Subcategories Of The Nuclear Family

There are many ways that the idea of the “traditional” family has changed over the past several centuries. For instance prior to the 19th century family was often considered anyone who lived within a household whether related by blood or not. This included employees and extended family. Per Coontz (2010) “The biological family was less sacrosanct, and less sentimentalized, than it would become in the nineteenth century.”(p. 35) In society at the time it was socially unacceptable to be separate or not included as part of a family household. Over time, the term family came to encompass the immediate family, a husband, wife and their children. During the late 1800’s through the mid 1900’s there were emerging ideas of family that were not widely accepted as traditional or normal, these included single parent homes with only a Mom or Dad, Stepfamilies and same sex couple and parent households. Today, American ideas of what constitutes a family have drastically expanded to include these formerly “non-traditional” families

The sociological concept for family is a group of people that are related to by decent, marriage, or adoption. Many sociologist view families as a universal social institution that is central to social life, meaning families play a role of how people learn to be social and how their role in a society. Sociologists are interested in studying families because of how families are created through marriage and how they are formed and maintained. Also they are fascinated of how families expand, contract, or even dissolve.

There are many ways that the idea of the “traditional” family has changed over the past several centuries. For instance prior to the 19th century family was often considered anyone who lived within a household whether related by blood or not. This included employees and extended family. “The biological family was less sacrosanct, and less sentimentalized, than it would become in the nineteenth century.” (Coontz 35) In society at the time it was socially unacceptable to be separate and not included as part of a family household. Over time the term family came to encompass the immediate family, a husband, wife and their children. During the late 1800’s through the mid 1900’s there were emerging ideas of family that were not widely accepted as traditional or normal, these included single parent homes with only a Mom or Dad, Stepfamilies and

The word family has changed so much in the past century. A family back in the 1950’s was probably considered a husband, wife, and one or more children. Times have changed and families have become much different. The Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others book defines family as a, “Unit made up of any number of persons who live in relationship with one another over time in a common living space who are usually, but not always, united by marriage and kinship” (Beebe, Beebe & Redmond, 243). Families can be broken up into five different types. The first is the traditional family, which includes a mother, father, and their biological children. Next, is the blended family which includes

The ideal traditional family consists of a father, a mother, a couple of kids and maybe a dog in a rather spacious home. We all know examples of families like this but are also aware that there are different renditions of it. There are single parent families, divorced/split families, and a family with a remarried couple with stepchildren and same sex couples with/without children. I, myself, have been included in a

The way in which the ‘family’ unit is perceived has changed immensely since the last quarter of the twentieth century. Over time, many factors have contributed to these changes including, and not limited to, the industrial revolution, the feminist movement, the period of modernity and technological advancements. As a result, these factors have influenced significant changes to the ‘family’, these include; the increasing rates of female occupation, mean age at marriage, divorce, unmarried couples, single parents, mean age at birth of first child, and a decline in marriage rates. Moreover, this essay will examine how the family has changed over time through discussing the factors that have contributed to these changes. It is for these reasons and observations made by sociologists that it could be inferred that the way the family unit is perceived has changed greatly over time.

Eveyone's family is shaped diffeent, and functions differently The first major one is marital arrangements of a family, that is the number of persons each sex is allowed to marry. This includes monogamy, which is one marriage, and polygamy which is two marriages. There are also sub catergories that includes polygyny, which includes multiple wives, polyandry, which include multiple husbands, and cenogamy, which is a group marriage. the household arrangements of a family is the expected household composition including marital units and blood. There are two major houseold arrangements of a family that most of us fit into. The first arrangemnet would be a nuclear familty. A nuclear family coud either be intact, childless or incomplete. In an intact family the memebers of the family include a husband, wife, and children. In a childless family this includes a couple without children. In a incompletee family, for example this would be a widower with a child. some would say that the nuclesr family is more intimate then a compounded family because nuclear family are more monagomous and conjugal, but that is not always the case. But it is safe to say that the nuclear family is the norm in all societies today, because family comes in all different shapes and sizes. The other type of household arrangement is a compounded family arrangement. This

Currently we have many ways of viewing the word family. People are more accepting and used to different types of families and how other people live. Starting out in the 1950s, there was a very specific way a family should be. Many people still view this as family but as time went on, many people have changed their views on family. Going through each decade, there is a different way to picture what is considered to be “normal” family life.

The families in America are steadily changing. While they remain our most valued and consistent source of strength and comfort, some families are becoming increasingly unstructured. In the past, the typical family consists of a working father, a stay at home mother and, of course, well-rounded children. Today, less than 20 percent of American families fit nicely into this cookie cutter image. American households have never been more diverse. Natalie Angier takes stock of the changing definition of family in an article for the New York Times.

Depending on their cultural background, many families will often have different understandings or ideas of what a family is and how it should be structured.

There were also needs for industrial society and from there, change/ structure of the family type evolved to meet societies needs to survive such as loss of functions in extended family, where industrial society took over some functions a family would perform for its members such as healthcare (NHS). And another was geographically mobile workforce; where the family had to move to places for jobs demanding their skills. But with extended families, they couldn’t take the whole family, just maybe the wife and kids etc. However, linking with the question, the functionalists view of the family was that nuclear families were the most dominant, but they change their views during industrialisation, believing that extended was the more dominant at the time for survival of the family to fit into society, but in today’s society, functionalists have changed their view once more, which resorted back to their first view of nuclear family being more dominant.

Determining family structure and dynamics as well as defining the family is a complex process. Personally, I come from a very traditional family. Much like the assumptions made by the students in the article Defining Family: Young Adults’ Perceptions of the Parent-Child Bond by Mellisa Holtzman (2008). This is what comes to mind when most people define family; a nuclear family, with married parents, and biological children. However, a family is a complex system and can take on many different forms.

The discipline of Sociology has long been interested in the study of human behavior. This interest grows from the sociological conception of relationships which distinguish the individual and differentiate him from other members of society. Through the ages, man has been influenced by social interaction and cultural surroundings. Sociologists have also recognized that a social institution consists of a concept and a structure, and that this structure is a framework made up of permanent relationships. The family is a social institution consisting of a certain structure. In earlier times, society defined “families” as “close-knit, internally organized cooperative

The family structure determines where you derive from and provides a sense of who you are. The typical family structure is perceived as a father and a mother, two children, one boy and one girl, and a pet. The typical family description described above is still promoted and expected to be the “dream family.” Author Meyerhoff, “While the nuclear family with Dad, Mom, and offspring happily coexisting beneath one roof-remains the ideal, variations in family structure are plentiful and often successful” (Meyerhoff). Meaning that a lot of families are remarried spouses with prior children and more common in the last decade same sex marriages. So, do these nontraditional families have the same qualities? Personally, I would think so. After

For most of us, the family is considered as a well-known and comfortable institution. The perfect model of the ‘ideal’ family is still mostly considered to be consisted from two different sexes’ parents, and one or more children. Until quite recently, the sociology of the family was mostly functionalist and just in the last few decades has been challenged from various directions.