What Is a Family — Forms, Resources, Values, Responsibilities of Members, Rules and Problems

The con­cept of what a fam­i­ly is has dif­fer­ent inter­pre­ta­tions depend­ing on the field of appli­ca­tion, the his­tor­i­cal stage and many oth­er fac­tors. Such a cell of soci­ety has very spe­cif­ic fea­tures and func­tions, has a life cycle, resources and val­ues.

Family — what is it?

Dif­fer­ent sci­en­tif­ic and pub­lic spheres inter­pret the def­i­n­i­tion of a fam­i­ly in some­what dif­fer­ent ways:

family signs

Of all the above def­i­n­i­tions of what a fam­i­ly is, cer­tain signs of this social insti­tu­tion can be dis­tin­guished:

What is a family for?

Each per­son can for­mu­late their opin­ion in dif­fer­ent ways regard­ing the need for mar­riage and the birth of chil­dren. How­ev­er, sci­en­tists rank among the main func­tions of the fam­i­ly:

1. repro­duc­tive. In the vast major­i­ty of soci­eties and reli­gions, such an insti­tu­tion is nec­es­sary for the con­tin­u­a­tion of the human race.
2. edu­ca­tion­al. Hus­band and wife not only repro­duce chil­dren, but also edu­cate them. That is, they instill spir­i­tu­al val­ues, pass on accu­mu­lat­ed life expe­ri­ence, social­ly adapt and much more.
3. busi­ness or eco­nom­ic. Thanks to joint work and a clear dis­tri­b­u­tion of respon­si­bil­i­ties, spous­es pro­vide them­selves and their off­spring with a cer­tain lev­el of well-being.
4. com­mu­nica­tive. This func­tion is relat­ed to peo­ple’s need for com­mu­ni­ca­tion, emo­tion­al accep­tance and empa­thy.
5. Tra­di­tion­al. That is, cer­tain tra­di­tions and cus­toms, the con­ti­nu­ity of gen­er­a­tions and the his­to­ry of the fam­i­ly are formed and trans­mit­ted in the fam­i­ly.

Family structure

It is gen­er­al­ly accept­ed that the fam­i­ly is a com­plex social orga­ni­za­tion that has a cer­tain struc­ture. The tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly con­sists of:

The com­po­si­tion of the fam­i­ly includes two impor­tant para­me­ters:

1. Con­nec­tion or degree of psy­cho­log­i­cal inti­ma­cy. The micro­cli­mate in rela­tion­ships and the lev­el of suc­cess of each indi­vid­ual depends on its qual­i­ty.
2. Hier­ar­chy, or type of rela­tion­ship by type of dom­i­na­tion. There are fam­i­ly unions based on inequal­i­ty: a man or a woman is con­sid­ered the main one. In mod­ern fam­i­lies, equal­i­ty is increas­ing­ly com­mon not only between spous­es, but also in their rela­tion­ships with chil­dren.

Family life cycle

In demog­ra­phy, fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships are viewed through the prism of the life cycle or the so-called stages of par­ent­hood:

Family types

In mod­ern soci­ety, types of fam­i­lies can be clas­si­fied accord­ing to a num­ber of cri­te­ria. By the num­ber of part­ners there are:

1. monog­a­mous unions con­sist­ing of two part­ners of dif­fer­ent sex­es. It is worth not­ing that in some states, same-sex unions are also rec­og­nized at the leg­isla­tive lev­el.
2. polyg­a­mousin which sev­er­al men or women live togeth­er. Vivid exam­ples are “Swedish” fam­i­lies or ori­en­tal harems.

It is pos­si­ble to typol­o­gize the con­cept of what a fam­i­ly is by the num­ber of indi­vid­u­als liv­ing togeth­er on:

1. Sim­ple. In such unions, par­ents and chil­dren live togeth­er.
2. Nuclear, or cells of soci­ety in which the com­mon econ­o­my is run by sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions: grand­par­ents, par­ents, their chil­dren. Often such soci­eties are called clans.

By the num­ber of chil­dren there are:

• child­less unions;
• small chil­dren, rais­ing 1–2 chil­dren;
• large, in which they grow from 3 chil­dren.

Accord­ing to the form of man­age­ment, there are:

1. Patri­ar­chalwhere the male is the dom­i­nant
2. matri­ar­chal with a woman leader.
3. Demo­c­ra­t­icin which each mem­ber has the right to vote and the right to make deci­sions.

Accord­ing to the psy­cho­log­i­cal cli­mate, all cells of soci­ety can be divid­ed into:

• pros­per­ous, with a healthy micro­cli­mate;
• dis­ad­van­taged.

Family forms

In mod­ern soci­ety, fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships can take var­i­ous forms of expres­sion:

1. Civ­il mar­riageor the tra­di­tion­al recog­ni­tion by the state of a new cell of soci­ety in the reg­istry office with the appro­pri­ate mark in the pass­port.
2. reli­gious mar­riagesuch as a wed­ding. In some states, the reli­gious rites of the union of a man and a woman are rec­og­nized as offi­cial, while in oth­ers they are the vol­un­tary will of the new­ly­weds.

There are also so-called alter­na­tive forms of fam­i­ly rela­tions:

1. Cohab­i­ta­tionin which a man and a woman live togeth­er, decide to have chil­dren, but with­out offi­cial reg­is­tra­tion of rela­tions in state bod­ies.
2. Incom­plete fam­i­lieswith only one par­ent. Formed after a divorce, the death of one of the part­ners, the birth of chil­dren out of wed­lock.
3. Mixed, or con­sol­i­dat­ed. Such a union is formed between a man and a woman who have chil­dren from pre­vi­ous mar­riages.
4. Same-sex fam­i­lies. There is a lot of con­tro­ver­sy around such unions around the world regard­ing their legal­iza­tion and the moral side of the issue.

Family Resources

It has already been men­tioned above that the con­cept of what the insti­tu­tion of the fam­i­ly is, nec­es­sar­i­ly includes mate­r­i­al goods and val­ues, on the basis of which mar­riage and the joint upbring­ing of chil­dren by spous­es are built. All the wealth that the fam­i­ly’s prop­er­ty con­sists of can be divid­ed into:

1. Finan­cial resources. These are cash (salaries and ben­e­fits, for exam­ple) and funds in bank accounts, deposits, stocks and bonds.
2. mate­r­i­al well-beingcon­sist­ing of real estate, cars, house­hold appli­ances, jew­el­ry, works of art and much more.
3. Human Resources. Active mem­bers work, and younger indi­vid­u­als pro­vide them with all pos­si­ble assis­tance, for exam­ple, in house­keep­ing.
4. Infor­ma­tion­al. This type of resource is valu­able in that each work, for exam­ple, is per­formed accord­ing to a cer­tain algo­rithm that adults teach their chil­dren.

Family values

In the under­stand­ing of each fam­i­ly for a per­son is a small world with a cer­tain way of life, tra­di­tions and val­ues, with the help of which this sys­tem is formed, devel­oped and func­tions. There are so-called basic val­ues ​​that are inher­ent in most fam­i­lies around the world. These include:

In addi­tion, the con­cept of what a close-knit fam­i­ly can include one of two types of val­ues:

1. Tra­di­tion­alwhich include large fam­i­lies and a patri­ar­chal way of life, a large num­ber of cus­toms, and so on.
2. Mod­ern. In such cells of soci­ety, part­ners build a career on an equal foot­ing, strive to have chil­dren lat­er and con­clude a mar­riage con­tract in case of prop­er­ty dis­putes.

Responsibilities of family members

The con­cept of what a suc­cess­ful fam­i­ly is with­out fail includes a clear dis­tri­b­u­tion of respon­si­bil­i­ties between all its mem­bers. The psy­cho­log­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in the house and the pres­ence of fam­i­ly com­fort depend on this. Psy­chol­o­gists rec­om­mend:

Features of the modern family

Accord­ing to research by psy­chol­o­gists and soci­ol­o­gists, the mod­ern fam­i­ly dif­fers sig­nif­i­cant­ly from pre­vi­ous pro­to­types in that:

family rules

In the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty, fam­i­ly psy­chol­o­gy is con­sid­ered a sep­a­rate com­plex dis­ci­pline with its own nuances and char­ac­ter­is­tics. At the same time, the rules of each indi­vid­ual cell of soci­ety are an impor­tant part of the work of fam­i­ly psy­chol­o­gists. To be suc­cess­ful, they must:

Family problems

The mod­ern fam­i­ly union has both prob­lems sim­i­lar to pre­vi­ous mod­els, as well as a num­ber of new ones. These may include: