Sociology

Families are known as the main building blocks of bigger and larger communities that include everyone. Over the passing of time, descriptions and roles of families in the society have also evolve and changed. And because of this, hundreds of literature and studies focused on getting in-depth with family situations in real life have been published already, in the hope of aiding familial relationships to be better understood and academically explained. Families are usually studied based on their size, composition, evolution, and function in the society. The operational description of families can be related to the truth that family structure and functions is extraordinarily variable in terms of wealth, age composition, sex composition, and occupation (Gittins, 1993). For this paper, some of the most effective and informational works that are focused in analyzing the purposes and developments that families have gained historically and culturally are reviewed in the hope of shedding light in defining the operation of families around the world.

The definition of family is one that is hard to put in simple words as it is continuously dependent on the time, place, and purpose of its usage. In the essay entitled Changing Families, Changing Households found on the book of Graham Alan and Graham Crow, they have examined the meaning of families and how it is defined against the term household. As explained in the essay, the two terms are distinct at some point and though they can merge, they are not always interchangeable. Family, in general, pertains to the awareness that someone belongs to something. Alan and Crow (2001) defines family also as a term which in everyday usage signifies a range of different relationships, practices, and emotions of a person. Families are very particular on the idea of kinship, which completes the social definition of belonging to a family. Kinship is bounded by matrimony or by blood and it focuses on the emotional solidarity that members feel towards each other.

After explaining what families mean, the two authors then defined household in contrast to families. Although definitions of household vary, essentially what they all refer to are social groupings which typically share a range of domestic activities in common (Alan  Crow, 2001). The term household is emphasised or directed towards the division of responsibility and workload, how they solve problems together, and resources are distributed within the members. Household, as explained in the essay, can involve simple things like living in the same house and eating together. These things do not necessarily require kinship in order to accomplish. But a household has the task of making decisions that would be okay for all members of the house.

The essay is also focused on the existence of individualisation within familial situations. Many other scholars have also included this topic in their works. Alan and Crow addressed the existence of individualisation which encourages the increasing divergence from the traditional nuclear family because of the development of the need for personal satisfaction that may or may not strain family arrangements.

Alan and Crow have recognized, like other scholars, that descriptions of families are no longer confined in the standard and ideal nuclear family setting definition. The evolution of familial setups have paved way to the reality that many peoples experiences are far more complex with cohabitation, divorce, and remarriage all complicating the sets of family relationships in which they are involved (Alan  Crow, 2001). Also, their essay did not miss pointing out genders and ages are significant factors in studies on family. Families have evolved together with the improvements of the advocacies of fair rights and equal roles for women.

The importance of gender and age issues are also explored by Diana Gittins in her article entitled How Have Families Changed, which is focused on providing an in-depth analysis of the functions of families during the pre-industrialization era and up to the post-industrialization era. According to Gittins (1993), marital status and age thus demarcated people from one another, as did wealth and skills. The article provides discussions on the status of women in the society and particularly highlights their struggles brought by the changing economy and society. The assumption was always that the mother or a sister or other female relative or neighbour was ultimately responsible for children and this explains the gender ideology that persist in the society (Gittins, 1993). Her article particularly employed historical narrations to describe the evolution of families. She also included accounts of the problems in the past, such as the high mortality rates, that encouraged broken marriages and stepfamilies. The article examined the status of life during the pre-industrialisation age and the early years of industrialisation in order to explain what allowed the changes in family settings.

One of Gittins (1993) most powerful idea in her essay is the reality that there is no such thing as the familyonly families. This particularly addresses the reality that families are not inactive rather they are constantly changing and evolving in nature. Regarded as one of the biggest factors behind the development of families, is the economy. During this part of history, labour was becoming the biggest source of income for families. And since reproduction of children was an obvious way of increasing the potential labour, the demand for more children was inevitable (Gittins, 1993). But because of very high mortality rates, the settings of families remained volatile.

Gittins also explained one of the major causes of transitions in family life. During the early period of a family cycle, many households needed extra help and this sparked the practice of children leaving their homes at a young age in order to earn or help in taking care of families that mothers or parents cannot attend to on their own (Gittins, 1993). The transition of life cycle was that children were leaving home at an early age to work as a servant for another family. For some, there is kinship involved, expanding families and making them extended in nature. But as years passed, this was also changed and help in households have become officially employable.

Gittins article addressed and disproved the earlier notions that families before the industrial period were stagnant in nature. Pre-industrial society was both mobile and varied, and so were the families and households within it and this was particularly influenced also by the changing economic settings (Gittins, 1993). And as the industrial period of history dawns and eventually pass, families have developed to become dependent on wage labour as money became harder to earn. And as mortality rates decreases, the younger generation became very important in earning for their families, thus encouraging considerable pressure from parents not to marry early (Gittins, 1993). It is obvious that the patterns of building and keeping families adjust towards the demands of the economy.

John Macionis and Ken Plummer have also discussed the functions of families and how have economic and social developments influenced them. The discussion on their essay entitled Families, Households, and Personal Cultures particularly focused on families from the United Kingdom but they began their introduction by using the condition of marriages and child rearing in Japan and China in order to demonstrate the diversity of family set-ups around the world.

According to Macionis and Plummer (2008), families are changing dramatically and there are several reasons that contribute to these continuous changes. Social institutions like the economy are specifically significant in shaping the situations of people, including marriages and family life. The definition of families in terms of size and shape is also dependent on the peoples social standing and economic status. The article utilized specific and relevant examples, such as the decline of family building in Sweden due to the high welfare offered by government, to highlight the role of government and economy in the changes in family cycles.
 
Like Gittins, Macionis and Plummer (2008) also defined families as relationships built on kinship, social bond, based on blood, marriage or adoption that joins individuals into families. Families are bounded by emotional and social operations that are significant to a persons existence. In this article, the functions of the family in society are enumerated and explained in detail. The authors emphasised how families help in socialisation, regulation of sexual activity, social placement or social identity, and material and social security of people. These functions of the family are reliant and dependent on the historical development of the society that dictates how people relate with each other.

Today, rather than simply viewing the family as a fixed thing, it is now seen as a set of relationships built around such things as housework, caring, being a mother, being a child, or having sex (Macionis  Plummer, 2008). Family members are given their particular roles and significance that are important in making the relationships of families work out. In the article, the description of families as bonds that evolve by intimacy and not only forced by marriages is highlighted in order to establish how families develop over time. But Macionis and Plummer (2008) also tackled in their essay the downsides of families as they allotted significant discussion on the reality that many families are exceedingly dangerous places. From gender discrimination to child abuses, the horrors of families are also discussed extensively in the article.

Macionis and Plummer discussed how the important developments in history have particularly affected the evolution of modern families. They also focused on discussing the circumstances in United Kingdom. Family setting here have changed tremendously and the idea of the traditional nuclear family is no longer applicable to define a family. One of the highlights of their article is the discussion of the divorce rates. Far from divorce being an unusual ending to a marriage, it is becoming more and more the norm of marriages (Macionis  Plummer, 2008). Aside from death, divorce is one of the significant reasons behind the increase of number in remarriages and step-parenting. Also, families can be composed of single parents or of parents with the same sexual orientation. These realities are also encouraged by the changes that happen in the society.

Jaipaul Roopnarine and Uwe Gielens book has also focused on the development of families through time and how diverse the settings are for the different parts of the world. The main highlight of their work is focused on how families are formed by different cultural systems around the world (Roopnarine  Gielen, 2005). In their introductory essay, they discussed how in their work, families are analyzed and viewed in two perspectives, the evolutionary and postmodern. In their work, they have reaffirmed the findings of Gittins, Alan, and Crow that families in the past are not static. Their essay explored how familial roles have evolved over time and whether there are patterns to variations across human societies in order to analyse the evolution of family settings. By knowing the development that families around the world have undergone would help people today understand the dominating definitions and cultures that families have.

Family size and household composition have been affected by several social factors. These factors involve government policies, migration of people in search of better economic conditions, and changing gender roles among others. Roopnarine and Gielen (2005) have established that transformations in family structure do precipitate changes in familial, institutional, and community practices. They have explored in their work how families are shaped by the economic situations that may challenge the family members. They have also touched on the topic of family extendedness that explained how the role of extended members may include such diverse and highly significant functions in some cultures around the world. This is somewhat related to the theme on kinship that the earlier essays have explored. For some cultures around the world, extended relatives like grandparents are crucial in how families function.

The introductory article of Roopnarine and Gielen for their book also discussed how the importance of the child rearing abilities of parents in shaping a definition for families. Their work has highlighted how the skills of parents are essential in dictating the operations of the family. For parents, their task usually involves the ability develop and encourage competencies and skills necessary for their children to successfully achieve the demands of life within the particular culture they are living in. This is to ensure that their children may live fruitful lives in the future because though parents may have different belief systems about what is important for raising competent children Roopnarine and Gielen (2005) conclude that real parent will only want what is best for their children.

It has been proven that families around the world are dependent to different social factors and are influenced by economic circumstances and government policies. Studies have proven that families cannot adhere to one specific and ideal definition only. The operational description for a family is not dependent on the traditional definition anymore for there are several things that have changed already. Many marriages still end short but instead of death like in the past eras, divorce has become the culprit of husbands and wives separating. This paved way to more varieties in family setting such as remarriages, stepfamilies, and cohabiting. The liberality that is highly advocated today and aided by modern technology has also encouraged other kinds of family compositions such as single parenting and partnerships of same sexes. Also, the evolution of family function has made men increase their role in child-rearing. Also, it has been constantly pointed out that economic and social factors are significant in the changes in marriage and the family and though unhappy marriages can end with the help of divorce, postmodern families emphasised that children should still have the right for a continuous relationship with their parents because even if their marriage had ended, their responsibility in parenthood is more lasting.