Q. What are the new forms of families in developed societies? Discuss. (2018) (150)
Model answer:
The family forms the basic unit of social organization and it is difficult to imagine how human society could function without it. The family has been seen as a universal social institution an inevitable part of human society. According to Burgess and Lock the family is a group of persons united by ties of marriage, blood or adoption constituting a single household interacting with each other in their respective social role of husband and wife, mother and father, brother and sister creating a common culture. G.P Murdock 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 co-habiting adults.
Nimkoff says that family is a more or less durable association of husband and wife with or without child or of a man or woman alone with children. According to Maclver family is a group defined by sex relationships sufficiently precise and enduring to provide for the procreation and upbringing of children. Kingsley Davis describes family as a group of persons whose relations to one another are based upon consanguinity and who are therefore kin to one another. Malinowski opined that the family is the institution within which the cultural traditions of a society is handed over to a newer generation. This indispensable function could not be filled unless the relations to parents and children were relations reciprocally of authority and respect. According to Talcott Parsons families are factories which produce human personalities.
Recent Changes in Family Structure
1. The Decline of the Traditional Family –
o One parent household,
o cohabitation,
o same sex families,
o voluntary childless couples are increasingly common
- One recent trend illustrating the changing nature of families is the rise in prevalence of single-parent families.
- Cohabitation is an intimate relationship that includes a common living place and which exists without the benefit of legal, cultural, or religious sanction.
- While homosexuality has existed for thousands of years among human beings, formal marriages between homosexual partners is a relatively recent phenomenon.
- Voluntary childlessness in women is defined as women of childbearing age who are fertile and do not intend to have children.
NOTE
- cohabitation: An emotionally and physically intimate relationship that includes a common living place and which exists without legal or religious sanction.
- Voluntary Childlessness: Women of childbearing age who are fertile and do not intend to have children, women who have chosen sterilization, or women past childbearing age who were fertile but chose not to have children.
Family structures of some kind are found in every society. Pairing off into formal or informal marital relationships originated in hunter-gatherer groups to forge networks of cooperation beyond the immediate family. Intermarriage between groups, tribes, or clans was often political or strategic and resulted in reciprocal obligations between the two groups represented by the marital partners. Even so, marital dissolution was not a serious problem as the obligations resting on marital longevity were not particularly high.
Several factors have combined to increase the number of people living alone on modern western societies. Young people are leaving home simply to start an independent life rather than to get married. Hence, it seems that the trend of staying single or living on one’s own may be a part of societal trend towards valuing independence more than family life. So, household dimension in very significant to understand such a societal trend.