A Broken Family

A Broken Family

  • Submitted By: shafeeqali
  • Date Submitted: 10/01/2010 3:20 AM
  • Category: Religion
  • Words: 434
  • Page: 2
  • Views: 2347

Family
INTRODUCTION
Family, basic social group united through bonds of kinship or marriage, present in all societies. Ideally, the family provides its members with protection, companionship, security, and socialization. The structure of the family and the needs that the family fulfills vary from society to society.

TYPES OF FAMILY
1. NUCLEAR FAMILY
2. EXTENDED FAMILY
3. SINGLE-PARENT FAMILY

1. Nuclear Family
The nuclear family consists of two adults and their children and is the main unit in some societies.

2. Extended Family
, which also consists of grandparents and other relatives.

3. Single –Parent Family
A third family unit is the single-parent family, in which children live with an unmarried, divorced, or widowed mother or father.

History

Anthropologists and social scientists have developed several theories about how family structures and functions evolved. In prehistoric hunting and gathering societies, two or three nuclear families, usually linked through bonds of kinship, banded together for part of the year but dispersed into separate nuclear units in those seasons when food was scarce. The family was an economic unit; men hunted, while women gathered and prepared food and tended children. Infanticide and expulsion of the infirm who could not work were common. Some anthropologists contend that prehistoric people were monogamous, because monogamy prevails in nonindustrial, tribal forms of contemporary society.

The modern family
Historical studies have shown that family structure has been less changed by urbanization and industrialization than was once supposed. The nuclear family was the most prevalent preindustrial unit and is still the basic unit of social organization. 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...

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