Family (from ) is a Social group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order.[Alhussain, Khalid, Shah, Drishti, Thornton, James, Kelly, Kimberly. Familial Opioid Misuse and Family Cohesion: Impact on Family Communication and Well-being. Addictive Disorders & Their Treatment 2019;18(4):194–204. .][Lander L, Howsare J, Byrne M. The impact of substance use disorders on families and children: from theory to practice. Soc Work Public Health. 2013;28:194–205.]
classify most family organizations as matrifocal (a mother and her children), patrifocal (a father and his children), (a married couple with children, also called the nuclear family), avuncular (a man, his sister, and her children), or Extended family (in addition to parents, spouse and children, may include Grandparent, Aunt, Uncle, or Cousin).
The field of genealogy aims to trace family lineages through history. The family is also an important economic unit studied in family economics. The word "families" can be used metaphorically to create more inclusive categories such as community, , and global village.
Social
medallion with a portrait of a family, from
Alexandria (
Roman Egypt), 3rd–4th century (
Brescia, Museo di Santa Giulia)
[Jás Elsner (2007). "The Changing Nature of Roman Art and the Art Historical Problem of Style," in Eva R. Hoffman (ed), Late Antique and Medieval Art of the Medieval World, 11–18. Oxford, Malden & Carlton: Blackwell Publishing. , p. 17, Figure 1.3 on p. 18.]]]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; also moral and sentimental ties.
[Schneider, David 1984 A Critique of the Study of Kinship. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. p. 182][Deleuze-Guattari (1972). Part 2, ch. 3, p. 80] Thus, one's experience of one's family shifts over time.
There are different perspectives of the term 'family', 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.[John Russon, (2003) Human Experience: Philosophy, Neurosis, and the Elements of Everyday Life, Albany: State University of New York Press. pp. 61–68.] From the point of view of the parent(s), the family is a "family of procreation", the goal of which is to produce, enculturate and socialize children.[George Peter Murdoch Social Structure p. 13] 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.[Wolf, Eric. 1982 Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley: University of California Press. 92][Harner, Michael 1975 "Scarcity, the Factors of Production, and Social Evolution," in Population, Ecology, and Social Evolution, Steven Polgar, ed. Mouton Publishers: The Hague.][Rivière, Peter 1987 "Of Women, Men, and Manioc", Etnologiska Studier (38).]
C. C. Harris notes that the western conception of a family is ambiguous and confused with the household, as revealed in the different contexts in which the word is used.["We have seen that people can refer to their relatives as 'the family'. 'All the family turned up for the funeral... But of course, my brother didn't bring his family along— they're much too young.' Here the reference is to the offspring (as distinct from 'all' the family). The neighbors were very good, too. 'The Jones came, and their two children. It was nice, the whole family turning up like that.' Here the usage is more restricted than 'relatives' or 'his relatives,' but includes just both parents and offspring. 'Of course, the children will be leaving home soon. It's always sad to see the family break up like that.' Here the reference is not only to parents and children but to their co-residence, that is, to the household." The Family and Industrial Society", 1983, George Allen Unwin, London, p. 30] Olivia Harris states this confusion is not accidental, but indicative of the familial ideology of capitalist, Western world 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.
Size
The total fertility rate of women varies from country to country, from a high rate of 6.76 children born per woman in
Niger to a low rate of 0.81 in
Singapore (as of 2015).
Fertility is below replacement in all
Eastern European and Southern European countries, and particularly high in Sub-Saharan African countries.
In some cultures, the mother's preference of family size influences that of the children's through early adulthood.
Types
Although early western cultural anthropologists and
considered family and
kinship to be universally associated with relations by "blood" (based on ideas common in their own cultures) later research
has shown that many societies instead understand family through ideas of living together, the sharing of food (e.g.
milk kinship) and sharing care and
nurture kinship.
have a special interest in the function and status of family forms in stratified (especially
Capitalism) societies.
According to the work of scholars Max Weber, Alan Macfarlane, Steven Ozment, Jack Goody and Peter Laslett, the huge transformation that led to modern marriage in Western democracies was "fueled by the religio-cultural value system provided by elements of Judaism, early Christianity, Roman Catholic canon law and the Protestant Reformation".
Much sociological, historical and anthropological research dedicates itself to the understanding of this variation, and of changes in the family that form over time. Levitan claims:
Nonetheless, the results of Steven Ruggles' assessment of world census data suggest "nineteenth-century Northwest Europe and North America did not have exceptionally simple or nuclear family structure."
Multigenerational family
Historically, the most common family type was one in which grandparents, parents, and children lived together as a single unit. For example, the household might include the owners of a farm, one (or more) of their adult children, the adult child's spouse, and the adult child's own children (the owners' grandchildren). Members of the extended family are not included in this family group. Sometimes, "skipped" generation families, such as a grandparents living with their grandchildren, are included.
In the US, this arrangement declined after World War II, reaching a low point in 1980, when about one out of every eight people in the US lived in a multigenerational family.
Multigenerational households are less common in Canada, where about 6% of people living in Canada were living in multigenerational families as of 2016, but the proportion of multigenerational households was increasing rapidly, driven by increasing numbers of Aboriginal families, immigrant families, and high housing costs in some regions.
Conjugal (nuclear) family
The term "
nuclear family" is commonly used to refer to conjugal families. A "
Marriage" family includes only the spouses and unmarried children who are not of age.
Some 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).
[Compare: ][Compare: ]
Other family structures – with (for example) Blended families, , and domestic partnerships – have begun to challenge the normality of the nuclear family.
Single-parent family
A
single-parent family consists of one parent together with their children, where the parent is either widowed, divorced (and not remarried), or never married.
The parent may have
sole custody of the children, or separated parents may have a
shared parenting arrangement where the children divide their time (possibly equally) between two different single-parent families or between one single-parent family and one
blended family. As compared to sole custody, physical, mental and social well-being of children may be improved by shared-parenting arrangements and by children having greater access to both parents.
[Sanford L. Braver and Michael E. Lamb, Shared Parenting After Parental Separation: The Views of 12 Experts, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, April 2018: "The empirical evidence currently available supports the view that children of divorce, on average, benefit substantially from SP shared arrangements in which they live with each parent at least 35% of the time. Findings from well over 50 individual studies indicate that children whose parents have SP fare better than those with sole physical custody ...."] The number of single-parent families have been increasing due to the divorce rate climbing drastically during the years 1965–1995, and about half of all children in the United States will live in a single-parent family at some point before they reach the age of 18. Most single-parent families are headed by a mother, but the number of single-parent families headed by fathers is increasing.
[American Psychological Association, Single parenting and today's family ][Kathryn M. Feltey, Single-Parent Families , International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family]
Matrifocal family
A "matrifocal" family consists of a
mother and her children.
Generally, these children are her biological offspring, although adoption of children occurs 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."
[
Godelier, Maurice, trans. Nora Scott, The Metamorphoses of Kinship (London: Verso, 2011 ()), p. 568 ( Glossary, entry matrifocal) (trans. from Métamorphoses de la parenté (Librarie Arthème Fayard (apparently), 2004)) (author prof. anthropology, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris).
] The name, matrifocal, was coined in Guiana but it is defined differently in other countries. For Nayar families, the family have the male as the "center" or the head of the family, either the step-father/father/brother, rather than the mother.
Extended family
The term "
extended family" is also common, especially in the United States. This term has two distinct meanings:
-
It serves as a synonym of "consanguineal family" (consanguine means "of the same blood").
-
In societies dominated by the conjugal family, it refers to "Kinship" (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.
Historically, Extended family were the basic family unit in the Catholic culture and countries (such as Southern Europe and Latin America),
Family of choice
The term family of choice, also sometimes referred to as "chosen family" or "found family", is common within the
LGBT community, veterans, individuals who have suffered abuse, and those who have no contact with their biological parents. 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 family is not one that follows the "normal" familial structure like having a father, a mother, and children. This is family as a group of people that rely on each other like a family of origin would.
As a family system, families of choice face unique issues. Without legal safeguards, families of choice may struggle when medical, educational or governmental institutions fail to recognize their legitimacy.
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.
[ Blended and Blessed – Encouraging Step-Families, blendedandblessed.com] Also in sociology, particularly in the works of social psychologist Michael Lamb,
refers to "a middle-class 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 to this rule. Most of the US households are now non-traditional under this definition.
[ Civil Action No. 1:09-cv-10309 paragraph 17] Critics of the term "traditional family" point out that in most cultures and at most times, the
extended family model has been most common, not the nuclear family,
though it has had a longer tradition in England
[see ] than in other parts of Europe and Asia which contributed large numbers of immigrants to the Americas. The nuclear family became the most common form in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s.
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).
Blended families is complex, ranging from stepfamilies to cohabitating families (an individual living with guardians who are not married with step or half siblings). While it is not too different from stepfamilies, cohabiting families pose a prevalent psychological effect on youths.
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).
[Cf. "Monogamy" in Britannica World Language Dictionary, R.C. Preble (ed.), Oxford-London 1962, p. 1275: 1. The practice or principle of marrying only once. opp. to digamy now rare 2. The condition, rule or custom of being married to only one person at a time (opp. to polygamy or bigamy) 1708. 3. Zoology The habit of living in pairs, or having only one mate; The same text repeats The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, W. Little, H.W. Fowler, J. Coulson (ed.), C.T. Onions (rev. ed.) Oxford 1969, 3rd edition, vol. 1, p. 1275; OED Online. March 2010. Oxford University Press. 23 Jun. 2010 Cf. Monogamy in Merriam-Webster Dictionary] This means that a person may not have several different legal spouses at the same time, as this is usually prohibited by
bigamy laws, (the act of entering into a marriage with one person while still legally married to another
[
]) 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,
.
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.
Kinship terminology
Degrees of kinship
A first-degree relative is one who shares 50% of your DNA through direct inheritance, such as a full sibling, parent or progeny.
There is another measure for the degree of relationship, which is determined by counting up generations to the first common ancestor and back down to the target individual, which is used for various genealogical and legal purposes.
|
|
| second-degree |
| second-degree |
| first-degree |
| second-degree |
| second-degree |
| third-degree |
| third-degree |
| fourth-degree |
| fourth-degree |
| third-degree |
| fifth-degree |
| sixth-degree |
Terminologies
In his book
Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881) performed the first survey of kinship terminologies in use around the world. Although much of his work is now considered dated, he argued that
kinship terminologies reflect different sets of distinctions. For example, most kinship terminologies distinguish between sexes (the difference between a brother and a sister) and between generations (the difference between a child and a parent). Moreover, he argued, kinship terminologies distinguish between relatives by blood and
marriage (although recently some anthropologists have argued that many societies define kinship in terms other than "blood").
Morgan made a distinction between kinship systems that use classificatory terminology and those that use descriptive terminology. Classificatory systems are generally and erroneously understood to be those that "class together" with a single term relatives who actually do not have the same type of relationship to ego. (What defines "same type of relationship" under such definitions seems to be genealogical relationship. This is problematic given that any genealogical description, no matter how standardized, employs words originating in a folk understanding of kinship.) What Morgan's terminology actually differentiates are those (classificatory) kinship systems that do not distinguish lineal and collateral relationships and those (descriptive) kinship systems that do. Morgan, a lawyer, came to make this distinction in an effort to understand Seneca tribe inheritance practices. A Seneca man's effects were inherited by his sisters' children rather than by his own children.[Tooker, Elisabeth. "Another View of Morgan on Kinship." Current Anthropology 20, no. 1 (March 1979): 131–134.] Morgan identified six basic patterns of kinship terminologies:
-
Hawaiian kinship: only distinguishes relatives based upon sex and generation.
-
Sudanese kinship: no two relatives share the same term.
-
Eskimo kinship: in addition to distinguishing relatives based upon sex and generation, also distinguishes between lineal relatives and collateral relatives.
-
Iroquois kinship: in addition to sex and generation, also distinguishes between siblings of opposite sexes in the parental generation.
-
Crow kinship: a matrilineal system with some features of an Iroquois system, but with a "skewing" feature in which generation is "frozen" for some relatives.
-
Omaha kinship: like a Crow system but patrilineal.
Roles
Most Western societies employ
Eskimo kinship terminology.
This kinship terminology commonly occurs in societies with strong
conjugal family, where families have a degree of relative mobility. Typically, societies with conjugal families also favor
neolocal residence; thus upon marriage, a person separates from the nuclear family of their childhood (family of orientation) and forms a new nuclear family (family of procreation). Such systems generally assume that the mother's husband is also the biological father. The system uses highly descriptive terms for the nuclear family and progressively more classificatory as the relatives become more and more collateral.
Nuclear family
The system emphasizes the nuclear family. Members of the nuclear family use highly descriptive kinship terms, identifying directly only the husband, wife, mother, father, son, daughter, brother, and sister. All other relatives are grouped together into categories. Members of the nuclear family may be lineal or collateral. Kin, for whom these are family, refer to them in descriptive terms that build on the terms used within the nuclear family or use the nuclear family term directly.
Nuclear family of orientation
Nuclear conjugal family
-
Husband: a male spouse.
-
Wife: a female spouse.
-
Son: a male child of the subject.
-
Daughter: a female child of the subject.
-
Granddaughter: a child's daughter.
Nuclear non-lineal family
-
Spouse: husband or wife
-
Stepparent: a spouse of a parent that is not a biological parent
-
Sibling: sister or brother
-
Half-sibling: a sibling with whom the subject shares only one biological parent
-
Step-sibling: a child of a parent that is not a biological parent
Collateral relatives
A sibling is a collateral relative with a minimal removal. For collateral relatives with one additional removal, one generation more distant from a common ancestor on one side, more classificatory terms come into play. These terms (
Aunt,
Uncle,
Niece, and
Nephew) do not build on the terms used within the nuclear family as most are not traditionally members of the household. These terms do not traditionally differentiate between a collateral relatives and a person married to a collateral relative (both collateral and aggregate). Collateral relatives with additional removals on each side are
. This is the most classificatory term and can be distinguished by
degrees of collaterality and by generation (
removal).
When only the subject has the additional removal, the relative is the subject's parents' siblings, the terms Aunt and Uncle are used for female and male relatives respectively. When only the relative has the additional removal, the relative is the subjects siblings child, the terms Niece and Nephew are used for female and male relatives respectively. The spouse of a biological aunt or uncle is an aunt or uncle, and the nieces and nephews of a spouse are nieces and nephews. With further removal by the subject for aunts and uncles and by the relative for nieces and nephews the prefix "grand-" modifies these terms. With further removal the prefix becomes "great-grand-," adding another "great-" for each additional generation. For large numbers of generations a number can be substituted, for example, "fourth great-grandson", "four-greats grandson" or "four-times-great-grandson".
When the subject and the relative have an additional removal they are cousins. A cousin with minimal removal is a first cousin, i.e. the child of the subjects uncle or aunt. Degrees of collaterality and removals are used to more precisely describe the relationship between cousins. The degree is the number of generations subsequent to the common ancestor before a parent of one of the cousins is found, while the removal is the difference between the number of generations from each cousin to the common ancestor (the difference between the generations the cousins are from).
Cousins of an older generation (in other words, one's parents' first cousins), although technically first cousins once removed, are often classified with "aunts" and "uncles".
Aggregate relatives
English-speakers mark relationships by marriage (except for wife/husband) with the tag "-in-law". The mother and father of one's spouse become one's mother-in-law and father-in-law; the wife of one's son becomes one's daughter-in-law and the husband of one's daughter becomes one's son-in-law. The term "
sister-in-law" refers to two essentially different relationships, either the wife of one's brother, or the sister of one's spouse. "
Brother-in-law" is the husband of one's sister, or the brother of one's spouse. The terms "half-brother" and "half-sister" indicate siblings who share only one biological parent. The term "
aunt-in-law" refers to the aunt of one's spouse. "
Uncle-in-law" is the uncle of one's spouse. "
Cousin-in-law" is the spouse of one's cousin, or the cousin of one's spouse. The term "
niece-in-law" refers to the wife of one's nephew. "
Nephew-in-law" is the husband of one's niece. The grandmother and grandfather of one's spouse become one's grandmother-in-law and grandfather-in-law; the wife of one's grandson becomes one's granddaughter-in-law and the husband of one's granddaughter becomes one's grandson-in-law.
In Indian English, a sibling in law who is the spouse of your sibling can be referred to as a co-sibling (specificity a co-sister
Types of kinship
Patrilineal
Patrilineality, also known as
the male line or
agnatic kinship, is a form of kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is traced through his or her father's lineage.
[Benokraitis, N.V. Marriages and Families. 7th Edition, Pearson Education, Inc., 2011] It generally involves the
inheritance of property, rights, names, or titles by persons related through
male kin.
A patriline ("father line") is a person's father, and additional that are traced only through males. One's patriline is thus a record of descent from a man in which the individuals in all intervening generations are male. In cultural anthropology, a patrilineage is a Consanguinity male and female Kinship, each of whose members is descended from the common ancestor through male forebears.
Matrilineal
Matrilineality is a form of kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is traced through his or her mother's lineage.
It may also correlate with a societal system in which each person is identified with their matriline—their mother's lineage—and which can involve the inheritance of property and titles. A matriline is a line of descent from a female ancestor to a descendant in which the individuals in all intervening generations are mothersin other words, a "mother line".
In a matrilineal descent system, an individual is considered to belong to the same descent group as her or his mother. This matrilineal descent pattern is in contrast to the more common patrilineal descent pattern.
Bilateral descent
Bilateral descent is a form of kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is traced through both the paternal and maternal sides. The relatives on the mother's side and father's side are equally important for emotional ties or for transfer of property or wealth. It is a family arrangement where descent and inheritance are passed equally through both parents.
Families who use this system trace descent through both parents simultaneously and recognize multiple ancestors, but unlike with
cognatic descent it is not used to form descent groups.
Traditionally, this is found among some groups in West Africa, India, Australia, Indonesia, Melanesia, Malaysia and Polynesia. Anthropologists believe that a tribal structure based on bilateral descent helps members live in extreme environments because it allows individuals to rely on two sets of families dispersed over a wide area.
History of theories
Early scholars of family history applied
Charles Darwin's biological theory of evolution in their theory of evolution of family systems.
American anthropologist Lewis H. Morgan published
Ancient Society in 1877 based on his theory of the three stages of human progress from Savagery through
barbarian to
Civilization.
Morgan's book was the "inspiration for
Friedrich Engels' book"
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State published in 1884.
Engels expanded Morgan's hypothesis that economical factors caused the transformation of primitive community into a class-divided society.
The nuclear family in industrial society
Contemporary society generally views the family as a haven from the world, supplying absolute fulfillment. Zinn and Eitzen discuss the image of the "family as haven ... a place of
intimacy,
love and trust where individuals may
Escapism the competition of dehumanizing forces in modern society".
During industrialization, "the family as a repository of warmth and tenderness (embodied by the mother) stands in opposition to the competitive and aggressive world of commerce (embodied by the father). The family's task was to protect against the outside world." However, Zinn and Eitzen note, "The protective image of the family has waned in recent years as the ideals of family fulfillment have taken shape. Today, the family is more compensatory than protective. It supplies what is vitally needed but missing in other social arrangements."
Unhappily married couples are at 3–25 times the risk of developing clinical depression.
"The popular wisdom", according to Zinn and Eitzen, sees the family structures of the past as superior to those today, and families as more stable and happier at a time when they did not have to contend with problems such as illegitimate children and divorce. They respond to this, saying, "there is no golden age of the family gleaming at us in the far back historical past." "Desertion by spouses, illegitimate children, and other conditions that are considered characteristics of modern times existed in the past as well."
The postmodern family
Others argue that whether or not one views the family as "declining" depends on one's definition of "family". "Married couples have dropped below half of all American households. This drop is shocking from traditional forms of the family system. Only a fifth of households were following traditional ways of having married couples raising a family together."
In the Western World, marriages are no longer arranged for economic, social or political gain, and children are no longer expected to contribute to family income. Instead, people choose mates based on
love.
This increased role of love indicates a societal shift toward favoring emotional fulfilment and relationships within a family, and this shift necessarily weakens the institution of the family.
[Coontz, Stephanie. 2005. Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage. New York: Viking/Penguin Books.]
Margaret Mead considers the family as a main safeguard to continuing human progress. Observing, "Human beings have learned, laboriously, to be human", she adds: "we hold our present form of humanity on trust, and it is possible to lose it" ... "It is not without significance that the most successful large-scale abrogations of the family have occurred not among simple savages, living close to the subsistence edge, but among great nations and strong empires, the resources of which were ample, the populations huge, and the power almost unlimited"[ Male and Female, New York, 1949. pp. 193–194]
Many countries (particularly Western) have, in recent years, changed their in order to accommodate diverse family models. For instance, in the United Kingdom, in Scotland, the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 provides cohabitants with some limited rights.
In the United States, one in five mothers has children by different fathers; among mothers with two or more children the figure is higher, with 28% having children with at least two different men. Such families are more common among Blacks and Hispanics and among the lower socioeconomic class.
However, in western society, the single parent family has been growing more accepted and has begun to make an impact on culture. Single parent families are more commonly single mother families than single father.
Furthermore, there are families that consist of LGBTQ raising children. This is made possible due to surrogacy, IVF, IUI, adoption, and other processes.
Domestic violence
Domestic violence (DV) is violence that happens within the family. The legal and social understanding of the concept of DV differs by culture. The definition of the term "domestic violence" varies, depending on the context in which it is used.
It may be defined differently in medical, legal, political or social contexts. The definitions have varied over time, and vary in different parts of the world.
The Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence states that:
In 1993, the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women identified domestic violence as one of three contexts in which violence against women occurs, describing it as:
Family violence
Family violence is a broader definition, often used to include
child abuse,
elder abuse, and other violent acts between family members.
Child abuse is defined by the WHO as:
There exists legislation to prevent and punish the occurrence of these offences. There are laws regarding familial sexual activity, which states that it is a criminal offence to have any kind of sexual relationship between one's grandparent, parent, sibling, aunt or uncle.
Elder abuse is, according to the WHO: "a single, or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust which causes harm or distress to an older person".
Parental abuse of children (child abuse)
Child abuse is the physical, sexual or emotional maltreatment or neglect of a child or children.
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department for Children and Families (DCF) define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or other caregiver that results in harm, potential for harm, or threat of harm to a child.
Child abuse can occur in a child's home, or in the organizations, schools or communities the child interacts with. There are four major categories of child abuse:
child neglect,
physical abuse, psychological or emotional abuse, and sexual abuse.
Parental abuse by children
Abuse of parents by their children is a common but under reported and under-researched subject. A factor why this subject is under-researched is because of the overshadowing effect caused by parents abusing their children instead. Parents are quite often subject to levels of childhood aggression in excess of normal childhood aggressive outbursts, typically in the form of
verbal abuse or
physical abuse abuse. Parents feel a sense of
shame and
humiliation to have that problem, so they rarely seek help and it is usually little or no help available anyway.
Elder abuse
Elder abuse is "a single, or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust, which causes harm or distress to an older person".
[ elderabus.org.uk , accessed October 12, 2007.] This definition has been adopted by the World Health Organization from a definition put forward by Action on Elder Abuse in the UK. Laws protecting the elderly from abuse are similar to, and related to, laws protecting
from abuse.
The core element to the harm of elder abuse is the "expectation of trust" of the older person toward their abuser. Thus, it includes harms by people the older person knows or with whom they have a relationship, such as a spouse, partner or family member, a friend or neighbor, or people that the older person relies on for services. Many forms of elder abuse are recognized as types of domestic violence or family violence.
Forced and child marriage
Forced and child marriages are practiced in certain regions of the world, particularly in Asia and Africa, and these types of marriages are associated with a high rate of domestic violence.
A forced marriage is a marriage where one or both participants are married without their freely given consent.
A child marriage is a marriage where one or both spouses are under 18.
The concept of family honour
Family honor is an abstract concept involving the perceived quality of worthiness and respectability that affects the social standing and the self-evaluation of a group of related people, both corporately and individually.
The family is viewed as the main source of
honor and the community highly values the relationship between honor and the family.
The conduct of family members reflects upon family honor and the way the family perceives itself, and is perceived by others.
In cultures of honor maintaining the family honor is often perceived as more important than either individual freedom, or individual achievement.
In extreme cases, engaging in acts that are deemed to tarnish the honor of the family results in
. An honor killing is the
homicide of a member of a family or social group by other members, due to the perpetrators' belief that the victim has brought shame or dishonor upon the family or community, usually for reasons such as refusing to enter an arranged marriage, being in a relationship that is disapproved by their relatives, having sex outside marriage, becoming the victim of
rape, dressing in ways which are deemed inappropriate, or engaging in
Homosexuality relations.
Economic issues
A family is often part of a
sharing economy with
common ownership.
Dowry, bride price and dower
Dowry is property (money, goods, or estate) that a wife or wife's family gives to her husband when the wife and husband marry.
Offering dowry was common in many cultures historically (including in Europe and North America), but this practice today is mostly restricted to some areas primarily in the Indian subcontinent.
Bride price, (also bride wealth or bride token), is property paid by the groom or his family to the parents of a woman upon the marriage of their daughter to the groom. It is practiced mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, parts of South-East Asia (Thailand, Cambodia), and parts of Central Asia.
Dower is property given to the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage, and which remains under her ownership and control.
Property regimes and taxation
In some countries married couples benefit from various taxation advantages not available to a single person or to unmarried couples. For example, spouses may be allowed to average their combined incomes. Some jurisdictions recognize common law marriage or
de facto relations for this purposes. In some jurisdictions there is also an option of civil partnership or domestic partnership.
Different property regimes exist for spouses. In many countries, each marriage partner has the choice of keeping their property separate or combining properties. In the latter case, called community property, when the marriage ends by divorce each owns half. In lieu of a will or trust law, property owned by the deceased generally is inherited by the surviving spouse.
Rights and laws
Family rights
The right to family is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 by the
United Nations:
Georg Hegel's view of families as
Reproductive rights
Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health. These include the right to decide on issues regarding the number of children born, family planning, contraception, and private life, free from
coercion and
discrimination; as well as the right to access health services and adequate information.
According to
UNFPA, reproductive rights "include the right to decide the number, timing and spacing of children, the right to voluntarily marry and establish a family, and the right to the highest attainable standard of health, among others".
refers to the factors that may be considered by individuals and couples in order for them to control their fertility, anticipate and attain the desired number of children and the spacing and timing of their births.
The state and church have been, and still are in some countries, involved in controlling the size of families, often using coercive methods, such as bans on contraception or abortion (where the policy is a natalist one—for example through tax on childlessness) or conversely, discriminatory policies against large families (e.g., China's one-child policy in place from 1978 to 2015) or even . Forced sterilization has often targeted ethnic minority groups, such as Roma women in Eastern Europe,
Parents' rights
The parents' rights movement is a movement whose members are primarily interested in issues affecting parents and children related to family law, specifically parental rights and obligations. Mothers' rights movements focus on
maternal health, workplace issues such as
labor rights,
breastfeeding, and rights in
family law. The fathers' rights movement is a movement whose members are primarily interested in issues related to
family law, including
child custody and
child support, that affect fathers and their
.
Children's rights
Children's rights are the human rights of children, with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to minors, including their right to association with both parents, their right to human identity, their right to be provided in regard to their other basic needs, and their right to be free from violence and abuse.
Marriage rights
Each jurisdiction has its own
. These laws differ significantly from country to country; and these laws are often controversial. Areas of controversy include women's rights as well as same-sex marriage.
Legal reforms
Gender equality
Legal reforms to
have taken place in many countries during the past few decades. These dealt primarily with
gender equality within marriage and with
. Women have been given equal rights in marriage in many countries, reversing older family laws based on the dominant legal role of the husband.
Coverture, which was enshrined in the
common law of England and the US for several centuries and throughout most of the 19th century, was abolished. In some European countries the changes that lead to gender equality were slower. The period of 1975–1979 saw a major overhaul of
in countries such as Italy,
Spain,
Austria,
[ Contemporary Western European Feminism, by Gisela Kaplan, p. 133] West Germany,
[Reconciliation Policy in Germany 1998–2008, Construing the 'Problem' of the Incompatibility of Paid Employment and Care Work, by Cornelius Grebe; p. 92: "However, the 1977 reform of marriage and family law by Social Democrats and Liberals formally gave women the right to take up employment without their spouses' permission. This marked the legal end of the 'housewife marriage' and a transition to the ideal of 'marriage in partnership'."[11] ][Further reforms to parental rights law in 1979 gave equal legal rights to the mother and the father. Comparative Law: Historical Development of the Civil Law Tradition in Europe, Latin America, and East Asia, by John Henry Merryman, David Scott Clark, John Owen Haley, p. 542] and Portugal.
[ Women in Portugal, by Commission of the European Communities, Directorate-General Information, p. 32] In 1978, the Council of Europe passed the
Resolution (78) 37 on equality of spouses in civil law.
Among the last European countries to establish full
gender equality in marriage were Switzerland. In 1985, a referendum guaranteed women legal equality with men within marriage.
The new reforms came into force in January 1988.
[ Women's movements of the world: an international directory and reference guide, edited by Sally Shreir, p. 254] In Greece, in 1983, legislation was passed guaranteeing equality between spouses, abolishing
dowry, and ending legal discrimination against illegitimate children.
[Demos, Vasilikie. (2007) "The Intersection of Gender, Class and Nationality and the Agency of Kytherian Greek Women." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. August 11] In 1981, Spain abolished the requirement that married women must have their husbands' permission to initiate judicial proceedings
the Netherlands,
and France in the 1980s. In recent decades, the
marital power has also been abolished in African countries that had this doctrine, but many African countries that were former
French colonies still have discriminatory laws in their marriages regulations, such regulations originating in the
Napoleonic Code that has inspired these laws.
Divorce
In some countries (predominantly Roman Catholic) divorce was legalized only recently (e.g.
Italy (1970),
Portugal (1975),
Brazil (1977),
Spain (1981),
Argentina (1987),
Ireland (1996),
Chile (2004) and
Malta (2011)) although
annulment and
legal separation were options. The
Philippines still does not allow divorce. (see Divorce law by country). The laws pertaining to the situation of children born outside marriage have also been revised in many countries (see Legitimacy (family law)).
Health
Family medicine
Family medicine is a medical specialty devoted to comprehensive health care for people of all ages; it is based on knowledge of the patient in the context of the family and the community, emphasizing disease prevention and health promotion.
The importance of family medicine is being increasingly recognized.
Maternal mortality
Maternal mortality or maternal death is defined by WHO as "the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes."
Historically, maternal mortality was a major cause of women's death. In recent decades, advances in healthcare have resulted in rates of maternal mortality having dropped dramatically, especially in Western countries. Maternal mortality however remains a serious problem in many African and Asian counties.
Infant and child mortality
Infant mortality is the death of a child less than one year of age. Child mortality is the death of a child before the child's fifth birthday. Like maternal mortality, infant and child mortality were common throughout history, but have decreased significantly in modern times.
Politics
While in many parts of the world family policies seek to promote a gender-equal organization of the family life, in others the male-dominated family continues to be the official policy of the authorities, which is also supported by law. For instance, the Civil Code of
Iran states at Article 1105: "In relations between husband and wife; the position of the head of the family is the exclusive right of the husband".
In some parts of the world, some governments promote a specific form of family, such as that based on traditional family values. The term "family values" is often used in political discourse in some countries, its general meaning being that of traditional or cultural values that pertain to the family's structure, function, roles, beliefs, attitudes, and ideals, usually involving the "traditional family"—a middle class family with a breadwinner father and a homemaker mother, raising their biological children. Any deviation from this family model is considered a "nontraditional family".
Work–family balance
Work–family balance is a concept involving proper prioritizing between work/career and family life. It includes issues relating to the way how work and families intersect and influence each other. At a political level, it is reflected through policies such
maternity leave and
paternity leave. Since the 1950s, social scientists as well as feminists have increasingly criticized gendered arrangements of work and care, and the male breadwinner role, and policies are increasingly targeting men as fathers, as a tool of changing gender relations.
Protection of private and family life
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides a right to respect for one's "private and family life, his home and his correspondence", subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and "necessary in a democratic society".
Criticism
The Russian-American
Rationalism and
Individualism philosopher, novelist and playwright
Ayn Rand compared partiality towards
consanguinity with
racism, as a small-scale manifestation of the latter.
[ Said in one of the lectures Ayn Rand delivered.] "The worship of the family is merely racism, like a crudely primitive first installment on the worship of the tribe. It places the accident of birth above a man's values and duty to the tribe above a man's right to his own life."
[Said in one of the public lectures Ayn Rand delivered] Additionally, she spoke in favor of
childfree lifestyle, while following it herself.
The family and social justice
One of the controversies regarding the family is the application of the concept of
social justice to the private sphere of family relations, in particular with regard to the rights of women and children. Throughout much of the history, most philosophers who advocated for social justice focused on the public political arena, not on the family structures; with the family often being seen as a separate entity which needed to be protected from outside state intrusion. One notable exception was John Stuart Mill, who, in his work
The Subjection of Women, advocated for greater rights for women within marriage and family.
Second wave feminists argued that the personal is political, stating that there are strong connections between personal experiences and the larger social and political structures. In the context of the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, this was a challenge to the
nuclear family and
family values, as they were understood then.
[Angela Harutyunyan, Kathrin Hörschelmann, Malcolm Miles (2009) Public Spheres After Socialism pp. 50–51 ] Feminists focused on domestic violence, arguing that the reluctance—in law or in practice—of the state to intervene and offer protection to women who have been abused within the family, is in violation of women's
human rights, and is the result of an ideology which places family relations outside the conceptual framework of human rights.
Global trends in family composition
Statistics from an infographic by Olivier Ballou showed that,
However, Swedish statisticians reported in 2013 that, in contrast to many countries, since the 2000s, fewer children have experienced their parents' separation, childlessness had decreased in Sweden and marriages had increased. It had also become more common for couples to have a third child suggesting that the nuclear family was no longer in decline in Sweden.
See also
Notes
Citations
Sources
-
Race, Class, & Gender: An Anthology, 9th edition. Editors: Margaret L. Anderson and Patricia Hill Collins. Cengage Learning.
Bibliography
-
-
-
Esping-Andersen, Gøsta (2009). The incomplete revolution: Adapting welfare states to women's new roles. Cambridge: Polity Press.
-
Forbes, Scott, A Natural History of Families, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005),
-
Foucault, Michel (1978). The History of Sexuality: Volume I: An Introduction. (New York: Vintage Books).
-
Paul Gilroy "Identity Belonging and the Critique of Pure Sameness" in Gilroy, Paul (2000) Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line, (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), Ch. I.3, pp. 97–133
-
Jack Goody The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge University Press, 1980); translated into Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese.
-
Mock, Douglas W., More Than Kin and Less Than Kind, (Belknap Press, 2004),
-
Schneider, David M., American Kinship: a cultural approach (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).
-
-
p. 3 p. 8
External links
