Family Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Family - Essay Examplether hand, says the definition of what a family is depends on who is going to hand over the definition, a social scientist, the demesne, a conservative order, or a libertarian society.Anthropologists define family by a cultures biological and marital kinship rules and patterns of reciprocal obligations. Different cultures flummox different definitions of biological and marital kin, and the obligations kin have to one another. Some cultures use the fathers biological line, or the mothers or both. Kinship obligations, too, end at different levels for different cultures. As examples, Diem says that brothers, sisters and cousins are distinct in the American culture but not so in African societies. From the point of view of structure-functionalists, families are delineate by the needs of the greater society. The definition of family changes when societys needs change. Examples include those when greater society needs rapid population growth such as after a time of contend when procreation is emphasized, as against a period of over population when childless couples are supported. For institutionalists, a family is the traditional, biological, reproductive and child-rearing structure. For interactionists, the definition is based on the assumption of family-related role behaviours. For economists, the family is a production and consumption unit, thus formation a household slave in an African or Arabian household or the bind servant in an early-American household as part of the family.Further, according to Diem, the States definition of family follows the structure-functionalist approach, where the States needs dictate how the authoritative and legal definition of family shall be formulated. In a buttoned-down Free Society, as envisioned by Nisbet (1953), where the role of social institutions such as church, economy and educational system, are enhanced and those of the State reduced, the social institutions define family. Church may not r ecognise an single(a)