Q.

. Family: A family is a group of two or more persons related by birth,

marriage, or adoption who live together; all such related persons are
considered as members of one family. For instance, if an older married
couple, their daughter and her husband and two children, and the older
couple's nephew all lived in the same house or apartment; they would all be
considered members of a single family.

Unrelated individual: An unrelated individual is a person (other than an

inmate of an institution) who is not living with any relatives. An unrelated
individual may be the only person living in a house or apartment, or may be
living in a house or apartment (or in group quarters such as a rooming house)
in which one or more persons also live who are not related to the individual in
question by birth, marriage, or adoption. Examples of unrelated individuals
residing with others include a lodger, a foster child, a ward, or an employee.

Household: As defined by the Census Bureau for statistical purposes, a

household consists of all the persons who occupy a housing unit (house or
apartment), whether they are related to each other or not. If a family and an
unrelated individual, or two unrelated individuals, are living in the same
housing unit, they would constitute two family units (see next definition), but
only one household. Some programs, such as the Food Stamp Program and
the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, employ administrative
variations of the “household” concept in determining income eligibility. A
number of other programs use administrative variations of the “family” concept
in determining income eligibility. Depending on the precise program definition
used, programs using a “family” concept would generally apply the poverty
guidelines separately to each family and/or unrelated individual within a
household if the household includes more than one family and/or unrelated
individual.

Family Unit: “Family unit” is not an official U.S. Census Bureau term,
although it has been used in the poverty guidelines Federal Register notice
since 1978. As used here, either an unrelated individual or a family (as
defined above) constitutes a family unit. In other words, a family unit of size
one is an unrelated individual, while a family unit of two/three/etc. is the same
as a family of two/ three/etc.

*If the definition of family provided above is used, it must include college
students as follows: Students, regardless of their residence, who are
supported by their parents or others related by birth, marriage, or adoption are
considered to be residing with those who support them.

Q.2

The family is matter of heart and blood. It is created, in part, by physical and emotional intimacy. It
projects itself through history through its biological dimension. Any reasonable definition of the family
must recognize this fundamental characteristic. “Biological dimension” here refers, not only to
genetic affinities, important as those may be, but to all physical connections and to all matters
closely related to the physical. Thus, it includes all the activities and dispositions which, generation
after generation, bring a family together in the great procreative project: the begetting and rearing of
children. The biological dimension includes making love and the disposition to do so. It includes
childbearing and childbirth, breastfeeding, and the maternal and paternal instincts and dispositions.
It forms the center and core of what Erik Erikson and other social scientists have referred to as
“generativity.” Natural bonds – “blood ties” – exercise a perennial traction on human loyalties. This is
evident in the determination of adopted children to identify and bond with their biological parents,
and in the quest of offspring for their sperm-donor fathers or egg-donor mothers. The natural aspect
of the family has long been prominently mentioned in law, in international instruments, and in
learned discourse. Professor Margaret Somerville proposes a “presumption in favour of respecting
the natural.” The natural dimension has, however, been neglected in some modern legal authorities,
and some recently adopted international instruments avoid reference to it. Academic discourse is
often dismissive of the concept of nature, suspicious of appeal to nature in moral argument, and
hostile to the promotion of the natural as a basis for law. Nature, according to postmodernists, has
been “deconstructed,” and attributes and conditions which have been thought to be natural have
been shown, to the satisfaction of such critics, to be merely “social constructs.” The deconstructionist
account of the natural is fallacious and is refuted in the appendix to this Article. Such is not this
Article’s central project, however. This essay aims, instead, to maintain the importance of the
biological aspects of the family, using lines of argument which would be valid even if those elements
were “constructs.” Many writers who eschew appeal to the natural instead emphasize choice,
agreement, and contract, making those elements definitive of basic familial connections such as
husband and wife and parent and child. Other authorities construct accounts of family using the
elements of sentiment and emotion. Others still emphasize a functional aspect, proposing that
central familial relationships are to be defined based on caregiving. A parent, it has been proposed,
is someone who has contributed substantially to taking care of the child, whether or not he or she is
in any way biologically connected. This Article maintains that these projects present impoverished
accounts of the family. It proposes some basic goods which the family comprises. It maintains that
these goods can be well sustained only when the family is recognized, in substantial part, by
reference to its biological dimension. This Article does not present an argument about homosexuality
or same-sex marriage. The Article does not glibly assert that one way or another for men and
women to relate to one another is “just natural.” (Nor does this Article address the difficult issues
which arise when, owing to assisted reproductive techniques, biological familial connections have
been disassembled so that, for example, the gestational mother is a different person from the
gamete-donor mother.). This Article does not propose, as Cicero does at one point, that you can
“read off,” from the configuration of the body, conclusions about how people ought to act; nor does it
personify nature, as Aristotle sometimes seems to do, imagining her to speak to us and even,
perhaps, to tell us what to do. And this Article emphatically does not propose a descent into some
Kiplingesque primitivism in which instinct is to be substituted for reason. This essay has another
agenda, though a very basic one: it proposes that the biological aspects of human life support,
exemplify, and promote several basic goods, and that the natural dimension therefore requires
careful consideration and should be nurtured and respected when human associations, and
especially those of the family, are at issue. The argument proceeds through a futuristic fiction. The
Article describes a familial and social order which, starting from a “classic period” in which families
are recognized based on biological considerations among others, comes to eschew the biological
and to base its family system entirely upon contract. The reader is invited to compare the goods
instantiated in the two systems, and is presented with an account of major goods which, so this
Article proposes, are protected and cultivated in the “classic period” but neglected in the purely
contractual order. In this way the Article defends the traditional view that the biological dimension –
that which is here referred to as “heart and blood” – while not the exclusive element, must be at the
core of any wisely constructed family system.

Q.3

Societies around the world rely on the family to perform certain

functions. The basic functions of the family are to: (1) regulate
sexual access and activity; (2) provide an orderly context for
procreation; (3) nurture and socialize children; (4) ensure
economic stability; and (5) ascribe social status. Families further
impart affection, care, and adaptive functions. In short, family is
considered the supporter of coupling, the source of nurturance
and the elemental education of children, the link to the market
place, the place of remediation that takes the wayward back,
and the hospice where infirm and dependent members seek
solace.
Family functions are accomplished in a number of different
ways. Typically, marriage or some variant is socially approved
as the appropriate outlet for sexual behavior. Families teach
and reiterate that certain persons and conditions are more apt
for sexual intimacy and affection than others. For example,
there are taboos against incest and at certain times against
intercourse, such as during menstruation or pregnancy. The
regulation of sexual behavior is concerned with more than
coitus, and covers such behaviors as hugging, kissing, and
touching, as well as attitudes and values. These attitudes and
values influence family reactions and cultural prescriptions to
such practices as premarital and extramarital relationships
(Widmer et al. 1998).
Families are the most widely approved context for bearing and
rearing children. Procreation within a family garners social
approval for parenthood, and delineates legitimate progeny.
Children born outside a conjugal family are often stigmatized.
Socialization is perhaps the most important function because it
teaches the rules and expectations for behavior both within the
family as well as in the society outside. In this respect the family
is a miniature social system, with parents as the chief promoters
and enforcers of social order. The outcome of the socialization
process within the family is critically important for the larger
society, which is based on regulation and the shared willingness
of citizens to conform to social norms. Typically, family provides
the security and support best suited for teaching children life
skills, cultural values, and social responsibility. It is doubtful
whether children could develop into mentally, physically, and
socially healthy human beings without family.
The provision and management of sufficient financial resources
is an essential function in order to facilitate the efficacy of other
family functions. Families influence the social placement and life
chances of individuals. Children generally assume the legal,
religious, and political status of their family, whereas other roles
are achieved through marriage, occupation, and education.
While some people prefer doing things alone, most need others
who care for them, show affection, share joys and sorrows, and
give support in times of need. Affection and emotional support
are extremely important. A family can recognize changes and
reorganize to adapt to its environment more rapidly than other
groups. This adaptive function enables families to adjust to new
demands and cope with change. Family life can exhibit
openness to novel ways of living and thinking that have not
developed in other spheres (Boulding 1981; Vincent 1966).
While other institutions—religious, educational, political, and
economic—may assist with these functions, the primary
responsibility is relegated to family.
Q.4

Functionalist sociologist Talcott Parsons developed the ‘Functional Fit Theory of the family, in
which he argued that the extended family used to perform several functions in pre-industrial
society, but as society industrialized and the smaller, nuclear family became the norm, the
number of functions performed by the family declined.

This post examines the extent to which the functions of the family have changed and asks
whether family functions have declined over the last 200 years. It can be used to evaluate
the Functionalist perspective on the family.

The functions of the family in pre-industrial society

 Unit of production
 Caring for the young, old sick and poor
 Primary socialisation and control of children
 Education of children
 The stabilisation of adult personalities (I assume Parsons thought this was just as essential
pre-industrialisation!)

The Functions of the family in industrial society

According to Parsons there are now just two ‘irreducible functions’ performed by the nuclear
family :

 primary socialisation – teaching children basic norms and values

 the ‘stabilisation of adult personalities’ – providing psychological security for men and
women in a stable relationship.
 The changing functions of the family
Talcott Parsons was writing in 1950s, so it’s quite possible that even the two functions he
identified are no longer performed by the family today (of course some people argue that the
family didn’t even perform the functions he claimed they did back in the 1950s!)

To what extent have the functions of the family changed over time, and to what extent have they
declined?

The family as a unit of production

Before industrialization and the growth of factory based consumption the family was also a unit
of production – the family produced most of the goods it consumed itself, mainly food and
clothes.

Today, the family household no longer produces its own goods for consumption. Instead, adults
go out to work, earn wages and use those wages to buy food and clothes from the market.

More-over, the increase in technologically advanced products means it would be impossible

today for the family-unit to produce itself many of the goods it requires to survive in modern
society – so many goods require a complex division of labour with many different specialist job

Q.5

 finitions of a Joint Family

 Joint and Nuclear Family
 Features of a Joint Family
The joint family meaning goes as a group of members coming from the same ancestors or is from a
unilineal descent, which chooses to stay together as an extended family without getting separated. It
is usually the son who gets married and stays with his children and wife, under the same roof as his
parents. The uniqueness of a joint family as one can see in India is the residence of different
generations under the same roof, sharing ancestral resources and not creating separate
households. Different sociologists have defined a joint family in different ways as one will look into
going forward. Moreover, a joint family has certain characteristics that too will be discussed.

Definitions of a Joint Family

 According to Iravati Karve, a group of people who choose to cook food in one hearth, reside under
the same roof, are related by common worship, hold common property and belong from a particular
kindred form a joint family.

Henry Maine decided to define a Hindu joint family as a group that shares common ancestors,
children, and relatives related through the marriage of such children.

As per K.M. Kapadia, a family formed of relations from the mother’s or father’s side of the married
son (matrilineal or patrilineal, respectively) who reside together with each other, than just the son
living with his wife and children, is a joint family.

According to K. Davis, where a family shares the same male ancestor, women have entered the
family through marriage and the female offspring might or might not be married, it is a joint family as
they stay together or near to each other. The essential criteria are that all these members support as
well as contribute to the whole and also receive a share or benefit from such a whole/ total product.

Lastly, I.P. Desai chose to define joint family as an extended family having an increased generation
depth than nuclear or individual family and whereby the relationship of such members are derived
from shared property, mutual rights, and obligations as well as income.

Joint and Nuclear Family

Joint and nuclear families are different in terms that while a joint family is a larger, extended family
with more members participating in running the household, a nuclear family is a smaller unit with a
married couple and their offsprings and no extended family living together. In a nuclear family, the
son from a family chooses to marry and set up a separate household from his parents and create his
own family in a nuclear unit.

In an Indian joint family (also referred to as undivided family) the common relationships allow many
generations to stay together. It mostly agrees with the definitions given earlier. The special feature of
an Indian joint family is that the oldest male member is treated as the head of the family, known as
the Karta. All the funds and income are put in a common family account through which the expenses
of running the household are met.

Features of a Joint Family

 Large size- Joint families are larger in size, unlike nuclear families. This is because different
generations reside together and choose to not separate units and continue as the same unit. For
instance, in joint families grandparents reside with their grandchildren under the same roof.
 Common kitchen- Usually a joint family cooks food in one kitchen and eats the same food. This is
because they function as a common unit, in productive and survival terms.
 Shared Residence – Living under the same roof is essential for a joint family. Even if not exactly
under the same roof some joint families choose to live close to each other. Therefore the proximity of
the family members is an essential feature of a joint family.
 Shared property- The cooperative institution of a joint family shares family properties and incomes.
The income of the members is pooled together so as to form a common fund to run the household.
The members have rights over the common ancestral properties. The Karta or the head usually
manages such property and accounts.
 Common worship- The family members follow the same religion and also worship similar deities.
Celebrations, social festivities, etc. are jointly celebrated as well as religious duties and rites are
collectively taken up.

Conclusion

The topic of joint family has been covered in great detail. One has looked into joint family meaning
with the help of various definitions prominent sociologists have put forward. The difference between
joint and nuclear families has also been established. The features that distinguish a joint family are
also mentioned and explained. The FAQs section provides additional information to address the
most probable questions that might arise. The additional information will help towards a better
understanding of the topic.