Types-
The diverse data coming from ethnography, history, law and social statistics, establish that the human an institution and not a biological fact found on the natural relationship of consanguinity. The different types of families occur in a wide variety of settings, and their specific functions and meanings depend largely on their relationship to other social institutions. Although the concept of consanguinity originally referred to relations by "blood," cultural anthropologists have argued that one must understand the idea of "blood" metaphorically and that many societies understand family through other concepts rather than through genetic distance. Sociologists have a special interest in the function and status of these forms in stratified (especially capitalist) societies. However, in societies with the presence of extended families, their basis is more structured in the reality of actual relatedness rather than on even affinity or anything else entirely. Herbert Gintis, economist and evolutionary scholar, in his response to the book Sex at Dawn, critiques the idea that human males were unconcerned with parentage, "which would make us unlike any other species I can think of".
According to the work of scholars Max Weber, Alan Macfarlane, Steven Ozment,Jack Goody and Peter Laslett, the huge transformation that led to modern marriage in Western democracies was "fueled by the religio-cultural value system provided by elements of Judaism, early Christianity, Roman Catholic canon law and the Protestant Reformation".
Much sociological, historical and anthropological research dedicates itself to the understanding of this variation, and of changes in the family that form over time. "Times have changed; it is more acceptable and encouraged for mothers to work and fathers to spend more time at home with the children. The way roles are balanced between the parents will help children grow and learn valuable life lessons. There is great importance of communication and equality in families, in order to avoid role strain."
The nuclear family in industrial society-
Contemporary society generally views the family as a haven from the world, supplying absolute fulfillment. Zinn and Eitzen discuss the image of the "family as haven [...] a place of intimacy, love and trust where individuals may escape the competition of dehumanizing forces in modern society". During industrialization, "[t]he family as a repository of warmth and tenderness (embodied by the mother) stands in opposition to the competitive and aggressive world of commerce (embodied by the father). The family's task was to protect against the outside world." However, Zinn and Eitzen note, "The protective image of the family has waned in recent years as the ideals of family fulfillment have taken shape. Today, the family is more compensatory than protective. It supplies what is vitally needed but missing in other social arrangements."
"The popular wisdom", according to Zinn and Eitzen, sees the family structures of the past as superior to those today, and families as more stable and happier at a time when they did not have to contend with problems such as illegitimate children and divorce. They respond to this, saying, "there is no golden age of the family gleaming at us in the far back historical past." "Desertion by spouses, illegitimate children, and other conditions that are considered characteristics of modern times existed in the past as well."
The postmodern family-
Others argue that whether or not one views the family as "declining" depends on one's definition of "family". "Married couples have dropped below half of all American households. This drop is shocking from traditional forms of the family system. Only a fifth of households were following traditional ways of having married couples raising a family together." In the Western World, marriages are no longer arranged for economic, social or political gain, and children are no longer expected to contribute to family income. Instead, people choose mates based on love. This increased role of love indicates a societal shift toward favoring emotional fulfilment and relationships within a family, and this shift necessarily weakens the institution of the family.
Margaret Mead considers the family as a main safeguard to continuing human progress. Observing, "Human beings have learned, laboriously, to be human", she adds: "we hold our present form of humanity on trust, it is possible to lose it" ... "It is not without significance that the most successful large-scale abrogations of the family have occurred not among simple savages, living close to the subsistence edge, but among great nations and strong empires, the resources of which were ample, the populations huge, and the power almost unlimited"
Many countries (particularly Western) have, in recent years, changed their family laws in order to accommodate diverse family models. For instance, in the United Kingdom, in Scotland, the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 provides cohabitants with some limited rights. In 2010, Ireland enacted the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010. There have also been moves at an international level, most notably, the Council of Europe European Convention on the Legal Status of Children Born out of Wedlock which came into force in 1978. Countries which ratify it must ensure that children born outside marriage are provided with legal rights as stipulated in the text of this Convention. The Convention was ratified by the UK in 1981 and by Ireland in 1988.
Family Honor-
Family honor (or honour) is an abstract concept involving the perceived quality of worthiness and respectability that affects the social standing and the self-evaluation of a group of related people, both corporately and individually. The family is viewed as the main source of honor and the community highly values the relationship between honor and the family. The conduct of family members reflects upon family honor and the way the family perceives itself, and is perceived by others. Family honor can be dependent upon many factors and areas that are affected by family honor include multiple aspects of lifestyle such as social conduct, religious practice, dress, eating habits, education, occupation, possessions, andmarriage.
People who live in cultures of honor, perceive family as the central institution in their society and a person's social identity depends largely on their family. Therefore it is important for these individuals to fulfill expectations of family and society in order to be accepted by their family and experience feelings of belonging to this central institution that they are tied to through birth or marriage. In some cultures, maintaining family honor is perceived as more important than either individual freedom, or individual achievement.
The ideology and practice of family honor varies from country to country. Individuals of certain cultures are often unaware or discerning in their understanding of differing cultural traditions. Many fail to grasp the concept of honor as the basis for traditions such as defending one's honor or their family's. Some cultures value family honor more than others. Many times a family's honor may overpower the actions or beliefs of the individual. However, a theme that is common within many traditions is the respecting of elders. Children of the family are to respect their elders who have earned what some call a "badge of 'honor'" representative of their age. Once an individual has lived throughout life for several years, they have earned this badge of honor and should be shown respect teaching their young the cultural traditions that have deemed them honorable.
Work-Life Balanace-
The work-leisure dichotomy was invented in the mid-1800s. Paul Krassner remarked that anthropologists use a definition of happiness that is to have as little separation as possible "between your work and your play". The expression "work–life balance" was first used in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s to describe the balance between an individual's work and personal life. In the United States, this phrase was first used in 1986.
Most recently, there has been a shift in the workplace as a result of advances in technology. As Bowswell and Olson-Buchanan stated, "increasingly sophisticated and affordable technologies have made it more feasible for employees to keep contact with work". Employees have many methods, such as emails, computers, and cell phones, which enable them to accomplish their work beyond the physical boundaries of their office. Employees may respond to an email or a voice mail after-hours or during the weekend, typically while not officially "on the job". Researchers have found that employees who consider their work roles to be an important component of their identities will be more likely to apply these communication technologies to work while in their non-work domain.
Some theorists suggest that this blurred boundary of work and life is a result of technological control. Technological control "emerges from the physical technology of an organization". In other words, companies use email and distribute smartphones to enable and encourage their employees to stay connected to the business even when they are not in the office. This type of control, as Barker argues, replaces the more direct, authoritarian control, or simple control, such as managers and bosses. As a result, communication technologies in the temporal and structural aspects of work have changed, defining a "new workplace" in which employees are more connected to the jobs beyond the boundaries of the traditional workday and workplace. The more this boundary is blurred, the higher work-to-life conflict is self-reported by employees.
Many authors believe that parents being affected by work-life conflict will either reduce the number of hours one works where other authors suggest that a parent may run away from family life or work more hours at a workplace. This implies that each individual views work-life conflict differently.
Family Politics-
Family policies differ significantly between countries. Depending on jurisdiction, family policy may have a multiplicity of functions: horizontal redistribution, the enhancement of individual choices, increasing fertility rates, supporting economic growth and productivity, as well as reducing gender inequalities (Ferragina and Seeleib-Kaiser 2015). From a societal perspective, family policies can contribute to "horizontal redistribution" between generations, as well as between households with and without children; to favour individual choices by supporting the reconciliation between care and paid work; and to reduce the costs of having children and child poverty. From an economic perspective, employment-oriented family policy is part of an overall redesign of welfare states geared to foster "active citizenship", also among mothers who were formerly not employed, through the development of an "enabling state". More generous family policies are said to lead to higher employment rates for women, mitigate the risk of unemployment for mothers after a substantial period of leave, support a social investment strategy, and offset some of the costs of raising children. From many feminist perspectives, family policies should aim at equalising opportunities between men and women through de-familialising care, encouraging men's involvement in care work, and facilitating employment opportunities for women. Profound social, economic, and cultural changes have led in many societies to the decline of the "male breadwinner model" and the move towards a variety of "adult worker models" (Daly 2011). Nevertheless, family policy expansion has not always fundamentally challenged gender inequalities: overall men have not increased their contribution to care work sufficiently to "compensate" for women's increased labour force participation and slightly reduced participation in care.
In an era of perceived permanent austerity and overall welfare state retrenchment, rich OECD countries have not been prevented from expanding family policies (Ferragina and Seeleib-Kaiser 2015). In fact, in many of these countries there has been an expansion of family policies, leading to a socialisation of family care responsibilities, traditionally disproportionately performed by women (Daly and Lewis 2000). Although at the institutional policy level, the expansion of family policy might be characterised as a "silent revolution", relevant for gender equality, a cautious interpretation might be necessary: gender inequalities in income, opportunities, leisure and other significant outcomes remain and are sometimes sustained by policy, even if there is an observed shift in their character towards support for women's employment (Ferragina and Seeleib-Kaiser 2015).
The policy shift has been particularly significant in countries that had previously emphasised more conservative approaches to family policies, such as Germany, Ireland, Japan, and Norway. Hence, it can no longer be assumed that in the majority of rich OECD countries care for young children will be mainly provided through unpaid work within the family. Nevertheless, a certain number of countries still fail to provide adequate childcare arrangements, constituting a barrier for full-time maternal employment. Furthermore, in some countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, gender discrimination continues to strongly intersect with class; high childcare costs constitute a disincentive to labour force participation, especially among less educated and unskilled women (Esping-Andersen 2009). This means that higher-class and more educated women tend to have better opportunities than women belonging to a lower social class.
Partisanship and women's political agency have been the main drivers for family policy change during the 1980s and 1990s in many countries. For the 2000s, however, the importance of these drivers has significantly declined. As societal preferences have undergone profound changes — to some extent driven by the activities of women's equality movements, as well as by the experience of women's employment — the policy preferences of voters have also changed. Electorates in western democracies increasingly want policies supporting "modern" family lifestyles which depend on women's employment (Ferragina and Seeleib-Kaiser 2015). As political parties react to these changed policy preferences, the traditional differences in family policy positions between political parties decline. The extent to which this translates into support for gender equality, and how such equality might be defined, is as yet not decided. However, societal policy preferences, long believed to be set in stone, are undergoing profound changes; and public opinion increasingly matters for changing policies. The changed policy preferences are also mirrored in new political discourses that prioritise social investment and the preservation of the human capital of women, especially of those who are highly skilled. The expansion of family policies geared to supporting women's employment and investment in children is very likely to continue in western democracies.(Ferragina and Seeleib-Kaiser 2015).
Criticism-
Certain social scientists have advocated the abolition of the family. An early opponent of the family was Socrates whose position was outlined by Plato in The Republic. In Book 5 of The Republic, Socrates tells his interlocutors that a just city is one in which citizens have no family ties.
The family being such a deep-rooted and much-venerated institution, few intellectuals have ventured to speak against it.Familialism has been atypically defined as a “social structure where … a family's values are held in higher esteem than the values of the individual members of the family.” Favoritism granted to relatives regardless of merit is called nepotism.
The Russian-American rationalist and individualist philosopher, novelist and playwright Ayn Rand compared partiality towards consanguinity with racism, as a small-scale manifestation of the latter. “The worship of the family is merely racism, like a crudely primitive first installment on the worship of the tribe. It places the accident of birth above a man's values and duty to the tribe above a man's right to his own life.” Additionally, she spoke in favor of childfree lifestyle, while following it herself.
The British social critic, poet, mountaineer and occultist Aleister Crowley censured the institution of family in his works: “Horrid word, family! Its very etymology accuses it of servility and stagnation. / Latin, famulus, a servant; Oscan, Faamat, he dwells. …Think what horrid images it evokes from the mind. Not only Victorian; wherever the family has been strong, it has always been an engine of tyranny. Weak members or weak neighbours: it is the mob spirit crushing genius, or overwhelming opposition by brute arithmetic. … In every Magical, or similar system, it is invariably the first condition which the Aspirant must fulfill: he must once and for all and for ever put his family outside his magical circle.”
The American journalist Marty Nemko considers family to be overrated. “Politicians, clerics, and just plain folks extol family as our most important institution. / I believe family is overrated. So many people suffer inordinately from family. … / Millions of people don't even speak with a family member. Millions more spend years and fortunes on therapists, trying to undo the ills that family perpetrated on them. / All this shouldn’t be surprising. After all, unlike with friends, we are placed in our family of origin at random, with no say in the matter.
