What Is a Family?

The Family

The family is one of the social institutions which contribute to the survival of mankind. It is generally believed that the family plays a pivotal role in the proper functioning of the society. Indeed, the family is considered to be the most basic social institution. It is usually referred to as the main pillar of society. Many sociologists have regarded the family as the cornerstone of society and they consider it difficult to imagine how human society could function without it. Throughout the world, the family has been assigned the responsibility of shielding, protecting, sustaining and maintaining children. It is also the first place where socialisation and social control of children occur.

What is a Family?

A family is a group of people who are related by kinship ties-relations of blood, marriage, or adoption and who live under the same roof. George peter Murdock argues that the family is a universal social institution and is an inevitable part of human society. He defines the family as “a social group characterized by common residence, economic cooperation 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 cohabiting adults.”

In one form or another, the family is found in every society in the world. The family is a basic social organization, and plays an important role in socializing children into the culture of their society.

Households

A household is made up of people who share a house or other living place. Many households are families, but households are different from families. Families do not always live together while a household may contain people who belong to different families. For example, a group of friends sharing an apartment.

Sociologists study the different living arrangements people have, so this of course could be called ‘families and households’, not just ‘families’.

Forms of Family

Even though the family is found in every society, it can take many different forms which vary in terms of composition and size.

1 The Nuclear Family

The nuclear family consists of parents and children, living together in one household. It is sometimes called the two generation family, because it contains only the two generations of parents and children. Sociologists have argued that the nuclear family form has developed as concomitant of industrialization. With the geographical and social mobility normally associated with industrial development, they argued that the nuclear family has become socially and geographically isolated from wider kin networks.

In Mauritius, in 2000, about 69% (68.7%) of households live were of the nuclear type. The nuclear family is the norm among Franco-Mauritians, Creoles, and Mulattoes and is an increasingly common form of family among all urbanites. The average couple countrywide has two children; the number is slightly higher in rural areas and among Muslims. During the past 20 years, there has been an increase in the number of nuclear family in Mauritius.

An example of nuclear family

The Classic Extended Family

The classic extended family is made up of several nuclear families joined by kinship ties. The classic extended family is sometimes called a three-or four- generation family, because it contains the three generations of grandparents, parents and children. The term ‘classic extended family’ is mainly used to describe a situation where many related nuclear families or family members live in the same house and share the same amenities, live in the same street or area and the members see one another regularly. This form of family has been thought of as having been more common in the past than today and more common in poorer countries. In Mauritius, the classic extended family prevailed widely during the pre-industrial era. With industrialization in the early 1970’s, families started to become nuclear. Today, the largest extended families are rural Hindu and Creole families.

2 If there are other relatives of the same generations, such as brothers, their wives and children living together, this is a horizontally extended family.

Almost everyone has extended family though nowadays, we are less likely to live with members of our extended family. In Mauritius, though the family has evolved, kinship ties with grandparents and other relatives remain strong.

generation

Second

generation

An example of an extended family

The Modified Extended Family

The modified extended family is one where related nuclear families, although they may be living far apart geographically, nevertheless maintain regular contact and mutual support through visiting and the phone. This is probably the most common type of family arrangement in Mauritius today.

The Single-parent Family

The single-parent family is made up of one parent and his or her dependent children. This family arrangement is becoming increasingly common in Western societies. Single-parent families are usually the consequence of separation or divorce but increasingly some people decide to raise children alone. In the past, single-parents were more likely to be the result of the death of one parent. 3 An example of a single-parent family (father)

An example of a single-parent family (mother)

The Reconstituted Family

The reconstituted family is a family where one or both spouses have been previously married and they bring with them children of a previous marriage. This reconstitutes the family with various combinations of step-mothers, step-fathers and step children. Such families are becoming very common in western societies, as a result of rising divorce rates and remarriages.

Marriage Patterns

A wedding is a ceremony at which a marriage is recognized. The wedding service is an official way in which new relationships between a man and a woman, are recognized by the couple themselves and established in the eyes of the society to which they belong.

There are few societies in which it is usual for a couple to quietly pair off and start “playing house”. While this is fairly common in Western societies today, it is not the fully approved and expected and therefore not the institutionalized arrangement. The institution of marriage is one of the factors leading to the setting up of the family as an institution. In its broad sense,

4 “marriage constitutes a commitment or exchange that is recognized by the society in which it takes place” [Hagedorn, 1994, pg 374]

Marriage is not only the legal union of at least two adults of opposite sex but also the approved social pattern whereby two or more persons establish a family. It involves not only the right to conceive and rear children but also a host of other obligations and privileges affecting a number of people.

The real meaning of marriage is the acceptance of a new status, with a new set of privileges and obligations, and the recognition of this new status by others. Wedding ceremonies and rituals are simply ways of publicizing and dramatizing this change of status. Homosexual couples in our society would like to be married and recognized as a family. At present, this is legally impossible in Mauritius. A legal marriage legitimizes a social status and creates a set legally recognized rights and duties. A homosexual “marriage” creates no new status, which others are forced to recognize, nor are any legally enforceable rights and duties created.

In matters of marriage our ethnocentrism is conspicuous. To us, it is monstrous that parents should arrange and compel the marriage of two persons who may never even have met. How do they know whether they will love each other? Why are not their wishes consulted? Our reaction illustrates the usual error of ethnocentrism- assuming that people with another culture will think and feel as we would think and feel if transplanted into their situation. It overlooks the fact that most people wish and feel only what their society trains them to wish and feel. We think of marriage as a romantic adventure with a person we have come to love. The girl in Afganistan, about to enter an arranged marriage with a stranger, eagerly anticipated her marriage as a desirable status and a fulfilling association with a man who had been wisely chosen by her parents. Each society has viewed the other with an ethnocentric pity; we pitied their young people for their lack of freedom; they pitied our young people for their lack of parental assistance. In neither case did the young people feel any need for pity.

Endogamy and Exogamy

Every society limits choice in marriage by requiring that one choose a mate outside some specified group. This is called exogamy. In Mauritius, the prohibition applies only to close blood relatives; one may not marry a brother or sister, first cousin or certain other close relatives. Many societies extent the circle of prohibited kin to forbid marriage within the clan, the village, or sometimes even the tribe.

Most societies also require that mates be chosen within some specified groups. This is called endogamy. Clan, village, and tribal endogamy are quite common among primitive societies. In Mauritius, religious endogamy and class endogamy are encouraged. Nevertheless, many people marry outside their own religion and class.

5 Every society practices both exogamy and endogamy as it specifies both the limits of group closeness (exogamy) and group distance (endogamy) within which mates must be found. For example, in rural India, people expect an individual to marry someone from the same caste (endogamy) but from a different village (exogamy).

Monogamy and Polygamy

Just like the family takes various forms, similarly there are two types of marriage: monogamy and polygamy.

Monogamy is that form of marriage where an individual is allowed to have only one spouse at a time. Monogamy is the only legal form of marriage which is found in Europe, USA and in most Christian cultures.

There are two forms of monogamy: serial monogamy and straight-line monogamy.

Serial monogamy is that form of marriage where an individual can remarry in case of divorce or the death of a partner. Serial monogamy is widespread in USA, Britain, in most European countries and where high rates of divorce and remarriage are to be noticed. In Mauritius too people practise this form of marriage.

Straight-line monogamy is that form of marriage where an individual is allowed to marry only once in his life. This form of marriage is practised in traditional India by women.

To the majority of people, monogamy is the only one decent and civilized form of marriage. Yet, a majority of the world’s societies practiced polygamy.

Polygamy is that form of marriage where an individual is allowed to have more than one spouse at the same time.

Polygamy can take three forms.

One is group marriage, in which several men and several women are in a marriage relationship with one another. While this is an intriguing theoretical possibility, there is no authentic instance of a society in which group marriage has been fully institutionalized, with the possible exception, at one time, of the Marquesans [Murdock, 1949, pg 24].

A very rare form is polyandry. Polyandry is the marriage of one woman to more than one man at the same time. The Todas of Southern India are the few people who practise this form of marriage. Toda polyandry is fraternal, meaning that when a woman marries a man, she automatically becomes wife to all brothers, and they all live together with little jealousy or discord.

Polyandry has also been reported as occurring among the Nyinba people of Nepal.

6 Polyandry appears to arise in societies where the living standards are so low that a man can only afford to support a wife and child by sharing the responsibility with other men.

The most common and usual form of polygamy is polygyny. Polygyny is the marriage of one man to more than one wife at the same time. Polygyny is practised in many Islamic countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where it is legal and normatively approved. In Mauritius, polygyny is practiced by Muslim men.

The possession of several wives is often seen as a sign of wealth and success and generally only the more successful and powerful men who can afford or attract more than one wife practise polygyny. For this reason, even in polygynous societies, most of the marriages are monogamous.

The social recognition of marriage makes it more likely that the parents of children born into society will continue to remain together while they care for their offspring. In many societies, children are an economic asset. For example, in the Masai, fathers want many children, particularly boys, as they can help in looking after the herd and later go on raids to bring back more cattle to the group. In Mauritius, children are no more so economically important and many married couples decide to have only one or two children. In this way, marriage has become separated from the idea of having children and the happiness of husband and wife is often looked on as being just as important as raising children.

Patterns of Family Inheritance

Societies trace descent and pass on property from one generation to the next in three ways: patrilineal, matrilineal and bilineal.

Patrilineal descent is the system where the inheritance of title, property, and position as family head is passed down through the male side of the family, from father to son. An example of this is the way the succession to the British throne is passed through the male side of the Royal family.

Marilineal descent is the system where inheritance is through the female side of the family. About 20 percent of known societies trace descent through the female line. For example, for the Nayar (a tribe in India), a matrilineal people, very often it is the wife’s brother who is the “head” of the family. Children are brought up in the mother’s family- with their mother’s brother acting as their social father. Property and privileged positions are passed from maternal uncle to nephew.

Bilineal descent is the system where inheritance is through both sides of an individual’s family. In Mauritius, descent is bilineal.

7 Patterns of Residence

Societies differ in the location where a couple takes up residence after marriage. There are three types of residence: patrilocal, matrilocal and neo-local.

Patrilocal residence is the system where a married couple lives by tradition with or near the husband’s family. Over 50 percent of societies have patrilocal residence rules which tend to cause a preference for sons. Sons are more highly valued than daughters because they stay with the family in which they are born.

Matrilocal residence is the system where the couple lives with or near the wife’s family.

Neo-local residence is the system where the couple sets up a new place of residence independent of either of their parents or other relatives. This rule goes along with a nuclear family structure. In Mauritius like in Western societies, there is a tendency for families to adopt neo-local pattern of residence. A number of people have moved away from their family of origin. But such movement does not mean a breakdown of links with the family of origin. Many families have a tendency to live in a close-knit community in rural areas, or keep close contact even when family members have moved to urban areas. It is customary for families who are living away from the family of origin to keep in touch with, or to visit regularly. Communication through the tephone and regular visits are still maintained. Those who have moved away from the family of origin, have their residences in nearby plots, inherited from the elders. In the rural areas, there is a tendency to live in separate houses but on the same plot of land. This pattern of land-holding and its availability through inheritance have led to people living near their relatives and to maintain close links with each other even after marriage.

Patterns of Authority

Family organization varies across societies in terms of power and authority structure. There are three types of authority: patriarchy, matriarchy and egalitarian.

Patriarchy is a term used to describe the dominance of men over women. A patriarchal family is one where the father, husband, or eldest male is usually the chief authority and decision maker. This particular arrangement tends to occur in conjunction with patrilineal descent and patrilocal residence, and it has been very common throughout human history and in pre-industrial Japan, China, India and the Middle East. In Mauritius, out of 296,294 households enumerated at the 2000 Population Census, 82.5% were male headed.

Matriarchy describes the dominance of women over men. A matriarchal family is one where power and authority is held by the most senior woman. Matriarchy is rare, but there is some 8 evidence of them rural Japan. It has also been argued that Black American families are matriarchal due to a heritage of slavery and discrimination that has led to family instability and thus power was in the hands of women by default.

In an egalitarian arrangement, power and authority are equally distributed between husband and wife. This pattern is becoming increasingly common in industrialized countries and has led to the emergence of the symmetrical family where the roles of husband and wife are more alike and equal.

Functions of the Family

The family usually performs six functions:

1. Reproduction

2. Identification

3. Socialisation and social control

4. Education

5. Protective

6. Economic

7. Religious

With industrialization, some of these functions have been taken over by other social institutions like the school, the church and the State.

Reproduction Function

One of the main functions of the family is to reproduce and nurture children. In fact, having children is considered as one reason for marriage, as a means of passing on family property and providing a future workforce. Besides, a society can only exist if there are people. Quite simply families produce the people who compose each generation.

However, in most societies including Mauritius, there has been a steady increase in the reproduction of children and sexual relations before and outside marriage. This is due to

9 1. The availability of modern methods of contraception which reduces the risks of unwanted pregnancy.

2. The decline of extended family life which has meant less pressure from relatives to maintain ‘moral standards’ and keep sexual relations within marriage.

3. Growing secularization which means that people are less concerned with conforming to religious moral beliefs as guides to their sexual behaviour.

4. The Welfare State which has made it easier for a woman to support a child financially without a husband or help from relatives.

Identification Function

The family gives a name, a background and a social class position to its members so that they may be identified and recognized in society. One is ascribed several statuses like race within the family. In a class system, the class status of a child’s largely determines the opportunities and rewards open to him and the expectations through which others may inspire or discourage him. Though class status can be changed through some combination of luck and personal efforts, each child starts out with the status of his family, and this highly influences one’s achievement and rewards.

Socialisation and Social Control Function

Society cannot exist without rules and expectations of behaviour. A society full of unpredictable behaviour would collapse in chaos. The family acts as an important agency of primary socialisation. The family socializes children into correct forms of behaviour. It is through parents that children first learn about the culture of the society they will grow up in. For example, it is in the family that children first learn the difference between what is seen as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ behaviour, the norms governing gender roles, and the acceptance of parental and other adult authority. These rules are reinforced by sanctions such as praise and rewards. It is acknowledged that the early years of socialisation are important in the development of the individual because they have enduring effects on his ideas and attitudes.

If children fall out of step with society in some way, the family is usually the first place where punishment takes place. Thus, the family not only socializes but also acts as an agent of social control.

10 In every society, the family still retains the major responsibility for the socialisation of very young children, but the increase in the number of nurseries and playgroups has meant that socialisation is no longer restricted to the family. The state educational system and the mass media now help the family with the socialisation of school-age children.

Education Function

Before industrialization, the family used to be one of the only sources of education for young people in most societies and it still is in many less developed ones. Children would learn the skills needed for working life from their parents.

With industrialization, the education of children has been mainly taken over by the state, and is now primarily the responsibility of professional teachers rather than parents. All children between the ages of 5 and 16 now have to attend school by law. The skills required for adult working life are no longer learnt in the family, but at the place of work, at colleges or on government schemes like Youth Training.

However, the family continues to play an important role in preparing a child for school, and encouraging and supporting him or her while at school. The family still has a major effect on a child’s level of educational acheievement.

Protective Function

The family plays a major role in maintaining and caring for dependent children- housing, clothing, and feeding those children who are still unable to look after themselves. The family provides most of the help and care for the young, the old, the sick, and the poor during periods of illness, unemployment, and other crises.

Although the maintenance of children is still very important, the modern nuclear family is less dependent on relatives for this help and assistance, and relies more on the state. Welfare benefits like social security and child benefit, and the social services, including social workers working with families, help parents to maintain and care for their children.

Economic Function

The family supplies society with its labour force. The family is also a unit of consumption: goods and services produced by the society are bought and used by the family.

Before industrialization and the growth of factory production in many societies including Mauritius, the family was a unit of production. This means that the family home was also a workplace, and the family produced most of the goods necessary for its own survival. 11 With industrialization, work has been mainly based in factories and offices, not in the home. Families do not generally produce the goods they need any more but go out and buy them.

Religious Function

It is within the family that an individual learns about his religion and its rituals.

Alternatives to the Family

Although the family performs numerous functions in society, this does not necessarily mean that there is no possibility of anything else taking its place. There have been many planned experiments which have tried to find other ways by which, for example, children can be brought up in society. Examples of experiments in communal living, where children are the concern of the society as a whole, are groups such as the Israeli Kibbutzim and the Communes of the People’s Republic of China.

The values of members of communes affirm a challenging significance to marriage and family. Andrew Mc Culloch argues that “those who form or join communes are often looking for somewhere where they can ‘be themselves’ and live collectively rather than in small, isolated, nuclear family units. However, in numerical terms, communes represent very little threat to traditional familial and marital values” [Haralambos, 1995, pg.371]. Indeed, it would be misleading to think that these experiments as providing complete alternatives to the family in society. For instance, the allocation of social functions, such as child-rearing, to other groups does not mean that the family has no significance in society, rather that it is freed from that particular activity in the context of the different demands of a communal society.

The Israeli Kibbutz

The Israeli Kibbutz is a form of commune and is the most famous and successful attempts in establishing an alternative to the family. The emphasis is on collective child rearing, with the community as a whole performing the functions of the family.

Kibbutz is a “cooperative village or community, in Israel, where all property is collectively owned and work is organized on a collective basis. Members contribute by working according to their capacity and in return receive food, clothing, housing, medical services, and other domestic services according to their needs. Dining rooms, kitchens, and stores are central, and schools and children’s dormitories are communal. Each village is governed by an elected assembly and by a vote of membership. A kibbutz may support itself through agricultural, entrepreneurial, or industrial means. By living and working collectively, they were able to build homes and to begin to irrigate and farm the barren desert land. Each person could contribute individual abilities to the growth of the community” [Http://Encarta.msn.com/kibbutz].

In the early kibbutzim, infants were taken to Children’s Houses after only a short time with their parents. The physical separation from their family continued into adult life, the children growing 12 up together and being looked after by specially trained nurses called metapelets and teachers, only being at their parents’ home or seeing their parents for a few hours each day. Women therefore were free to take on any work on the same terms as men.

Today, these patterns are changing and the separation between parents and children is less complete; in many kibbutzim, children return to spend the night at their parents’ flat, and women are involved in traditionally feminine types of work such as working in the communal kitchen or laundry.

The Commune System in China

In order to achieve economic modernization, the Chinese government after 1949 sought to find a general surplus in the countryside (where 80% of the population live) and turn it into investment for industry. Leaving it to the market was thought to be slow, inefficient, and inequitable, so the commune system of collectivized agriculture was implemented in the 1950s as one solution to the problem. Through the pooling and organization of labour and income, communes were designed to fill a myriad of functions:

1. To give rural communities the opportunity to accomplish large water conservation projects.

2. To establish small factories and produce goods that would increase general income.

3. To support hospitals and schools and

4. To care for the elderly and disabled within the community.

In the communes of the People’s Republic of China, the family is supported in its social role by the presence of communal services, such as free crèches, nurseries and canteens. The provision of these services in the commune releases members of the family for participation in the work of the commune.

Cohabitation

Cohabitation involves two unmarried persons of opposite sex living together. Cohabitation has been called by various terms namely: “living together”, “shaking up”, “serial monogamy”, or “living in sin”. It is a halfway house for people who do not want the degree of personal and social commitment that marriage represents.

Although many religions disapprove cohabitation before marriage, it has become quite prevalent in many societies including Mauritius. Cohabitation is replacing marriage as the first living-

13 together experience for young men and women. For many youngsters, living together seems like a good way to achieve some of the benefits of marriage without the risks of divorce. If things do not work, breaking up is easy to do. Cohabiting couples do not have to seek legal or religious permission to dissolve their union.

In recent decades, the number of adults sharing living quarters with adults of the opposite sex has increased. It is suggested that “premarital cohabitation may become institutionalized as a new step between dating and marriage” [Zanden, 1996, pg. 308]. Gelles and Levine argue that in some societies, some couples see cohabitation as a substitute for or alternative to marriage.

However, Popenoe argues that research shows that cohabitation is not a good way to prepare for marriage or to avoid divorce and that the rise in cohabitation is not a positive family trend. Cohabiting unions tend to weaken the institution of marriage and pose clear dangers for women and children. Living together outside marriage increases the risk of domestic violence for women and the risk of physical and sexual abuse for children.

Bibliography

1. Blundell, J., 2007. Active Sociology. UK: Longman.

2. Haralambos, M and Holborn, M., 2000. Sociology: Themes and Perspectives. 5th ed. UK: Collins Educational.

3. Haralambos, M., 1996. Sociology: a new approach. 3rd ed. Causeway Press.

4. Moore, S., 2001. Sociology Alive. 3rd ed. UK: Stanley Thornes.

5. 2000 Housing and Population Census

Available from: http://www.gov.mu/portal/sites/ncb/cso/ei411/housing.pdf.