Understanding the concept of family
Extracts from this document...
Introduction
1)What is a family and who does it comprise of? Family denotes a group of people affiliated by a common ancestry, affinity or co-residence. Although the concept of consanguinity originally referred to relations by "blood," anthropologists have argued that one must understand the idea of "blood" metaphorically, and that many societies understand 'family' through other concepts rather than through genetic distance. A family can consist of many generations, namely the grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, and sometimes, great-grand children and great-grand parents. 2) How are concepts such as marriage, children and polygamy important in our understanding of what a family is? A marriage is the union of two individuals, bringing them together and forging a bond between two families. These two individuals can come together to create new lives, their children, and their futures. ...read more.
Middle
There is also a new trend of single-parent families. As people are more open about divorce and the role of women, single-parent family is also accepted as part of the society. Over the last few decades, numbers of unconventional families such as childless families and one-child families are increasing rapidly. 4) Does the extended family still have a place in modern society? No. Many people get married and leave home, living alone. However, some still live with their parents, but there are only two main reasons for this, firstly just for the sake of doing so, so as to look after the elderly, or secondly, to exploit the elderly as free maids. Siblings seldom live together, due to the fact that marriage causes them to want to live alone with their spouses and children. ...read more.
Conclusion
6) What are some of the significant feature/differences between an Asian family and a western family? An asian family is generally more traditional in thinking while western families are more open-minded. A asian family's traditional thinking may include practices like the women in the family stays at home to do household chores while the men work. Also, it is practice that the men in the family marry and the couple stays in the parental house while women are married into other families. In a western family both sexes are treated with equal regard, and they have more freedom to do as they please. 7) What are the similarities and differences found between families of different class, racial and ethnic groups in Singapore? In Singapore, richer people may stay together with their extended family because their finances allow it. Poorer people will stay in smaller homes. Racial and ethnic differences are few, and there is not much difference between how they live. ...read more.
The above preview is unformatted text
This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Miscellaneous section.
Found what you're looking for?
- Start learning 29% faster today
- 150,000+ documents available
- Just £6.99 a month
