Family - Economic function of the family

A family is a domestic group of people, or a number of domestic groups, typically affiliated by birth or marriage, or by comparable legal relationships including domestic partnership, adoption, surname and in some cases ownership (as was the case in the Roman Empire). Although many people (including social scientists) have understood familial relationships in terms of "blood," many anthropologists have argued that the notion of "blood" must be understood metaphorically, and in that in many societies family is understoo ...

Including:

• Family - Family cross-culturally
• Family - Family in the West
• Family - Economic function of the family
• Family - Kinship terminology
• Family - English kinship terminology

Read more here: » Family: Encyclopedia - Family

Most Western societies employ English kinship terminology. This kinship terminology is common in societies based on conjugal (or nuclear) families, where nuclear families must be relatively mobile. Members of the nuclear family use descriptive kinship terms: Mother: the female parent Father: the male parent Son: the males born of the mother; sired by the father Daughter: the females born of the mother; sired by the father Brother: a male born of the same mother; sired by the same father Sister: a female bo ...

See also:

Family, Family - Family cross-culturally, Family - Family in the West, Family - Economic function of the family, Family - Kinship terminology, Family - English kinship terminology

Read more here: » Family: Encyclopedia II - Family - English kinship terminology

A kinship terminology is a specific system of familial relationships. The now rather dated anthropologist Louis Henry Morgan argued that kinship terminologies reflect different sets of distinctions. For example, most kinship terminologies distinguish between sexes (this is the difference between a brother and a sister) and between generations (this is 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 societie ...

See also:

Family, Family - Family cross-culturally, Family - Family in the West, Family - Economic function of the family, Family - Kinship terminology, Family - English kinship terminology

Read more here: » Family: Encyclopedia II - Family - Kinship terminology

The preceding types of families are found in a wide variety of settings, and their specific functions and meanings depend largely on their relationship to other social institutions. Sociologists are especially interested in the function and status of these forms in stratified, especially capitalist, societies. Non-scholars, especially in the United States and Europe, use the term "nuclear family" to refer to conjugal families. Sociologists distinguish between conjugal families that are relatively independent of the kindreds of the parents and of other families in general, and nuclear families which mainta ...

See also:

Family, Family - Family cross-culturally, Family - Family in the West, Family - Economic function of the family, Family - Kinship terminology, Family - English kinship terminology

Read more here: » Family: Encyclopedia II - Family - Family in the West

According to sociology and anthropology, the primary function of the family is to reproduce society, either biologically, socially, or both. Thus, one's experience of one's family shifts over time. 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. From the point of view of the parent(s), the family is a family of procreation the goal of which is to produce and enculturate and socialize children. ...

See also:

Family, Family - Family cross-culturally, Family - Family in the West, Family - Economic function of the family, Family - Kinship terminology, Family - English kinship terminology

Read more here: » Family: Encyclopedia II - Family - Family cross-culturally