an intimate  domestic group make up  people related to one another  by bonds of blood, sexual mating or legal ties. It has been a very resilient social unit that has survived and adopted through time”.

 

Here we will learn the topic What is Family? Explain its features and types of family in detail.

 

Meaning and Definition of Family

 

1. Kingslay Davis – “Family is a group person whose relations to one another are based on consanguinity and who are therefore kin to one another.”

2. MacIver and Page – “The family is a group defined by a sex relationship sufficiently precise and enduring to provide for procreation and upbringing of children.”

3. Summer – “The family is a miniature social organisation including at least two generations and is characteristically formed upon blood bonds.

Some basic characteristics of Family

 

1. A mating relationship: – The very existence of family is based on the mating relation of a man and women.

2. A form of marriage: – A mating relationship established through the institution of marriage.

3. A system of nomenclature: – Every family known by a name and has its own system of reckoning decent. Descent may be traces through male line or female line.

4. Common habitation: – A family required a dwelling place without which the task of child bearing and child rearing becomes difficult and not adequately performed.

5. Permanence: – A family is permanent institution. A family is never dissolved. One family gives rise to several other families.

6. Universality: – Family may be said the most universal group. No culture or society is known to exist without some form of family organisation.

Functions of Family in Social Life

 

 Talcott Parsons

 

• Primary socialization of children

• Stabilization of adult personality

 Kingslay Davis

 

• Reproduction

• Maintenance of Immature Children

• Placement

• Socialization

According to GP Murdock

 

      Book – ‘Social Structure’

• Regulation of social behaviour

• Reproduction

• Economic Cooperation

• Socialization

According to Ogburn & Nimkoff

• Affectional

• Economic

• Recreation

• Protective

• Educational

Important works related to Family Organization

• Historical Aspects -: Marx, Engels, Westermarck, Malinowski

• Structural Aspects -: Murdock and Burgess

• Functional Aspects -: Ogburn, Davis, Zimmerman

Aim of Family

 

• To provide love, care, and protection to members

• To ensure the birth and upbringing of children

• To give emotional and social support to individuals

• To maintain social order and stability in society

• To continue the family lineage and culture

Objectives of Family

 

1. Procreation – to produce and raise children.

2. Socialization – to teach children values, culture, and social behavior.

3. Protection and care – to provide security to family members.

4. Economic support – family members help each other financially.

5. Emotional satisfaction – family provides love, affection, and companionship.

6. Education and guidance – parents guide children in their development.

Here we will learn the topic What is Family? Explain its features and types of family in detail.

 

Features of Family

 

1. Universal institution – Family exists in every society.

2. Emotional bond – Members are connected through love and affection.

3. Common residence – Family members usually live together in the same house.

4. Blood and marriage relations – Members are related by blood, marriage, or adoption.

5. Economic cooperation – Members share responsibilities and resources.

6. Social unit – Family is the basic unit of society.

7. Long-term relationship – Family relationships are usually permanent.

Types of Family in Sociology

 

Mating relationship (Marriages)

• Monogamous Family

• Polygamous Family

Family Circle

• Nuclear Family

• Conjugal Family

• Joint Family

• Extended Family

• Expanded Family

• Compound Family

• Supplemented Family

• Nuclear Family

On the basis of Residence

• Patrilocal Family

• Matrilocal Family

• Avunculocal Family

• Neolocal Family

• Biolocal Family

• Patrivirilocal Family

• Matri Patrilocal Family

On the basis of descent

• Patrilineal Family

• Matrilineal Family

 Authority

• Patriarchal Family

• Matriarchal Family

Changes in the structure of Family

Family is gradually becoming the smallest unit of human societies and the scope of economic security it called provide  to its non learning  has almost diminished. Large family these days is an economic liability. In fact mobility which is the most striking feature of modern life has weakened the continuity of traditional family structure. Thus, modern family is gradually disorganising. Some signs phenomenon’s are as follow:-

• Changes in the status of women

• Decline of Religious Control

• Increase in Divorce Rate

• Laxity in marital bonds

• Lack of  family Unity

• Decrease in family control

•  Conflict

• Lack of protection.

Critical Analysis Family Organisation

Leach has presented a pessimistic view of the family in industrial society in his study entitled ‘A Runaway World’ he say  far from  being the basis of the  good society, the family with its narrow  privacy and tautly secrets is the source of all  our discontent.

David Cooper in his book “The Death the family” has condemned family as an institution and argues ‘family carts the individuality.’

RD Liang reflects to the family group as a Nexus and form interaction within the nexus ‘reciprocal internalization’ develops. Within the family nexus children have to obey the parent which is primary link to the dangerous chain. This curbs the creativity and chances of development of a free personality of children.

Engels in his book – ‘origin of the family, Private Property and state’ argues that monogamous nuclear family developed with emergence of private property. Women are exploited in such a system. This view  is supported  by Kathleen Gough.