Family: The Meaning, Features, Types and Functions

Family is one of the most important universal social institutions. It is the core of the social structure and fundamental unit of society. Most of the world’s population lives in family units; it is an important primary group in society. Family is regarded as the first society of human beings. In general, it consists of father, mother & children. 

A family is established through marriage which is known as the nuclear family; the unit of one set of parents and children is often embedded in larger groupings like joint families, lineages, clans, and domestic groups of various kinds. Today when we use the term family it covers all the various groups of relatives representing a household (all the individuals living under one roof), gens (all those descended from a common ancestor), agnatic (relatives on the father’s side) and cognatic (relatives on the mother’s side).

Meaning of Family:

Broadly speaking, family refers to the group comprising parents and children.

According to Charles Cooley - Family is the primary group and we are members of the primary group. History of mankind is the history of the family. At birth, a child is only a biological being. His needs are fulfilled by his family. Right from birth to death, the family exerts a constant influence on the child.

According to Maclver and Page, “Family is a group defined by a sex relationship, sufficiently precise and enduring to provide for the procreation and upbringing of children”.

According to Elliot and Meril, “Family is the biological social unit composed of husband, wife, and children.

Biesanz writes “The family may be described as a woman with a child and a man to look after them”.

Characteristics of Family:

> Sex relationship should be there between husband and wife. if this relationship breaks then the family slowly breaks according to Mac Iver.

> It provides care to children like economic needs. An emotional basis i.e. family is based on emotion.

> A system of Nomenclature i.e. according to Anderson there are two kinds of family and both these give importance to Nomenclature. 

> A single household for a well-organized family.

> Husband and wife with or without children. 

Nature of Family:

> Universality: family is found in each stage of society and everywhere. There is no society without family. There is not a single man who does not belong to one or other kind of family". Anderson. 

> Emotional basis: There should be an emotional relationship – love, affection, sympathy, co-operation. If there is no such basis the family breaks up.

> Formative influence: Each family has a certain form.  If you are a member of one family you inherit your parents' characteristics.

> Sense of Responsibility: The function of the family is to provide economic needs for the children. It is the responsibility of the parents to look after the children of the family. 

> Social control: family is a mechanism of social control. When one is small he does not know what's wrong or right. If you follow good you are praised otherwise you are punished. This makes you think that you must relate to the good and when you grow up you relate to the good of society.

FUNCTIONS OF A FAMILY:

The family as a social group is universal in nature and its existence is seen at all levels of cultures. The basic functions of a family are outlined below:

=> Satisfaction of biological need: The family as an institution regularises the satisfaction of biological needs. It serves for the institutionalization of mating a primordial need among all humans. Family helps in channeling of sexual outlets by defining the norms with whom one can mate and who are out of bounding in the terms of the incest taboo.

=> Reproduction: A child as we have learned is born into a family. As soon as a child is born into a family he is entitled to certain social position, system of beliefs, language, parents, and kids as per the family system that he is born into. This family nurtures the child and imbues in him the ways of the society through the process of enculturation preparing him to accept statuses of adulthood.

=> Socialisation: Man is a social animal. But he is not born human or social. He is made social through the process of socialization. Socialization refers to the process through which the growing individual learns the habits, attitudes, values, and beliefs of the social group into which he has been born and becomes a person.

=> Economic: A family as a social group is responsible for satisfying the basic needs of its members like food, clothes, and shelter. In order to achieve this objective, all the members of a family cooperate and divide the work among themselves and make a contribution to the upkeeping of the family. 

=> Property Transformation: The family acts as an agency for holding and transmission of property. Most families accumulate much property such as land, goods, money, and other forms of wealth. The family transmits these properties.

=> Educational: The family provides the bases of all the child’s letter formal education learning. Family is the first school of children. The child learns the first letters under the guidance of parents. The child learns language, behavior, and manners from the parents. The virtues of love, cooperation, obedience, sacrifice, and discipline are learned by the child in the family.

=> Religious Function: Family is a center for religious training of the children. The children learn various religious virtues from their parents. The religious and moral training of children has always been bound up with the home. 

Types of Family:

Though the family is a universal institution, its structure or form varies from one society to another. Sociologists and anthropologists have mentioned different types of families found in different cultures. The classification of families on a different basis is given below.

=> On the Basis of Organisation:

In terms of organization families may be of two broad types; the nuclear family and the extended/joint family.

> Nuclear Family: A nuclear family is a unit composed of husband, wife, and unmarried children. This is the predominant form in modern industrial societies. This type of family is based on companionship between parents and children. The size of the nuclear family is very small. It is free from the control of elders. It is regarded as the most dominant and ideal form of family in modern society. The children get maximum care, love, and affection from the parents in a nuclear family. The nuclear family is independent and economically self-sufficient. The members of the nuclear family also enjoy more freedom than the members of the joint family.

> Extended / Joint Family: The term extended family is used to indicate the combination of two or more nuclear families based on an extension of the parent-child relationships. In an extended family, a man and his wife live with the families of their married sons and with their unmarried sons and daughters, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren in the paternal or maternal line.

The size of the joint family is very large. Generally, the eldest male is the head of the family. The rights and duties of the members in this type of family are laid down by the hierarchy order of power and authority. Children of the joint family are children of all the male members in the parental generation.

=> On the Basis of Authority:

The family may be either patriarchal or matriarchal on the basis of authority.

> Patriarchal Family: Patriarchal family is a type of family in which all authority belongs to the paternal side. In this family, the eldest male or the father is the head of the family. He exercises his authority over the members of the family. He presides over the religious rites of the household; he is the guardian of the family goods.

> Matriarchal Family: It is a form of family in which authority is centered in the wife or mother. The matriarchal family system implies the rule of the family by the mother, not by the father. In this type of family, women are entitled to perform religious rites and the husband lives in the house of his wife. This type of family is now found among the Khasi and Garo tribes of Assam and Meghalaya, among Nayars of Malabar in Kerala.

=> On the Basis of Residence:

In terms of residence, we find the following types of families.

> Patrilocal Family: When the wife goes to live with the husband’s family, it is called the patrilocal family.

> Matrilocal Family: When the couple after marriage moves to live with the wife’s family, such residence is called matrilocal. The husband has a secondary position in the wife’s family where his children live.

> Neolocal Residence: When the couple after marriage moves to settle in an independent residence which is neither attached to the bride’s family of origin nor bridegroom’s family of origin it is called neolocal residence.

> Avunculocal Family: In this type of family the married couple moves to the house of the maternal uncle and lives with his son after marriage. Avonculocal family is found among the Nayars of Kerala.

> Matri-Patri Local Family: In Matri-patrilocal family, immediately after marriage the bridegroom moves to the house of the bride and temporarily settles there till the birth of the first child and then comes back to his family of orientation, along with wife and child for permanent settlement. The Chenchuas of Andhra Pradesh lives in this type of family.

=> The Basis of Descent:

On the basis of descent, families may be divided into two types such as patrilineal and matrilineal.

> Patrilineal Family: When descent is traced through the father, it is called patrilineal family. In this type of family inheritance of property takes place along the male line of descent. The ancestry of such a family is determined on the basis of the male line or the father. 

>  Matrilineal Family: In this type of family descent is traced along the female line and inheritance of property also takes place along the female line of descent. The Veddas, the North American Indians, some people of Malabar, and the Khasi tribe are matrilineal. 

=> On the basis of Blood-relationship:

Ralph Linton has classified family into two main types namely, consanguine and conjugal.

> Consanguine Family: The consanguine family is built upon the parent-child relationship (on blood-descent). A family is a descent group through the male line which is firmly vested with authority. The consanguine family comprises a nucleus of blood relatives surrounded by a fringe of wives and others who are incidental to the maintenance of the family unit. Such families can become very large. The Nayar family is a typical example.

> Conjugal Family: The conjugal family is a nucleus of the husband, the wife, and their offspring, who are surrounded by a fringe of relatives only incidental to the functioning of the family as a unit. In this type of family, the authority and solidarity of the family group reside solely in the conjugal (husband and wife) pair.

Conclusion:

From the above discussion on a family, we can summarize that family has been a way of bringing together two people who stay with each other to continue the functions as administered by society.  Families like other institutions have also gone through many changes and we see a lot of variations in the family system in traditional societies. But in the present era, most of the traditional societies with polygamous and polyandrous family systems are turning into nuclear families. The blended families, live-in-relationships, gay and lesbian families are new entities in the developing world and though initially there was lots of resistance yet it has become an accepted norm in the present day scenario.