Types of Families in the Society - Assignment Example

27 May Types of Families Introduction There are various types of families in the society today. They can be basically divided into the basis of Marriage, Resident, Structure, Relations and Residence. In the following paper we shall discuss each and every type of family and also evaluate according to their importance in the society as of today. (Types of Families) Basis of Marriage Polygamous: The nature of Polygamous lies in the definition of Polygamy, which means to have more than one partner for the husband in the family. In this aspect of marriage, usually the man has more than two wives living together with the husband, and their kids as a family. Both the wives share their husband, and there should not be any bonds between the wives of the husband. Only when this condition is satisfied do we come across a Polygamous family. (Moynihan, Carolyn) Polyandrous: This is a form of marriage where the woman takes the bite instead of the man. A polyandrous form of marriage includes a woman having more than two husbands and all of them living together at the same time. There should not be any bond between the husbands and they may or may not have kids. (Zietzen, Miriam) Monogamous: Monogamous form of marriage is the most prevalent form marriage in the society today. In almost all the countries throughout the world we have this type of marriage existent in their facets of societies. In this form of marriage, the man and the woman have only one partner, and they refrain from increasing the number of partners, but they stick to themselves. Basis of Residence Matrilocal Residence: Matrilocal families consist of such kind of families which live with the wife’s mother’s house. According to this trend, the mother of the female child lives with her after her child gets married. Men have a very limited amount of input in the growth of the kids, and they usually bring up their sister’s kids. Woman have a dominating role to play in this kind of marriage. (Matrilocal Residence) Patrilocal residence: Patrilocal families are the opposite of Matrilocal families where the couple resides along with the father of the husband in the same house. The kids are raised by husband the wife, but the husband has a dominating role in the family, focussing on running the family whereas the wife brings up the kids and looks after the day to day business of the family. Basis of Descent Matrilineal Descent: Matrilineal descent is a system of family where the lineage is traced from the mother’s side. It is a line of descent from the female ancestor, from where the successors trace their lineage from the female ancestor. The husband also forms part of the wife’s lineage, and the kids take the family names of the mother’s family in this social trend. Patrilineal Family: This form of family is completely the opposite of matrilineal form of family. The lineage is drawn from the father’s side over here. In this form of family, the heirs belong to the father’s side, where the property is divided according to the father’s lineage and the title is also adopted from the same side. It is the most common form of family, more common and prevalent in the society than the matrilineal form of descent. Patrilineal descent allows the men to take control of the family over women. The name of the father is taken up by his son, as the daughter gets married to another family and carries the lineage from there onwards. Basis of Structure Nuclear Family: Nuclear family consists of a father, mother and any number of children who live together in the same household. It is a form of family where only two generations of individuals related to each other through direct lineage stay in the same quarter sharing the household amongst them. After the industrialization scenario in Europe, Nuclear family became the name of the game as many families started shifting their base from their extended relations, and its prevalent in all forms of societies throughout the world in different continents. The term “Nuclear” is relatively new; however, the practice has been followed through ages dating back to the pre historic days. The idea of nuclear family is embedded in humans for centuries now, and it is the most natural form of family which we can come across today. Nuclear family is the new age phenomenon which is growing in countries which record high rate of economic growth. Young men and women who are ambitious usually step out of their protected households and form nuclear families to maximise their earnings and to have a high standard of living with extensive space available to them. (Nuclear Family - New World Encyclopedia) Joint Family: Joint family consists of multiple generations of individuals sharing the same households for their day to day activities. A joint family not only complies of a couple and their children according to the nuclear family, but it also consists of grandfather, grandmother and maybe a higher generation of forefathers to go along with the basic concept of a family. A joint family is much larger in number than a nuclear family, and therefore it attracts a bigger house and a larger space to share among the members of the family. India is one of the countries where this system prevails in abundance, where the Hindu Joint Family concept has been an evergreen concept of living in a society. One of the basic prerequisites of a joint family is to involve more than two generations of adults residing in the same structure. A Hindu Joint Family consists of members of a family who have originated from a common ancestor sharing the property according to their share in the house property. This translates to the head figure who dictates the share given to each member of the family, where the concept is mainly found in those families running multiple businesses to their names. (The Joint Family) Influence of Family in the Society Functionalism and Family: Functionalism theory of sociology propagates the idea that a society is more important than individuals, where the individual’s role is determined by the society and the kind of structure that person is residing in. There are many types of societal structures, one of them is family. Family has a huge role to play in determining the role of the member of the family and how he functions in a society at large. Families all over the world have different characters and lifestyles to them, and individuals born out of such lifestyles and characters adopt such ideas in their mind when they step in the society at large after their studies and in the professional world. Even otherwise, in a day to day life, families and the thought process adopted by them per se has a major role to play in deciding the nature of the member of such family. The functions of individuals in a society are understood by the role they play in their respective families. A father in the family has the responsibility on his shoulders to manage the family, and the same role is applied by him in his professional life which includes managing a bunch of juniors and taking responsibility of the task at hand. There are different functionalities to an individual, and they can be traced back very easily to the life they are living amongst their family members. ("The Functionalist’s View of The Family in Society) Family serving interests of Rulers: The support of the family is a very important aspect of any man’s life, more so if he has the responsibility of ruling over a nation or any group of people for noble sake. Family is the stomping ground for gaining emotional high, which is even more important when a person is given the task to manage people around him. A family has an invaluable role in supporting the ruler with their inspiration and motivation to keep working and believing within yourself. Although we cannot quantify how much effect it has on rulers, one cannot rule out the fact that it does give benefit to such people and let them focus on the job ahead, leaving aside all the negativity behind. Having a strong family structure goes a long way in the ability of a ruler to make honest, quick, wise and solid decisions based on rational thinking. Emotional support provides a solid base to the rulers to act in their own mental independence and therefore it helps one to stay more focussed and clarified in their approach. Serving Capitalism: Nowadays the family worldwide play a major role in serving capitalist economies. The origin if nuclear family owes a great deal to the rise in capitalism in Europe and America in the late 18th century and onwards. (Using The Family To Advance Capitalism) The current family structure among the middle class and upper middle class in the developed and faster developing countries has been characterised by the surge of capitalism in those countries. This has been seen to such a great extent that in order to find a better corporate job, couples have left their joint families and settled into the nuclear family system to accommodate their earnings and savings in a more efficient manner. (Capitalism and the Family) Liberal Feminism: Liberal feminism follows the ideology that women are equal to men in all forms of life and therefore should be given equal treatment. Feminism in family promotes the thought that women should have the same designation as men in the family and that patriarchal form of family is a bane to the existence of equality of women to men. (Feminism in The Wife Of Bath :: Feminism Feminist Women Criticism) Feminism promotes rights of women in reproductive rights and abortion access, sexual harassment, voting, education, fair compensation for work, affordable childcare, affordable health care, and bringing to light the frequency of sexual and domestic violence against women. Through this means, they propagate equality for women in the patriarchal family system with regard to the title rights and other peripheral rights of women. ("International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women." ) Radical Feminism: The theory of radical feminism believes in a very strong and a hard-core ideology. Itclosely follows the patriarchal system of family which promotes men supremacy. Radical feminism aims to overthrow the patriarchal system of family. It opposes gender roles and men domination and calls for equality among men and women in every form of family. Radical feminism takes this thought to another high level where it thwarts every kind of men dominated society, including patriarchal family. It locates the root cause of women problems as patriarchal form of family, and therefore propagates to be against such a form of family. Marxist Feminism: Marxist feminism believes is a sub type of feminism theory which believes in the idea of dismantling capitalism in order to promote feminism and liberate women. Marxist feminism originates form the doctrines of Karl Marx, whose theory is centred less on the material aspects of life than on the more broadly defined social ones. He specifies certain fundamentals of freedom and liberation which the feminists have adopted to suite their ideology. Prostitution is seen as standing as a symbol of all that is wrong with world policies in society. Prostitutes may feel that they are free, but looking at the larger economic picture in Marxist terms, they are in reality oppressed workers reinforcing and perpetuating an exploitative capitalistic scheme. All this is because of the capitalist regime which the world is seeing today. Prostitution and other evils which affect women are seen as a result of the ever growing capitalist agendas thriving in the society which have a negative impact on women and feminism. (Marxist Feminism) Black Feminism: Black feminism has given rise to a new breed of feminist ideology. It is propagated by black women who believe that non-white women do not deserve to be discriminated against and that class and race bias is a negative aspect for feminism altogether. It has completely rejected the idea of gender oppression by white women and strongly condemns gender discrimination on the basis of colour and race. It says that class oppression, racism and sexism are incredibly bound together and cannot be independent of each other. Therefore, and form of feminism which tries to protest against sexism and class oppression, but however ignores race discrimination cannot be classified a true form of feminism. People who have followed the feminism outrage have witnessed that black women have faced a very different kind of outrage from the white women leading to utter discrimination on the basis of race even though the idea of feminism in its purity should not allow them to follow this path. Black women have the belief that the liberation of black women would entail freedom from all kinds of discrimination, which includes sex, race and class. Even though black women have the same struggle as white women, it has been tougher for them since they had to witness diversity in equality for the fight for feminism. They have been seen as outcast in the feminist movement by white women across America in the 1970’s and had to face a lot of hardships to really get their message delivered across different sections of the society. (Family - Diversity.) Feminism and the Captive Wife: The wife is seen as the manager of the house in today’s capitalist and nuclear family dominated societies. However, it would be fair to note that deep down inside every women, every wife, there resides a feminist who desires to come out and publish her principles into practicality. Until that happens in a dignified manner, the wife is a captive living in the family. Captive wife is an idea of thought transpired out of desperation for women who have not been able to demonstrate their feminist way of life. If women are not able to adhere to those believes then it is said that she really has not been able to propagate her ideologies the way she should have. A captive is therefore a label given to such women who have killed the feminist view inside them and have become hostage to the men domination around them. A woman after getting married has a lot of responsibilities on her shoulders with regard to the running to the house and other basic amenities. Women and Violence: Women have been subjected to a lot of violence in the households. They are a weaker gender and therefore are more prone to violence in their living spaces. They are emotionally weak leading to a burst of mis directed energy which has resulted them to being attacked more often by their husbands in particular. The UN defines violence against women as the following: “violence against women" as "any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life” It includes physical, sexual or any mental harm to women, which also includes threats and acts of coercion, or arbitrary deprivation of freedom and liberty, which may occur at private or public sphere. Looking at the definition, it seems to have been very broadly highlighted all the problems which women are facing these days. Violence against women at home is not a good thing at all, and therefore it needs to be condemned very strictly. There have been many movements against such acts by men from different societies, and a lot of countries have enacted legislations to guard the privacy and security of women. Domestic violence is known as violence at home for women after they get married and enter a new household. It is characteristics of physical, mental or emotional assault on them by their husbands. Since women are weaker physically it is difficult for them to retaliate back to men. Domestic violence is one of the biggest issues which the feminist have been trying to react to nowadays. Many countries have enacted laws to prevent this inhuman act but it has been of less avail. It usually occurs when the husband and the wife have a verbal quarrel leading them to a major argument. From there onwards, there is a major possibility of the husband being in a mental position to harm the condition of his wife and this is what happens in most of the occasions. The world health organization has reported that women who have received violence form their husbands or any other individual are prone to having health issues and it therefore becomes even more difficult in the cases of pregnancy. Therefore, it is the need of the hour to find a solution to this problem being faced by women today. Feminist movement is a welcome path to this development. Feminist Views on Family Identity: Feminists all over the world believe that women need to be given the same identity in the family as men. They have the views which propagate the idea of gender equality among all, regardless of the kind of work done. Since expanding the family is impossible without the interference of women, feminists these days have taken a very aggressive stance with regard to their status in the family. Women in the olden days used to be treated differently, where they were respected a lot more and therefore their identity was that of the house manager, someone who takes care of the children by bringing them up and also running the kitchen and other stuff in the house. It is imperative to understand that women have now been able to match men in almost every field today, and therefore they need to be treated equally to men, a status which they deserve. In the family where earing the money is as important as managing the household and the kids, people need to take a broader look at the whole situation and understand that women have earned their own place in the family and society. New Right and Diversity: The new right argues that nuclear family is the best form of family in a society which is dealing with capitalism today. However, it also says that family diversity can be a cruel agent for moral insecurities which might lead to the failure of the concept of family altogether. It says that nuclear family is an ideally suited form of family, but that should not lead to the disintegration of family in small tiny units of individuals. This can be catastrophic in situations where there is a single parent running the parent, more so when the parent is a mother of her children. A diverse family is unable to bring up the children in a proper moralistic point of view. It is imperative to note that new right believes that nuclear family is aptly suited to teaching a child moral decency, whereas feminists argue that a nuclear family exploits the wife, that by being at home all the time she becomes a servant and a care taker of the house and ther true identity is lost. To conclude, women these days have reached a status where without their input the world cannot function properly. We need them more than ever, and to maintain the economic, social and spiritual growth, we need to cater to them as our saviours and not as our servants. It is important for men to realise that by attacking them physically, they are not only defeating themselves but also proving to be a bad example of how not to treat people in a society. Therefore, feminists all over the world have a reason to fight, and this fight will not end until and unless the problems of the women are solved. Works Cited "Types Of Families, Types and Forms of the Family, Marriage, Family and Kinship." Free Sociology Notes,Sociology Definition,Sociology Study Guide,Meaning Scope Of Sociology,Define Sociology Theory,Define Sociology,Introduction To Sociology,Sociology Study,Free Sociology Notes,Sociology Concept,Online Sociology Course. Web. 27 May 2011. . Moynihan, Carolyn. "Polygamous Family Life? It’s a Mess, Say Malaysians." Mercatornet.com. 21 Jan. 2010. Web. 27 May 2011. . Zeitzen, Miriam Koktvedgaard. Print. "Matrilocal Residence." University of Manitoba. Web. 27 May 2011. . "Nuclear Family - New World Encyclopedia." Info:Main Page - New World Encyclopedia. Web. 27 May 2011. . "The Joint-family." Welcome to HKnetworks. Web. 27 May 2011. . "The Functionalist’s View of The Family in Society | Socyberty." Socyberty | Society on the Web. 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"Family - Diversity." Tutor2u | Economics | Business Studies | Politics | Sociology | History | Law | Marketing | Accounting | Business Strategy. Web. 27 May 2011. . Read More