The concept of family. Types of families: extended family household, one-parent family, stepfamily, childless family, communal family

MODULE 2. MODERN WORLD: FAMILY SURROUNDING, RELATIONSHIPS, SOCIAL LIFE, EMPLOYMENT

The concept of family. Types of families: extended family household, one-parent family, stepfamily, childless family, communal family

Family structure, like society at large, has undergone significant changes. Most of the time when a person imagine of the definition of a family, the figure of a mother, father and children is what comes into the mind.

There has been much recent discussion of the nuclear family, which consists only of parents and children, but the nuclear family is by no means universal. In the United States, the percentage of households consisting of a nuclear family declined from 45% in 1960 to 23.5% in 2000. In preindustrial societies, the ties of kinship bind the individual both to the family of orientation, into which one is born, and to the family of procreation, which one founds at marriage and which often includes one’s spouse’s relatives. The nuclear family also may be extended through the acquisition of more than one spouse (polygamy and polygyny), or through the common residence of two or more married couples and their children or of several generations connected in the male or female line. This is called the extended family; it is widespread in many parts of the world, by no means exclusively in pastoral and agricultural economies. The primary functions of the family are reproductive, economic, social, and educational; it is through kin – it variously defined – that the child first absorbs the culture of his group.

The patriarchal family, which prevailed among the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, is often associated with polygamy. In Rome, the paterfamilias was the only person recognized as an independent individual under the law. He possessed all religious rights as priest of the family ancestor cult, all economic rights as sole owner of the family property, and power of life and death over the members of the family. At his death, his name, property, and authority descended to his male heirs. The Roman system was transferred in many of its details into both the canon and secular law of Western Europe.

The modern family differs from earlier traditional forms, however, in its functions, composition, and life cycle and in the roles of husbands and wives. The only function of the family that continues to survive all change is the provision of affection and emotional support by and to all its members, particularly infants and young children. Specialized institutions now perform many of the other functions that were once performed by the agrarian family: economic production, education, religion, and recreation. Jobs are usually separate from the family group; family members often work in different occupations and in the locations away from the home. Education is provided by the state or by private groups. Religious training and recreational activities are available outside home, although both still have a place in family life. The family is still responsible for the socialization of children. Even in this capacity, however, the influence of peers and of mass media, Internet, social networks has assumed a larger role.

In the 19^th century, when the Western nations began to grant women equal rights with men with respect to the ownership of property, the control of children, divorce, and the like, basic changes took place in the structure of the family, and the rights and protections associated with it. The effect has been to loosen traditional family ties. Rising expectations of personal gratification through marriage and family, together with eased legal grounds for divorce and increasing employment opportunities for women, have contributed to a rise in the divorce rate in the United States of America and elsewhere. In 1996, for instance, there was approximately one divorce for every two marriages in the USA.

During the 20^th century, extended family households declined in prevalence. This change is associated particularly with increased residential mobility and with diminished financial responsibility of children for aging parents, as pensions from jobs and government-sponsored benefits for retired people become more common.

By the 1970s, the prototypical nuclear family had yielded somewhat to modified structures including one-parent family, the stepfamily, and the childless family. One-parent families in the past were usually the result of the death of a spouse. Now, however, most one-parent families are the result of a divorce, although some are created when unmarried mothers bear children.

In Western Europe, where legislation provides equal financial benefits and legal standing to all children, families have increasingly come to consist of one or two unwed parents and children, especially in Scandinavia and other parts of Northern Europe. The trend toward unwed parents has also occurred in the United States, where about 40% of children in the early 21^st century were born to unwed mothers. One in four children is born with their mothers not married, usually teenage mothers.

One of the most luxurious things for a single parent is child care. Single families frequently have less pressure compared to the pressure in families before divorce. Usually parents and children are more eager to work together with each other to find solutions to solve household chores in single parent families.

A stepfamily is created by a new marriage of a single parent. In a stepfamily, problems in relations between nonbiological parents and children may generate tension; the difficulties can be especially great in the marriage of single parents when the children of both parents life with them as siblings.

A childless family is basically a group of people from all variety of backgrounds and all walks of life who, for whatever reason, have never had children. Others will perhaps have children at sometime in the future, but are not prepared just yet, and some sought to have children but were unable to because of a variety of social and/or biological forces that obstruct and result in unplanned childlessness. Somehow childless families may be increasingly the result of deliberate choice and the availability of birth control. To replace children, childless families usually have pets as a substitute.

Since 1960s, several variations on the family unit have emerged. More unmarried couples are living together before or instead of marrying. Some elderly couples, most often widowed, are finding it more economically practical to cohabit without marrying. Homosexual couples also live together as a family more openly today, sometimes sharing their households with the children of one partner or with adopted or foster children.

Adoption means a legal process that allows someone to become the parent of a child, even though the parent and child are not related by blood. Some people choose to adopt because they have medical problems that make it impossible for them to have their own biological children. Some single adults, although they don’t have a partner or don’t want to get married, really want to be parents. Other kids might get adopted when one of their parents remarries. The new husband or wife might adopt the kids as a way to show that they are all one family now.

According to a 2008 study done by the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, 463,000 children were in need of foster homes. However, a 2004 study by the Foster Care Alumni of America indicated only 153,000 licensed or approved homes existed nationwide. Foster care is intended to operate as a temporary stage while a permanent and adequate environment is found in which the child will live. Foster-care involves the full-time care of a child outside of the child’s original home environment and can come in a variety of settings. Children may be placed in the care of family members, known as kin placement, non-relatives, foster care facilities, various institutions or group homes.

Communal families, made up of groups of related or unrelated people, have long existed in isolated instances. Such units became to occur in the United States as an alternative lifestyle, but by the 1980s the number of communal families was diminishing.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16