DEFINITION OF A FAMILY In the context of human society, a family (from Latin: familia) is a group of people affiliated either by consanguinity (by recognized birth), affinity (by marriage or other relationship), or co-residence (as implied by the etymology of the English word "family") or some combination of these. Members of the immediate family may include spouses, parents, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. Members of the extended family may include grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, and siblings-in-law. Sometimes these are also considered members of the immediate family, depending on an individual's specific relationship with them. In most societies, the family is the principal institution for the socialization of children. As the basic unit for raising children, anthropologists generally classify most family organizations as matrifocal (a mother and her children); conjugal (a wife, her husband, and children, also called the nuclear family); avuncular (for example, a grandparent, a brother, his sister, and her children); or extended (parents and children co-reside with other members of one parent's family). Sexual relations among the members are regulated by rules concerning incest such as the incest taboo. The word "family" can be used metaphorically to create more inclusive categories such as community, nationhood, global village, and humanism. The field of genealogy aims to trace family lineages through history. The family is also an important economic unit studied in family economics. Family is the basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children;also :any of various social units differing from but regarded as equivalent to the traditional family. Family is also a group of people who are related to each other, such as a mother, a father, and their children: Family can be defined as a group of people related by heredity, such as parents, children and siblings. It is sometimes broadened to include persons related by marriage or those living in the same household who are emotionally attached, interact regularly, and share concerns for the growth and development of the group and its individual members. There is legal definition of the family, but it varies depending on the jurisdiction and purpose for which it is defined. The family can have two basic types: nuclear and extended family. A nuclear family consist of adult husband, the wife, and their dependent children who are not of age, and the extended family is composed of the nuclear family and other relatives. Apart from the above mentioned types of family,
there are other types such as the lone-parent families, which is one parent and his or her dependent children, the reconstituted family- when a new family is created after divorce through a second marriage and the empty nest family where the children of nuclear family has grown and left home. According to functionalist George Murdock a family is defined as “a social group characterized by common residence, economic co-operation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship and one or more children, own or adopted of the sexually co-habiting adults There are different types of family which are; Conjugal (nuclear or single) family The term "nuclear family" is commonly used, especially in the United States of America, to refer to conjugal families. A "conjugal" family includes only the husband, the wife, and unmarried children who are not of age.Sociologists distinguish between conjugal families (relatively independent of the kindred of the parents and of other families in general) and nuclear families (which maintain relatively close ties with their kindred). Other family structures, such as blended parents, single parents, and domestic partnerships have begun to challenge the normality of the nuclear family. Matrifocal family A "matrifocal" family consists of a mother and her children. Generally, these children are her biological offspring, although adoption of children is a practice in nearly every society. This kind of family occurs commonly where women have the resources to rear their children by themselves, or where men are more mobile than women. As a definition, "a family or domestic group is matrifocal when it is centred on a woman and her children. In this case, the father(s) of these children are intermittently present in the life of the group and occupy a secondary place. The children's mother is not necessarily the wife of one of the children's fathers.. The term "extended family" is also common, especially in the United States. This term has two distinct meanings: 1. First, it serves as a synonym of "consanguinal family" (consanguine means "of the same blood"). 2. Second, in societies dominated by the conjugal family, it refers to "kindred" (an egocentric network of relatives that extends beyond the domestic group) who do not belong to the conjugal family.
These types refer to ideal or normative structures found in particular societies. Any society will exhibit some variation in the actual composition and conception of families.
Family of choice The term "family of choice," also sometimes referred to as "chosen family," is common within the LGBT community, both in academic literature and in colloquial vocabulary. It refers to the group of people in an individual's life that satisfies the typical role of family as a support system. The term differentiates between the "family of origin" (the biological family or that in which people are raised) and those that actively assume that ideal role. The family of choice may or may not include some or all of the members of the family of origin. This terminology stems from the fact that many LGBT individuals, upon coming out, face rejection or shame from the families they were raised in. The term family of choice is also used by individuals in the 12 step communities, who create close-knit "family" ties through the recovery process. Reconstituted Family : This is a family where one or more parents have been married previously and they bring with them children from their previous marriage(s). This introduces various combinations of step- father, step-mother etc. Symmetrical Family : This family is one in which the roles of the husband and wife or of co-habiting partners have become more alike or equal. Empty Nest Family : In this family, the children have moved out of the home and the parents reside together. Cereal Packet Family : This type of family is usually flouted as the ideal family type, and as such is usually displayed on cereal packets. Families can be classified according to the various categories: a) On the basis of descent b) On the basis of authority c) On the pattern of residence d) On the amount of mates Patrilineal Family : This type of family occurs when property and title inheritance passes down through the father’s side. Matrilineal Family : This is where the property and title inheritance passes through the mother’s side.
Patriarchal Family : In this type of family, the father is considered the head. Matriarchal Family: In this type of family, authority is held by the mother Patrilocal : When a married couple lives with or near the husband’s family. Matrilocal : When a couple lives with or near the mother’s family. Neo-Local : When a married couple sets up a home separate from either side of their families. Monogamous Family;In this instance, a husband only has one wife. This is the western idea of a typical marriage. Polygamous Family : In this case, the husband has more than one wife at the same time. This type of family can be found mostly in Saudi Arabia. Polyandrous Family : This family consists of a wife with more than one husband. This can be found in the Todas of Southern India. Industrialization Divorce Class State benefits The industrialization era is where the society moved from an agrarian one to a mechanized one. According to Talcott Parsons the industrialization era brought with it increased geographical and social mobility, resulting in the break down of the extended family to the privatized nuclear family. As divorce became socially acceptable and the government began providing financial assistance to single parents, many families broke up. Due to this, more single parent families were formed as well as reconstituted ones. Class highly influences the family structure, as those with low incomes tend to have a higher divorce rate due to financial conflicts. Lower class families are usually matrifocal or single parent and tend to contribute to the financial and social instability of the society, as the financial responsibilities now fall on the one parent due to the withdrawal of the contribution of the other parent. Middle class families tend to have less kids than lower class ones although there is more financial stability. Higher class families have an average of one or two children, thus making most higher class families nuclear ones.
Since the state began granting benefits to pregnant teenagers and single mothers, there has been a marked emergence of single parent families as less people are encouraged to get married to seek economic support as it is provided by the state.
Blended family The term blended family or stepfamily describes families with mixed parents: one or both parents remarried, bringing children of the former family into the new family. Also in sociology, particularly in the works of social psychologist Michael Lamb, traditional family refers to "a middleclass family with a bread-winning father and a stay-at-home mother, married to each other and raising their biological children," and nontraditional to exceptions from this rule. Most of the US households are now non-traditional under this definition. In terms of communication patterns in families, there are a certain set of beliefs within the family that reflect how its members should communicate and interact. These family communication patterns arise from two underlying sets of beliefs. One being conversation orientation (the degree to which the importance of communication is valued) and two, conformity orientation (the degree to which families should emphasize similarities or differences regarding attitudes, beliefs, and values). Monogamous family A monogamous family is based on a legal or social monogamy. In this case, an individual has only one (official) partner during their lifetime or at any one time (i.e. serial monogamy).This means that a person may not have several different legal spouses at the same time, as this is usually prohibited by bigamy laws, in jurisdictions that require monogamous marriages. Polygamous family Polygamy is a marriage that includes more than two partners. When a man is married to more than one wife at a time, the relationship is called polygyny; and when a woman is married to more than one husband at a time, it is called polyandry. If a marriage includes multiple husbands and wives, it can be called polyamory, group or conjoint marriage. Polygyny is a form of plural marriage, in which a man is allowed more than one wife .In modern countries that permit polygamy, polygyny is typically the only form permitted.
Polygyny is practiced primarily (but not only) in parts of the Middle East and Africa; and is often associated with Islam, however, there are certain conditions in Islam that must be met to perform polygyny. Polyandry is a form of marriage whereby a woman takes two or more husbands at the ] same time. Fraternal polyandry, where two or more brothers are married to the same wife, is a common form of polyandry. Polyandry was traditionally practiced in areas of the Himalayan mountains, among Tibetans in Nepal, in parts of China and in parts of northern India. Polyandry is most common in societies marked by high male mortality or where males will often be apart from the rest of the family for a considerable period of time.
STRUCTURE OF THE FAMILY The structure of the family is considered a family support system involving two married individuals providing care and stability for their biological offspring. However, this two-parent, nuclear family has become less prevalent, and alternative family forms have become more common. The family is created at birth and establishes ties across generations.Those generations, the extended family of aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, can hold significant emotional and economic roles for the nuclear family. Nuclear family The nuclear family has been considered the "traditional" family since the communist scare in the cold war of the 1950s. The nuclear family consists of a mother, father, and the children. The two-parent nuclear family has become less prevalent, and pre-American and European family forms have become more common. These include same-sex relationships, single-parent households, adopting individuals, and extended family systems living together. The nuclear family is also choosing to have fewer children than in the past. The percentage of married-couple households with children under 18 has declined to 23.5% of all households in 2000 from 25.6% in 1990, and from 45% in 1960. Single parent A single parent (also termed lone parent or sole parent) is a parent who cares for one or more children without the assistance of the other biological parent. Historically, single-parent families often resulted from death of a spouse, for instance in childbirth. Single-parent homes are increasing as married couples divorce, or as unmarried
couples have children. Although widely believed to be detrimental to the mental and physical well being of a child, this type of household is tolerated. The percentage of single-parent households has doubled in the last three decades, but that percentage tripled between 1900 and 1950. The sense of marriage as a "permanent" institution has been weakened, allowing individuals to consider leaving marriages more readily than they may have in the past. Increasingly, single parent families are due to out of wedlock births, especially those due to unintended pregnancy. Stepfamilies
Stepfamilies are becoming more familiar in America. Divorce rates are rising and the remarriage rate is rising as well, therefore, bringing two families together making step families. Statistics show that there are 1,300 new stepfamilies forming every day. Over half of American families are remarried, that is 75% of marriages ending in divorce, remarry.
Extended family The extended family consists of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. In some circumstances, the extended family comes to live either with or in place of a member of the nuclear family. An example includes elderly parents who move in with their children due to old age. This places large demands on the caregivers, particularly the female relatives who choose to perform these duties for their extended family. Historically, among certain Asian and Native American cultures the family structure consisted of a grandmother and her children, especially daughters, who raised their own children together and shared child care responsibilities. Uncles, brothers, and other male relatives sometimes helped out. Romantic relationships between men and women were formed and dissolved with little impact on the children who remained in the mother's extended family.
THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF A FAMILY One of the primary functions of the family involves providing a framework for the production and reproduction of persons biologically and socially. This can occur through
the sharing of material substances (such as food); the giving and receiving of care and nurture (nurture kinship); jural rights and obligations; and moral and sentimental ties. Thus, one's experience of one's family shifts over time. From the perspective of children, the family is a "family of orientation": the family serves to locate children socially and plays a major role in their enculturation and socialization.From the point of view of the parent(s), the family is a "family of procreation", the goal of which is to produce and enculturate and socialize children. However, producing children is not the only function of the family; in societies with a sexual division of labor, marriage, and the resulting relationship between two people, it is necessary for the formation of an economically productive household. Christopher Harris notes that the western conception of family is ambiguous and confused with the household, as revealed in the different contexts in which the word is used. Olivia Harris states this confusion is not accidental, but indicative of the familial ideology of capitalist, western countries that pass social legislation that insists members of a nuclear family should live together, and that those not so related should not live together; despite the ideological and legal pressures, a large percentage of families do not conform to the ideal nuclear family type. Recall that the functional perspective emphasizes that social institutions perform several important functions to help preserve social stability and otherwise keep a society working. A functional understanding of the family thus stresses the ways in which the family as a social institution helps make society possible. As such, the family performs several important functions. First, the family is the primary unit for socializing children. As previous chapters indicated, no society is possible without adequate socialization of its young. In most societies, the family is the major unit in which socialization happens. Parents, siblings, and, if the family is extended rather than nuclear, other relatives all help socialize children from the time they are born.
Second, the family is ideally a major source of practical and emotional support for its members. It provides them food, clothing, shelter, and other essentials, and it also provides them love, comfort, help in times of emotional distress, and other types of intangible support that we all need. Third, the family helps regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction. All societies have norms governing with whom and how often a person should have sex. The family is the major unit for teaching these norms and the major unit through which sexual reproduction occurs. One reason for this is to ensure that infants have adequate
emotional and practical care when they are born. The incest taboo that most societies have, which prohibits sex between certain relatives, helps minimize conflict within the family if sex occurred among its members and to establish social ties among different families and thus among society as a whole. Fourth, the family provides its members with a social identity. Children are born into their parents’ social class, race and ethnicity, religion, and so forth. As we have seen in earlier chapters, social identity is important for our life chances. Some children have advantages throughout life because of the social identity they acquire from their parents, while others face many obstacles because the social class or race/ethnicity into which they are born is at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Beyond discussing the family’s functions, the functional perspective on the family maintains that sudden or far-reaching changes in conventional family structure and processes threaten the family’s stability and thus that of society. For example, most sociology and marriage-and-family textbooks during the 1950s maintained that the male breadwinner–female homemaker nuclear family was the best arrangement for children, as it provided for a family’s economic and child-rearing needs. Any shift in this arrangement, they warned, would harm children and by extension the family as a social institution and even society itself. Textbooks no longer contain this warning, but many conservative observers continue to worry about the impact on children of working mothers and one-parent families. We return to their concerns shortly.
THE FAMILY AS AN ECONOMIC UNIT The term Family Economy can be used to describe the family as an economic unit. The early stages of development in many economies are characterized by family based production. In the early, pre-industrial stage, technology was limited and unchanging. Most economic activity took place within the household, and production and distribution were organized by custom and tradition.High mortality rates and low productivity meant that on the farms and in the towns life was short and living conditions were harsh – an existence which was accepted fatalistically. In this society the family played a central role, since economic and social status was defined by birth, family ties, and local custom. Most importantly, the family was a productive unit, and physical strength – typically a male attribute – was an essential element in survival
The family economic unit has always been dependent on specialized labor done by family members. The family was a multi-generational producer with capital and land provided by older generations and labor provided by younger generations. Goods were produced not only for home consumption but to sell and trade in the market as well. Family production was not only limited to agricultural products but they also produced manufacturing goods and provided services. In order to sustain a viable family economy during the pre-industrial era labor was needed. The labor needed to operate the farm and provide old-age support came from family members, fertility was high. High fertility and guaranteed employment on the family farm made education, beyond the basic literacy needed to read the bible, expensive and unnecessary During the post industrial stage the family as an economic unit changed.The family transformed from being a unit of production to being a unit of consumption. This new era of industrialization brought changes where farming can be done with less persons, therefore children were no longer to be viewed as economic assets but rather as liabilities. Industrialization further contributed to the demise of the family economy where the capitalist market encouraged production in large scale factories, farms and mines. Wage labor became common and family members no longer worked together but rather used the wages they had earned to buy goods which they consumed as a family unit.The industrial revolution, starting in the nineteenth and going into the twentieth century, is seen as the force that changed the economic family and is basically responsible for the "modern family."
EVOLUTION AND TYPES OF MODERN FAMILY The organization of the pre-industrial family is now believed to be similar to modern types of family. Many sociologists used to believe that the nuclear family was the product of industrialization, but evidence highlighted by historian Peter Laslett suggests that the causality is reversed and that industrialization was so effective in North-western Europe specifically because the pre-existence of the nuclear family fostered its development. Family types of pre-industrial Europe belonged into two basic groups, the "simple household system" (the nuclear family), and the "joint family system" (the extended family). A simple household system featured a relatively late age of marriage for both
men and women and the establishment of a separate household after the marriage or neolocality. A joint family household system was characterized by earlier marriage for women, co-residence with the husband's family or patrilocality, and co-residing of multiple generations. Many households consisted of unrelated servants and apprentices residing for periods of years, and at that time, belonging to the family. Due to shorter life expectancy and high mortality rates in the pre-industrialized world, much of the structure of a family depended on the average age of the marriage of women. Late marriages, as occurred in the simple household system, left little time for three-generation families to form. Conversely, in the joint family household system, early marriages allowed for multi-generational families to form. The pre-industrial family had many functions including food production, landholding, regulation of inheritance, reproduction, socialization and education of its members. External roles allowed for participation in religion and politics.Social status was also strictly connected to one's family. Additionally, in the absence of government institutions, the family was the only resource to cope with sickness and aging.Because of the industrial revolution and new work and living conditions, families changed, transferring to public institutions responsibility for food production and the education and welfare of its aging and sick members. Post-industrial families became more private, nuclear, domestic and based on the emotional bonding between husband and wife, and between parents and children. Historian Lawrence Stone identifies three major types of family structure: in about 1450-1630, the open lineage family dominated. The Renaissance era, 1550-1700, brought the restricted patriarchal nuclear family. The early modern world 1640-1800 emphasized the closed domesticated nuclear family. n modern times, genealogy became more widespread, with commoners as well as nobility researching and maintaining their family trees. Genealogy received a boost in the late 1970s with the television broadcast of Roots: The Saga of an American Family, Alex Haley's account of his family line. With the advent of the Internet, the number of resources readily accessible to genealogists has vastly increased, resulting in an explosion of interest in the topic.According to some sources, genealogy is one of the most popular topics on the Internet. The Internet has become not only a major source of data for genealogists, but also of education and communication. Functionalism is a theory that sees society as a social system designed to meet the basic needs and to promote the survival of its members. According to them, the social
system comprises of economic, political, kinship and culture and each of these has an established institution that plays a role in the running of society. Functionalists talk about society being like a human body. The organic analogy incorporates the ideas of a system to emphasise the inter-relatedness and mutual dependency of the major institutions of society. To them, the family is at the heart of society. They therefore, see the family as changing and responding to the needs of society. The systems approach has been used by functionalists to explain how social change occurs in society. Talcott Parsons is one of the most important functionalist sociologists who studied family life in the 1950s. He referred to families as 'personality factories' which meant that, families produce children who share the basic norms and values of their society and were moulded in the image of the society. He saw the family as the basic and most vital institution in society whose irreducible function is the stabilisation of adult personalities, where the family gives the emotional support necessary to cope with the stress of everyday life, especially at younger age in order to develop a strong emotional bond and to grow and function well in the society. Once the personality is produced, adults need emotional security and a source of release from the stresses and strains of modern life. The emotional support of partners helps to provide this security and prevent stress from overwhelming the individual and threatening the stability of society. This is the warm bath theory: the husband arrives home from a stressful day at work and sinks into the 'warm bath' that his family (wife) provides. Peter Murdock, (1949) is another functionalist who studied 250 societies and identified the functions of the family as sexual, where the family provides environment for regulating sexual desires. Families make sure that, such activities happens or takes place at the right location. The next function is reproduction, essential for survival of human society. Families ensure the survival of babies becoming adults. Babies are born vulnerable and incapable of taking care of themselves. It is therefore the duty of the family to train and equip them until such time that, they become adult and matured
enough to face the world on their own. Another function of the family, according to Murdock, is to instil the norms, cultures and values of society into children and to make sure they are satisfactorily socialised. The family also provide economic support for other family members. This can happen in all sorts of forms like provision of child care and financial support in difficult times. Murdock's ideas were that, the nuclear family is so useful to society, inevitable and universal because it fulfils the essential functions. This is because he had found evidence of nuclear families in the 250 different societies he studied. He saw the nuclear family as the most efficient arrangement for performing all of the above vital functions and defined it as a universal human social grouping, either as the sole prevailing form of the family or as the basic unit from which more complex forms compoundedIt exists as a distinct and strong functional group in every society. However, they have been criticised by the way they see the family. Parsons picture is of a typical middle class USA family which may not be representative for most families. They have also been accused of idealising the family. Functionalist fails to consider the validity of other family structures and do not consider the diversity of family types. They ignore conflict, abuse, gender inequalities, and rising divorce rates within the family. Interpretative sociologists tend to argue that, functionalists concentrate too much on the importance of the family to society and ignore the importance and meanings of family that individuals perceive. Feminists argue that the functionalist view of the expressive and instrumental roles as natural are in fact socially constructed. They also disagree with Murdoch's idea that the nuclear family is natural, believing that there is no preferable family structure and encourage family diversity. They are of the opinion that, the functionalist view of the family encourages oppression of women.
Marxists argue that the functionalist view of the family views those family structures which support and benefit capitalism, and that, the nuclear family is part of the superstructure with the sole purpose of perpetuating a capitalist system. They also believe that, the family socialises its members to accept the false consciousness that capitalism is good for all and that the government helps the people through healthcare. Marxism also rejects the functionalist idea that society is based on consensus; they would say that current society is based upon a conflict between the small powerful ruling class and the working majority. Both Marxists and feminists disagree with the functionalist idea that each organ of society exists for the benefit of society itself and for its individual members, they believe that they exist for the benefit of the ruling class of either capitalists or men. The next theoretical approach is the feminist. It is worth mentioning that, there are several types of feminism, included are, liberal, radical, socialist, and humanist but they all share in common the following about the family according to Barrie Thorne (1982). They see the society as male dominated, the family as an institution involving power relationships, men having different ideas of being in the family from women, the family being a source for the control of women, that there is no biological need for the family which is just a product of culture rather of nature, the ideologies of socialisation is based on gender, men gaining more from family life than women, and has also challenged the view of the family as being based on cooperation, shared interests and love.
THE STRUCTURE OF MY FAMILY FROM THE THIRD GENERATION The structure of my family from the third generation the the present generation is an extended family.An extended family consist of grandparents,father,mother,children,uncles,aunties,cousins,nieces,nephews etc. From the third generation in my family its starts with my grandfather and my grandmother {mr and mrs kogam} from the paternal side who gave birth to my father{mr nugah kelvin kogam} and his four brothers my father being the third amongst them. Its is extended because i have my grandparents, my uncle’s that is my father’s brothers, each of them are married to their wives and they become my aunties,and their children are my cousins. Also my i have nieces and nephews who are my older sister and brother’s children.
MY FAMILY TREE FROM THE THIRD GENERATION.
MR KOGAM(grandfather)→→→→→→→→→→→→→→MRS KOGAM(grandmother) ￬ ￬
JONATHAN ITONWE (uncle) IGBENE NUGAH(father) DORNU ￬ NUGAH(dad)→DOLA(mum) ↘ ↙
↓ ↓ ↓ LEYIRA NWIDUM SORBARI(me)