A family is a domestic group of people who are either related by birth, by marriage or through other legal relationships that include domestic partnership, surnames, and adoption or by simple ownership. Article 16(3) of Universal Declaration of Human Rights says ?The Family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by the society and State?.
Types of family
As per the researches of sociology and anthropology, the primary function of the family is reproducing society, either socially, or biologically or through both the ways. Anywhere in the world, the structure of families traditionally begins with relations between parents and children, between spouses and other relatives.
There are basically four major types of families prevalent:
?Patrifocal ? a family that consists of father and children and more popular in Islamic States.
?Matrifocal ? a family that consists of a mother and children.
?Conjugal ? consists of one or more mothers and their children and one/ or more spouses. Common where division of labor exists with participation of both men and women.
?Consanguineal ? this consists of one or more mother, children and other people [specially the family of the mother]. This family is more common where mothers cannot nurture their children, and specially where property is inherited.
In United States and Europe, the term ?nuclear family? refers to conjugal families. But sociologists describe conjugal families as those who are relatively independent of the kindred of the parents and other families in general, and nuclear family refers to those who maintain relatively close ties with their kindred.
Kinship factors in family
Kinship is a specific system referring to people enjoying familial relationships. The kinship terminology is more common in societies that are based on conjugal families.
Members of nuclear family use the following kinship terms:
?Mother ? the female parent
?Father ? the male parent
?Daughter ? the females born baby of the mother
?Son ? the male born baby of the mother
?Brother ? the male born of the same mother
?Sister ? the female born of the same mother
?Grandfather ? a parent's father
?Grandmother ? a parent's mother
?Grandson ? a child's son
?Granddaughter ? a child's daughter
However, there are some relationships that are collateral:
?Niece ? brother's daughters and sister's daughters
?Cousins- children of aunts and uncles
However, the terms ?half brother? and ?half-sister? refers to siblings who can share only one parent.
It is family basically that sustains you throughout your lifetime, so everyone should love and care for their family to enjoy happy relationships in their life.
