The Israeli kibbutz

A kibbutz (plural kibbutzim) is a type of agricultural collective found in Israel. Its typical features include the collective ownership of property, communal living, and the rearing of children by the community as a whole rather than by their parents alone. Although there are differences between kibbutzim, for example, in religious belief or in the degree of social ownership, the structure of kibbutz society in general has frequently been proposed as a counterexample to the view that the nuclear family is universal.

Murdock argued that the nuclear family in all societies performs sexual, reproductive, and economic functions. In the kibbutz it is the case that sexual and reproductive functions are served through marriage. After a period of cohabitation, kibbutz members normally marry under Israeli law, which is necessary in order to grant legal rights to their children. Yet contrary to Murdock's definition, the relationship called “marriage” in many kibbutzim has no economic functions. Economic activities such as working in the fields or with agricultural vehicles, and even activities like sewing, laundering, and cooking, are performed for the whole of the kibbutz. Women do not change their names upon marriage, and they continue to work as before. Meals are taken communally and not in a family unit.

Education, too, is often the responsibility of the kibbutz as a whole. But whereas this is true to some extent in all modern societies in which children attend school, the kibbutz takes the principle a step further. In many kibbutzim, children are raised from a young age by nurses and teachers, not by their parents. They eat and sleep in special quarters, not in the marital quarters of their parents. The purpose of these arrangements is to instill in children at a young age the communal values of kibbutz life. One interesting side effect, however, is that children brought up together in the same kibbutz tend to form sexual bonds in later life with people from outside the kibbutz. Members of their own kibbutz are all, in a sense, their “brothers” and “sisters.” Similarly, although parents are much more attached to their own offspring than to those of other kibbutz members, they nevertheless refer to all of them as “our children.” The structure of kibbutz life thus raises questions about the universality of the family and the psychological and sociological nature of family relations.

The traditional Nāyar family and the West Indian matrifocal family thus represent unusual systems of family organization—not because there are no cases of one-parent families or “uncaring fathers” in other societies, but because in these two systems the idea of a family in which the father plays little or no part is institutionalized as a social norm. Communal families such as the Israeli kibbutz are significant because they deny the importance of the nuclear family within societies in which nuclear families are considered normal and appropriate. Although Murdock's hypothesis may in the strict sense be overturned by these examples, they are nevertheless exceptions proving the rule that in human society the nuclear family is indeed almost universal.

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Fostering

Fostering is the practice of using a parent or set of parents to care for someone else's child on a long-term basis. Often the child's own parents have died or have been declared legally unfit to look after him. Modern government social services and some private agencies place such children with families they believe will give them good homes.

Adoption

Fostering is often a first step toward adoption. Although both practices involve the assumption of parental roles by persons who are not the child's biologic parents, adoption involves legal considerations not found in fostering.

The original ancient Roman notion of adoptio, or “adoption,” was simply one of passing legal authority over an individual from one person to another, often for the purpose of making alliances and securing the inheritance of property. In Roman times the person who was adopted was most often an adult male who continued, even after his adoption, to retain ties of love and duty toward his own living parents. In modern society these ties are normally broken in favour of ties of affection between the adoptive parents and children. The modern notion of adoption, then, combines legal aspects of the Roman notion with the affective aspects of both fostering and biologic parentage.

Adopted children in most countries today enjoy the same privileges as natural children. They are treated as fully part of the family into which they are adopted. Adoption gives couples who are unable to produce children of their own the chance to raise children, who might themselves not otherwise find a home.

Kin networks

As extended families disperse and government agencies take over economic responsibilities formerly held by them, extended families become kin networks. This has happened in most modern societies. Whereas the extended family is usually associated at least with residential proximity, if not coresidence, kin networks for many people stretch around the world.

An interesting result of worldwide migrations, such as those from Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, or following World War II, has been the extension of kin networks. Far from being dissolved, as some people suppose, these networks often take on a peculiar significance. Many Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, and others keep in contact with their countries of origin in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. This contact contributes to their personal identity with their countries of origin. Kin networks are often better maintained between dispersed families than between those in closer proximity. Australians, for example, generally know their personal family histories and keep in touch with distant relatives in the British Isles and elsewhere, whereas their British cousins tend to have less interest in these matters and may have less need to keep in touch with relatives within the British Isles.

A less dramatic but equally important form of kin network is that between urban and rural areas within a particular country. As migrations to urban areas have increased, contacts have been kept up, and urban families may keep in touch with relatives in cities other than their own, as well as with relatives in their places of origin. This happens less in Europe, but it remains important in many parts of North and South America, the West Indies, Africa, and Asia.

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