What does family mean?

Family is a collective noun that can be interpreted as family or family members. When it is interpreted as family, it is a countable noun and when it is interpreted as family, i.e. family members, it is itself a plural noun.

Family is a unit of social life arising on the basis of marital, blood or adoptive relationships and constituted between relatives. [1]? Family is an existence of happy life.

The family is divided into a broad and a narrow sense, the narrow sense being the social unit constituted by monogamy; the broad sense refers to a variety of family interest groups, i.e., clans, at different stages of human evolution.

From the point of view of social setup, family is one of the most basic social setups, and it is one of the most basic and important institutions and group forms of human beings.

Functionally, the family is the basic unit of human intimacy for the socialization of children, the provision of the elderly, and the satisfaction of economic cooperation. In terms of relationships, the family is a ****same group of people permanently inhabited by people related by marriage, blood, and adoption.

The Shuowen Jiezi (Explaining and Analysing Characters) explains the term "family" as follows: "□" (□) is also derived from "宀" (宀). Duan Yucai of the Qing Dynasty noted: "The original meaning is the □ of the boar, and the derivation of □ is borrowed as the □ of the human being". The word "family" came later, and its basic meaning is within a family. For example, in the Song Dynasty of the Southern Dynasties, "The Book of the Later Han Dynasty - Zheng Jun Biography" reads: "I often claim that I am sick of my family, and I should not be summoned by the states and counties". In ancient Rome, Famulus (family) means a family slave, while Familia refers to all slaves belonging to one person. Ancient Romans used the term Familia to denote a social organism in which the patriarchal power dominated the wife, children and a certain number of slaves.

The realization of the essence of the meaning of the family began only in recent times. according to K. Marx, F. Engels: "People who daily reproduce their lives begin to produce others, i.e. to multiply. This is the relationship between husband and wife, between parents and children, that is, the family." (Marx and Engels, vol. 3, p. 32) The Austrian psychologist S. Freud considered the family to be "the connecting link between physical life and the life of the social organism." American sociologists E.W. Burgess and H.J. Locke proposed in their book The Family (1953) that "the family is a group of people united by the bonds of marriage, blood, or adoption, each interacting and interacting with each other in their social capacities as parents, husbands and wives, or as siblings, to create a ****similar culture". According to Chinese sociologist Sun Benwen, a family is a group united by relatives such as husband and wife and children. According to Hao Bin, a famous Chinese psychologist, "The human family is the basic unit of social life composed of relationships such as marriage, blood or adoption." Chinese sociologist Fei Xiaotong believes that the family is a group formed by parents and children.

Family has a broad and narrow sense, the narrow sense refers to monogamous individual families; the broad sense refers to a variety of family forms at different stages of human evolution. In English, there is also a way to say: in family, f stands for father, a stands for and, m stands for mother, i is me, l means love, y is you. together is father and mother I love you. that is, mom and dad I love you.

The relationships necessary to make up a family are: marriage, adoption, childbearing, and support.

Social Cells:

The family is the most basic cell of society, the most important and core social organization, the most important, basic and core economic organization, and the most important, basic and core spiritual home of people. The healthy and sustainable development of the family is the cornerstone of the stable development of society and the country, and the breakdown of the family is the catalyst for the demise of the country.

Functionalists:

Functionalists believe that, in the past, the family was mostly a self-sufficient unit or group that met most of the physiological and psychological needs of its members, and that it had the functions of economic production, safety and security, education, socialization, and religion, and reproduced material, demographic, and spiritual wealth. Nowadays, some of the functions of the family are divided by other social settings such as education and religion. However, functionalists believe that the socialization, emotional companionship, economic cooperation, and sexual normative functions of the family still play an important role in the healthy functioning of society.

Conflict theorists:

Conflict theorists believe that the family is the primary site of gender inequality, and thus the basis for many inequalities in society. Marxists argue that the male-dominated family, by providing society with some important forms of labor that do not have to be paid for, and by maintaining women's subordinate position, has greatly contributed to the creation of capitalism. So gender equality is unlikely to diminish if the capitalist system is not overthrown.

Difference between family, kinship, and household

Kinship or family: is a social network of people who share **** ancestry, blood, or are related by marriage or nurture. Relatives do not necessarily live together and function as a group, but they are committed to each other and have certain responsibilities and obligations. The exact members of a kinship network are defined by specific cultural norms, and in China, kinship families are generally bounded by the five services.

Clan: a grouping of families of the same clan, same surname, and same geographical area.

Family: a smaller intra-household group of relatives, a unit of people who *** live and reside together, *** account for the same economy, and cooperate with each other in their roles. Throughout our lives, most of us belong to two kinds of families. The family that is born and carries out most of the socialization is the family of origin; the family that is created by marriage and the birth of children is the family of procreation. In modern society, people are primarily loyal to their birth families.

Family descent

The way in which kinship and blood relations are passed down through the generations.

Patriarchal succession, the father's side of the family is the basis of kinship and property taking, with males taking on property along the male line.

Matrilineal succession, conversely, property is left by the mother to her daughters.

Dual lineal succession, where the children's relatives are associated with both parents' sides of the family. Both boys and girls are entitled to take over the property of both parents' families.

Family structures according to the size of the family are:

Family

Nuclear family: a family consisting of one set of parents and minor children.

Extended family: divided into main family and extended joint family.

Principal family: a family consisting of a pair of parents and a pair of married children (or plus other relatives).

Extended Joint Family: a family consisting of one pair of parents and a number of married children (or additional relatives).

Non-Traditional Family Structures:

1. Single Parent Family: a family in which a single father or mother raises minor children.

2. Single-parent families: families in which people do not marry when they reach marriageable age or live alone after divorce.

3. Reorganized family: a family formed when one of the spouses remarries or both of them remarry.

4, Dink family: double income, fertility but do not want children, romantic freedom, enjoy life.

5. Empty-nest family: a family where only the old couple lives.

Other family structures:

Broken intergenerational families, unmarried children without parents*** living together in the same family, as well as other multi-person*** living together in a combination of families resulting from entity marriage.

Status and Trends:

Family structures differ mainly due to socio-economic factors , and family structures worldwide are gradually shifting in the direction of the nuclear family, a trend that is associated with urbanization, industrialization, and modernization.

1. Main Functions

Socialization Functions (i.e., educating and rearing children for social adaptation)

The family is, in many ways, well suited for socialization tasks. It is a small, close-knit group of usually active parents who are affectionate and motivated by their children. Children are often dependent and see their parents as authorities. However, parents are seldom explicitly trained to socialize their children, and the family does not always perform this function very effectively and efficiently. Increasingly, schools and professional organizations are assuming responsibility in this area.

In some countries, a variety of alternatives to the family for socializing children have been tried. For example, in the early years of the former Soviet Union, a new model of collective child-rearing was introduced, and in Israel, experiments in replacing the family with collective farms were explored, yet these attempts ended in failure.

Emotional and companionate core functions

In modern society, the family is the main source of emotional companionship for both adults and children. For children, the lack of parental care can result in harm to intellectual, emotional, and behavioral growth. For adults, although they will not die from lack of love, they also need emotional care.

In terms of some of the current situations, families are becoming increasingly microscopic, newlyweds are increasingly living alone, and people have little access to friendship and support outside of the home, forcing family members to become y dependent on each other for affection and companionship. Providing emotion and companionship has become a core function of the modern family.

Sex rules

For society, sex is about pregnancy, not about individuals. That's why the institutionalization of legal childbearing and sexual norms is strongly promoted in society in general, in order to allow for good care of children, and a smooth intergenerational transition.

Some of the status quo is that women's sexual freedom has increased relative to the previous double standards for men and women in sexuality, and in addition people are more tolerant of sex outside of marriage. However, this has resulted in some people not wanting to get married, and others not necessarily staying with their spouses even when they do get married, making spousal bonding and companionship less stable.

Economic cooperation

For the old, or rustic, rural family, the family was usually a major unit of production. In modern society, however, with the development of industrialization, informatization, urbanization and modernization, the main economic function of the family has changed from production to consumption, such as the purchase of cars, houses, electrical appliances and so on.

In addition, in modern society, with the increase of female employment, the economic dependence of women on men in the family is decreasing.

The above studies are related to the modern American society, however, in the Chinese society, the family is bound to play an important role in supporting the elderly and maintaining the continuity of the race.

The Role of the Family in the Physical and Mental Development of the Child

Family relationships and family education are categorized as: authoritarian, protective, peaceful ****ing, and cooperative.

The tasks of family education:

1, according to the children's situation, formulate plans and measures for family education, and work closely with the school to do a good job of education;

2, strengthen the children's ideological and moral and healthy personality education;

3, to create good conditions for the children's school education;

4, to protect the children's physical and mental health, to Enhance their physical fitness.

I hope I can help you to solve your doubts.