Table of Contents
While cultural definitions of family may be based on blood, marriage, or legal ties, “families” are socially constructed and can include cohabitation and other culturally recognized social bonds such as fostering, nurturing, or economic ties. Sociology also studies how family relationships affect members and society.
There are also more recent studies, following up the lives of mothers who have been in care themselves, that show they often have difficulty in handling relationships with their own children later on 11. There are, then, convincing practical reasons for the old-fashioned idea that mothers and children need each other.
Is family a phenomenon?
Measurement of family phenomena included family functioning, support, environment, expressiveness, relationships, cohesion, communication, satisfaction, life events related to family, parental style of influence, and parental bonding. Few studies gave clear conceptualization of family or family phenomena.
What is family construct?
Researchers have attempted to define the family based on constructs that are larger than the family. It also includes others who are not part of the family such as friends and co-workers. The family has also been viewed as a form of social group, a group held together by a common purpose.
Currently many family researchers view parenthood as a social construct (Thurer, 1994; Glenn, 1994; Phoenix, Woollett and Lloyd, 1991). Social construction refers to the process by which parenthood (mothering and fathering) is culturally definedwithin social, economic, and historical contexts (Apple and Golden, 1997).
Is marriage a natural phenomenon?
Marriage is anything but natural; it is a cultural phenomenon, in fact the most cultural of phenomena, according to renowned anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss–one in which humans exchange people and goods and cement their relationships with each other in deliberated acts of community.
Kinship refers to the social structure that ties people together (whether by blood, marriage, legal processes, or other agreements) and includes family relationships. Kinship acknowledges that individuals have a role in defining who is a member of their own family and how familial relationships extend across society.