Definition of Family

Definition of Family
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Abstract
A family is a group of people who are related to each other by marriage and blood.
Traditionally, a family is a group of people consisting of a male, a female and their children. But
recently, many new family structures are coming forward in the world. In Canada, the one person
household has dominated the household demographics and there is a rise in coupe without
children and the traditional structure of the extended family. It is due to rapid modernization,
declining marriage rate, immigration etcetera. Many foundational theories are governing the
family structure but with time their implication withered. However, functionalist and feminist
theories are still marginally applicable.
Keywords: Family, household demographics, functionalist theory, feminist theory

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Introduction
The word family is a modern English version of a Latin word ‘familia’ which is
household of servants and was originated from the Latin word ‘famulus’ which originally meant
‘servant’. A family is a group of people who share the same ancestors. It is a social group which
is related to each other by blood and marriage. Traditionally, a family is a basic unit of society
which includes two people (i.e. one male and one female) siring children and the practice goes
on. It traditionally consists of a male and a female counterpart bonded to each other by the rituals
and vows of matrimonial ceremony and their trueborn children. Additionally, children of
children are part of the same family due to the same ancestral base. Therefore, this family
structure contains at the very least three generations, that is, grandparent, married offspring and
grandchildren. This is the most common type of family in the world and known as Extended
Family (shown in Appendix A).
Although, due to rapid modernization the family structure is shortened up and includes
only two generations, which is, married parents and their children (shown in Appendix B). This
type of family structure is known as the Nuclear Family.
Family is a bond which people enjoy and a bind that glue them together with each other.
However, the definition of family has reached beyond the boundaries of blood and marriage; it
has surpassed the requirement of matrimony and the need to have a female and a male partner.
Today, different family structures have emerged in our society. Some of these include childless
couples, common law marriages or lone parents (shown in Appendix 3). The common law
marriage is an arrangement between the couple both heterosexual and homosexuals who do not
want to marry each other in the ceremonial settings. While the childless couples are those

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couples who are tied to each other by matrimony but do not sire a child. However, the lone
parents are of different concept, it includes divorced parents with their child’s custody and the
individual who want to have children without marriage. These new family structures have
changed the dynamics of society and family experience as a whole. Hence, many feel as if the
new family structure is wrong and unconventional but many agree with it and are living by it.
Experience of every family is different from each other and majorly depends upon the
size of the family and the values of the parents. Every interaction with family shapes our
personality, the way we think and the values inherited by it. Experience in a family counts as
lessons of life, a family is our first teacher about life. It can be said without a doubt that every
family structure faces a problem whether it is parental issues, childcare issues, a financial issue
or social issue. These issues play a crucial role in the development of a family (Browne , et al.,
2017). They often make a family stronger and sometimes, these issues break it apart.
However, the new family structures are more scrutinized for having these problems due
to their newness in society and new problems associated with them. The main problem faced by
them is the scrutinized glare of the society, due to a very rigid belief of what family should
consist of and a need to balance out the male and female part in children upbringing. Hence, new
family structures face additional difficulties in catering to their children, for example, a lone
parent has to make sure that their children do not feel that need of having a second parent just by
looking at the traditional families or the LGBT couples families are excluded (Few-Demo,
Humble, Curran, & Lloyd, 2016).Also, the social acceptance of these new structure
influences the family experience (Stewart, et al., 2016).