Family

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Family

It is said that families have always existed and that people have always formed families. However, conceptions of family can vary considerably. Until the 1970s, it was believed that the extended family had been a social institution since medieval times throughout the Western world. This family form consists of a married couple and the parents of one of them plus the couple’s children. However, Peter Laslett (1915–2001) and his Cambridge colleagues showed that although the extended family existed, it was not a social institution. This belief in the long history of the extended family can be understood to be a myth if one considers the high mortality rate during previous centuries, when many mothers and fathers died before their children became adults.

The term nuclear family refers to a family formed by a socially accepted marriage between a man and a woman who live together with their minor children. The anthropologist George Peter Murdock (1897–1985) coined the term in his book Social Structure (1949). Murdock assumed that almost all cultures have had this nucleus as their basic and preferred family form. Some cultures build upon the nuclear family, while others combine nuclear families. One type of nuclear family is an extended family that consists of at least three generations under the same roof. Another type of combined nuclear family is the polygamous family that, when polyandrous, consists of one woman married (socially) to at least two men. Polygyny is one man married (socially) to at least two women. Another variation would be group marriages consisting of at least two women married to at least two men, but this phenomenon has never been found anywhere as a social institution. Group marriages have certainly existed but only for short periods of a decade or so, and they have never been a society’s preferred living arrangement.

The issue of what can be considered a social marriage is complicated and unclear. As long as marriages have been known to exist in one form or another, they have mainly been the base upon which new generations grow up. Historically marriage seems also to have been the preferred arrangement for living together. A prerequisite for marriage has been that the couple should be able to afford a home, which means somewhere to live with a bed, a table, and necessary utensils. Situations in which couples have cohabited without marrying have also been common. In some cultures this arrangement, when lasting, is called common-law marriage; after some years, the two come to be counted as married (see Trost 1980).

The term family formation is still sometimes used as a synonym for marriage. The background is that over the centuries marriage has been linked to four normatively connected elements: holding a marriage ceremony, moving in together, having sex together, and bearing a child within about a year.

WHAT IS A FAMILY?

The term family is often presented in definite form, the family, a phrasing that indicates that there is only one kind of family. In Western culture at least, this might mean the nuclear family. However, this concept carries a kind of ideological code, which implies that the nuclear family is supposed to be the best and that the concept is reproduced over generations (see Smith 1993). The term family can also be connected to the entire range of relatives, especially close relatives.

Family can be considered from various levels. On a societal level, the law might define what a family is; this often means at least one parent and at least one minor child, where the parent is supposed to take care of the child. Another example is family responsibility, where an adult child is supposed to take care of elderly parents. Other persons can also be included—as in, for example, the Sami culture (previously known as Lapps) in Scandinavia, where many, but not all, relatives are counted as family members.

Another level on which family can be considered has to do with companies and other organizations. Some companies differentiate between who can be counted as family, depending upon the situation. For example, an employee may be granted an entire day of leave to attend a funeral for a close family member or relative, while the funeral of a more distant relative will not warrant any time off. Some organizations are considered “family friendly,” which may mean that they offer various benefits or discounts to families. Family in such cases usually includes only the nuclear family or a simple variation of it.

If ordinary people are asked to name the members of their family, they will give a variety of answers, even when the person asked believes that the meaning of the term family is culturally determined. The number of family members can vary from none up to several hundred. Included as family members can be spouses, children, parents, uncles and aunts, grandparents, cousins, and so forth but also lovers, friends, and pets. Family members counted in this way can also include deceased persons. This way of looking at the meaning of family is dependent upon who is asked as well as the situation. For example, someone included in one person’s family might not include that person as a member of his or her own family. There are no clear and objective boundaries of what constitutes family when it comes to the individual’s definition of her or his family and who its members are.

If people are asked whom they consider to be included in possible constellations of families, they give a variety of answers. Some believe that a one-parent household is not a family, whereas others think it is a family. Some think that the parents have to be married, while others think that cohabiting couples can also be families. Some believe that same-gender couples cannot be counted as a family, while others have a different opinion. This variety of answers means that some individuals and some cultures are very inclusive when it comes to what to include as a family and some are very exclusive.

Sometimes the unit for the concept of family is limited to the household. That use occurs primarily in censuses and other demographic studies, but it also occurs among lay people. However, many households include members that no one else in the household would classify as members of their family. At the same time, there are many persons who fall outside the family when using household as equivalent to family. This was and still is the case in some parts of the world where households include servants and other employed persons (see Levin and Trost 1992).

FAMILY-RELATED MATTERS

There are a number of issues related to the term family and the concept of family. As mentioned above, marriage can be one of them. Poverty can cause couples to not marry, since societally it is costly to marry. In people’s minds, one should have a home when marrying; informal norms in many cultures say that without a roof, a bed, and some kitchen utensils, one cannot marry. Social surroundings are also important, since people often normatively expect a marriage ceremony to be combined with a party for relatives and also for friends and neighbors. Therefore nonmarital cohabitation based on poverty has been common in many parts of the world and remains common in some (Rodman 1966).

A new type of nonmarital cohabitation has developed as a social institution in most of the Western world. With the liberalization that came after World War II (1939–1945), the normative structure of “family formation” was reduced. Now nonmarital cohabitation has made marriage less common, to the point of disappearing in some countries. This movement has made nonmarital cohabitation a social institution in many cultures; it is a kind of cohabitation that is not at all connected to poverty. In many countries, particularly the Scandinavian countries, all or almost all couples live together in a non-marital cohabitation relationship for years before marrying. The trend toward more nonmarital cohabitation has decreased the number of marriages, and both brides and grooms are on average much older now than in the past.

Another change in the way couples live together is referred to as living apart together (LAT). Such relationships consist of a married or nonmarried couple, with or without children, who each have a home and who visit each other, perceive themselves to be an intimate couple, and are so perceived by those in their social surroundings. These relationships have always existed in the Western world among, for example, writers and other artists. The difference between these earlier relationships and those of the early twenty-first century lies in part in the number and in part by the fact that LAT relationships constitute a new social institution. For example, in Sweden about 5 percent of the adult population lives in an LAT relationship (Trost and Levin 2000).

Such relationships could not have developed as a social institution had not nonmarital cohabitation become a social institution with the dissolution of the normative structure of the four elements of traditional social structure listed above. Had not the normative connection disappeared between the acts of marrying, moving in together, having sexual intercourse together, and the expectation of a child within about a year, LAT relationships would not have been possible. The social institution of nonmarital cohabitation is thus a prerequisite for the existence of LAT relationships.

Another issue connected to family is changes in divorce laws and divorce practice. Divorce has for many centuries been a social institution permitted in many cultures but prohibited in others. In the Western world, where the changes have been obvious, claims for more liberal divorce laws came at the end of the nineteenth century as a result of rapidly decreasing mortality rates. With such decreases, the idea of lifelong marriages slowly became obsolete, and divorce laws changed slowly in a more liberal direction. (The number of remarriages in many countries is now the same as in the middle of the nineteenth century. Previously the high mortality rate widowed many married women and men; many of these widows and widowers remarried, while now most remarriages occur after one or both partners has divorced.)

During the nineteenth century the total fertility rate (TFR) was at a global level of above five (children per woman during her fertile lifespan). Partly as a result of improvements of contraceptive techniques and methods (better condoms and diaphragms, preventive pills, intrauterine devices) and propaganda, the TFR has decreased all over the world and even reached the low level of less than 1.5 (average number of children per woman) in many Western countries. These changes have caused few women to have more children than they want, but some will not have as many as they want. In the mid-twentieth century the average age of both parents at the birth of their children was much lower than now, which is one reason for the lower birthrates.

FAMILY FUNCTIONS

From a functionalist perspective, family has been seen as fulfilling a set of functions for the individual as well as for society. These functions, which have more and more come to be of historical interest, include the following.

The reproductive function means that women customarily give birth to children within a family union, and this makes society able to last in the long run. The early twenty-first century fertility rates in many less-developed countries will cause the population to increase, while in many developed countries the opposite will happen.

The socialization function refers to the upbringing of children into adulthood, a process that transfers habits and norms from one generation to another. Historically most socialization occurred within the family, but in the early twenty-first century much socialization is generated via school systems, mass media, and other sources.

The protective function gives the members of families protection against bad weather, keeps children in a safe environment, and leads family members to take care of the elderly and the sick. In most parts of the world this function has partly been taken over by society via social security and other social programs.

The sexual function means that sexual intercourse would occur within the marital union as part of family. In many parts of the world premarital and extramarital sex is taken care of through the use of prostitutes. Elsewhere the prohibition on premarital sex is no longer an issue with the liberalization of sex norms.

The religious function has to do with the exercise of religious activities, which are supposed to occur mainly within a family unit. In many parts of the world secularization has made this function less important.

The leisure time function is supposed to support family members during times when no work is needed. This function has in many parts of the world been subsumed by organizations outside the family.

Finally, the emotional or primary group function ideally takes care of the family members’ emotional needs. The term primary group was coined by the American sociologist Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929) in 1909. The idea is that in small groups, of which family is one, the members can feel safe and secure not only physically but also emotionally. Reality, however, can be the opposite, with physical as well as emotional abuse and cruelty sometimes occurring in primary groups. Furthermore family as a primary group depends highly upon the definition one has of family. As mentioned above, membership in a family can vary greatly when considered from an individual perspective. In any case, many studies show that when a disaster strikes, the most important aid givers are family members and other relatives, who tend to be more helpful toward one another than any organization can be. This occurs in part because organizational helpers can seldom give the same emotional support that close relatives can.

For society to work, social order is needed; otherwise chaos will occur, and society will fall apart. When these family functions are in accordance with social norms and when family members, however defined, follow the informal norms, social order will remain relatively stable, assuming no opposing changes occur.

SEE ALSO Childlessness; Children; Cohabitation; Divorce and Separation; Family, Extended; Family, Nuclear; Family Functioning; Family Structure; Family Values; Fatherhood; Marriage; Motherhood; Parent–Child Relationships