A family is a group of individuals associated with either birth, marriage, residence or as a combination of these. Immediate family members include spouses, parents, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. Members of the extended family include grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews and in-laws. A family has basic concepts surrounding it, which try to define it, at different angles.
A family is made up of people related by blood, marriage or law. A husband and a wife are basically related by marriage while siblings in a family are related by blood . However, some marriages involve the association of the law through the signing of affidavits, making the relationship partly by law. Adoption of children requires the full course of law, to gain the status of a foster parent. Secondly, different kinds of families exist including nuclear and extended families, which may be as a result of a monogamous, polygamous or a one parent kind of marriage. According to the social customs and norms, each family member has a role to play and responsibilities to carry out. Naturally, the parents are regarded as the breadwinners, and the children are supposed to remain subjective as asserted by Lokken, Cheek and Hastings (2003).
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Families are a subject to global variations as a result of the difference in many factors among them region and religion. Religious dogma is a key element determining the types of families, divorce and custody of the children. Islamic religion allows a polygamous family while Christianity allows only a monogamous. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, does not allow divorce while the Orthodox Church allows three divorces and the Protestant Church permits divorce. Different regions across the world have got different cultures that affect both the Constitution and the values of a family. Some cultures firmly believe that the father is the sole head of the family and the mother must always remain subjective without any power of autonomy. In other regions of the world, couples are strongly encouraged to practice family planning and restrict their children to numbers that they can comfortably raise due to the high cost of living. The access of education also affects a family type and constitution. The less educated have been observed to have large families due to low levels of exposure in terms of futuristic planning.
Marriage follows a particular pattern. This pattern may be race, religion, tribe and culture. It is important to note that for marriage to work there has to be some form of compatibility that that comes with those as mentioned above. In the US, most African Americans intermarry, and most whites also intermarry too. Muslims are only allowed to marry fellow Muslims although this is not the case among Christians. In countries that are constituted by many different tribes, marriage is also seen to occur along those tribal lines. After marriage, it is almost conventional that the woman leaves for the husband’s place of residence in most cultures.
According to Gladding (2014) , with the enormous steps in the field of technology, the family has been able to be impacted in several ways. Couples can get information on the best methods of family planning easily. Family members are also able to acquire family values due to the increasing number of counselors broadcasted on national televisions and last but not least, negative values can also be acquired that may threaten to jeopardize the family such as pornographic for children.
The traditional US family is basically a two married couple providing care and support to their offspring. The family is created at birth, and after time it extends developing across a generation . Over time, the traditional system has had to adapt to changes such as divorce, single parenthood, same-sex marriages, adoption and teenage pregnancies. Marriage is majorly along racial lines, with notable cases of intermarriages. In terms of class, it is not a big determinant but still just like any other nation, the rich families encourage their children to marry from equally rich families to maintain the status quo.
Problems in a family are many ranging from infertility, unfaithfulness, family and wealth wrangles, and inheritance issues, religious and cultural intolerance. In cases of death to the head of the family (father), the next of kin takes over the family, including the wealth. In some societies, the next of kin is either the eldest son, the wife or sometimes are stipulated in the will.
An institutional religion is also termed as an organized religion. In this context, religion is a social institution, one in which rituals and systems are systematically grouped and well-established. Religion as an institution can be used to refer to the global religious groups ( Bartkowski, et al. 2010) .
Symbolic interactionism relates to a theoretical design which assumes that a person's self-concept is developed through the interpretation of symbols, words and other people's appearances as observed during social interactions. Structural functionalism, on the other hand, is a framework for that brings out the society as a complex system with parts that work together to promote cohesion and stability. On another perspective, social conflict attempts to analyze social behavior .
References
Bartkowski, J. P., Pearce, L., Alwin, D., Felson, J., Regnerus, M., King, V., ... & Lewin, A. (2010). Religion, families, and health: Population-based research in the United States . Rutgers University Press.
Gladding, S. T. (2014). Family therapy: History, theory, and practice . Pearson Higher Ed.
Lokken, S. L., Cheek, W. K., & Hastings, S. W. (2003). The impact of technology training on family and consumer sciences teacher attitudes toward using computers as an instructional medium. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences Education , 21 (1), 18-32.
