"Family"

"Family is a picture, treasure it and hold on to it forever!!!"

Family is a basic social group united through broad of kinship or marriage.



Its core form, the nuclear family, consists of a man and woman who live together in a socially recognized marriage with children. The nuclear family is the main unit in many societies. In others, it is a subordinate part of an extended family, which also consists of grandparents and other relatives.





An extended family is more often found in rural than in urban settings and is less common now than several decades ago.






A third family unit that is becoming more prevalent is the single-parent family, in which children live with an unmarried mother or father.




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 pre-industrial unit and is still the basic unit of social organization. The modern family differs from early traditional forms, however, in its functions, compositions, and life cycle and in the roles of husbands and wives.

The only function of the family that continues to survive all change is the provision of affection and emotional support by and to all its members, particularly infants and young children. Specialized institutions now perform many of the other functions that were once performed by the agrarian family: economic production, education, religion, and recreation.
Jobs are usually separate from the family group; family members often work in different occupations and in locations away from the home.

Education is provided by the state or by private groups. Religious training and recreational activities are available outside the home, although both still have a place in family life. The family is still responsible for the socialization of the children. Even in this capacity, however, the influence of peers and of the mass media has assumed a large role.

By the 1970s, the prototypical nuclear family had yielded somewhat to modified structures including the one-parent family, the step family, and the childless family.

One-parent families in the past were usually the result of the death of a spouse. Now, however, must one-parent families are the result of divorce, although a few are created when unmarried mothers bear children. In 1986 more than one out of the four children lived with only-one parent usually the mother. Most one-parent families, however, eventually became two-parent families through marriage. A step family is created by a new marriage of a single parent. It may consist of a parent and children and a childless spouse, a parent and children and a spouse whose children live elsewhere, or to joined one-parent families. In a step family problems in relations between non-natural parents and children may generate tension; the difficulties can be especially great in the marriage of the single parents when the children of both parents live with them as siblings.
Childless families are increasingly the result of deliberate choice. For many years the proportion of couples who were childless declined steadily as venereal and other diseases that cause infertility were conquered. In the 1970s, however, the changes in the status of woman reversed this trend. Couples often elect to have no children or to postpone having them until their careers are well established.