The Family As A Social Institution

The word family originally meant A Band Of Slaves.(Coontz 1999) It is worth noting this when looking at the origins of Families. For even when the word came to apply to persons affiliated by blood and marriage this was more in relation to the notion of families as authority relations rather than our modern terminology being of families as groups of loved ones. It is also important to note that marriage in those other than the elite in most white Christian societies was not a ceremony performed until the last 250 years or so. This was because of the way in which land and other things of value were to be divided and as only the rich had to worry about disbursement of assets after their deaths they were the only ones that needed in essence to be legally married.

But regardless of the Religious and or legal ceremonies surrounding the union of marriage past or present the concept of family has remained very strong. The family has always been a fundamental building block for all societies. In essence it is the relationship between family members that has always determined the way in which a whole society and community can function.

Through learning to show respect towards others in your own family, by being nurtured and cared for by this small group of individuals we are taught very strongly that that is the way in which our society has chosen to demonstrate to us how we should treat each other. It is rather like a group of cells that join together to make a body part. That part is useless unless it has other parts to which it can then join onto in order to make the whole bodywork. The idea of an ideal family then is one that makes and breaks a whole society. If one of the parts of the unit breaks down in this case the family then this will have repercussions for the rest of the institutions that we hold in high regard in our society. If people have little or no regard for their close family members then they will therefore have no regard for the rest of the way that the society functions. No fear of the law no interest in education in other words absolutely no respect for what currently holds our society in place.

If one looks up the word Family in the Webster’s dictionary there are 22 definitions given. The Australian Bureau of statistics defines the Family as “two or more persons related by birth, marriage or adoption who reside in the same household”.

(But does the term family in the times that we are living in need to address that biology alone does not constitute or sustain a family.)

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(But does the term family in the times that we are living in need to address that biology alone does not constitute or sustain a family.)

Ultimately there are a number of considerations that need to be taken into account when defining a Family. These are political, economic, legal and religious issues. Sociologically speaking being identified as a Family member implies differences in the social rights and obligations toward others who are identified as Family members, as opposed to strangers, work colleagues, neighbours or friends. However where a culture draws this line is highly variable. (Broom and Selznick 1975)

It really is pointless to argue over the value that we place on Family in our society. The fact that the divorce rate is higher than ever at 43% of all first marriages (Australian Bureau Statistics 2000) and that more women are choosing to have less children and more women are choosing to have none has not however changed the fact that it is the two parent heterosexual long-term relationship that is what the large majority of us still attain to have. It is interesting to note that whilst the divorce rate is so high more people than ever continue to re marry and to still get married in the first place knowing that they have a 50 50 chance of failure. That is one very strong institution based on those figures alone.

There are 3 main approaches to the study of the Family. The functionalist approach, the Marxist approach and the Feminist approach. When looking at these three approaches one thing is very clear and that is the fact that family is important however you choose to look at it. The functionalist approach seeks to demonstrate the financial benefits of the family and that it is for this reason that families remain so strong. Basically for functionalists the family is something to capitalise on for financial gain of a society. The down side of this being that those who cannot work are then put in a position where they are disadvantaged and have to rely on their families even to their own detriment. The Marxist approach being highly critical of capitalism and its implications on family life sought for greater equality. (Sargent,Nilan,Winter 1997) The feminists see the family as a snare around a woman’s ankle, almost but not quite preventing her from being an autonomous part of the real world. The feminists have in fact caused great changes due to this way of thinking in the day-to-day life of those of us who live in Western Cultures. As woman we are now able to have a great many more choices in what we choose to do with our lives. Hence the lower birth rate etc.

The majority of women still chose to aspire to be married however and to have at least one child.

In the last 300 to 400 years there has been increasing emphasis on the autonomy of the individual, on romantic love on the privacy of the couple, on affectionate relationships between couples and their children and with legal changes that have reduced the power of extended family over the nuclear family. In fact it seems that the 1950s were the pinnacle of this idealising of the nuclear family. At that time anyone who did not aspire to be a two-parent family with their own children was considered deviant. (Ehrenreich 1983) Then from the 1960s the idea of the nuclear family came under scrutiny as the rights of the individual family members came to have more importance than the rights of individual families (McDonald 1988). However today in Australian Society it is family life that is still very strongly valued. People continue to still want and value the life of the family unit. Women now work outside the home but it is still their home that is of most importance to them. We are having fewer children but we are spending more money than ever on them.(Australian bureau statistics 2000) Whatever rewards we are gaining by becoming more recognised in society on an individual basis we still turn back to our family for the dispersion of these rewards, to thank them, for support and for love. Things that our society values very highly indeed. (money and love(sex!!!)

In regards to the relevance of the family in nursing we have to look at the positives and negatives of all the approaches, more so though the negatives that have a direct impact on the physical and emotional well being of a society. When a family is not a cohesive nurturing unit we will find problems. It can of course be argued that a lot of these so called problems only exist because of the way in which we continue to idealise the perfect nuclear family and when as individuals we see that we are not in this perfect set up it can lead us to feel as if we have failed and how often do you hear “he had such a bad home life that’s why he turned out so bad, She was sexually abused as a child that’s why she’s a drug addict etc.

Nurses need to be able to understand the makeup, structure, function and coping capacity of the family and then see how to build on their relative strengths and to overcome their weaknesses. To be able to think of the family in terms of the individual to whom she is treating. To see that those to whom the client /patient defines as family may be more appropriately termed as significant others, not just the biological or those with legal ties. The nurse needs to be able to think of the family as a set of relationships that are of importance to that client. That many clients will have diverse cultural and ethnic orientations. (Crisp & Taylor 2001)

In our society we can put 5 family norms into place. The nuclear family. Extended family. Single parent family. Blended family. And alternative relationships, which could include same sex or grandparents as guardians of their grandchildren Etc.

Family nursing is increasingly the goal and the focus of the future of health care practices all across the country. So t o be a nurse dealing with families it would be important to understand the family in such a way that as a nurse you did not define it to the point where you confined it.

To be effective as a nurse in understanding the importance of family in Potter & Perry’s Fundamentals of Nursing (2001) a number of areas are given for us as nurses to focus on and to explore. These are as follows;

The family influences the lives of its members
.Family members influence one another’s health beliefs and practices.
The nurse needs to base care on the clients attitude toward the family rather than on a inflexible definition of family.
Two systems that help the nurse assess families are the systems perspective and the developmental stages perspective.
The social class, economic stability and racial and ethnic background influence the families’ health.( violence, drug dependence, dietary issues, sexual issues etc)
Family nursing requires that nurses continuingly examine current trends in the Australian family and its health care implications.

Family forms are defiantly changing. More women work, have fewer children and new reproductive techniques suggest this will not change. Men seem to be taking more interest in the role of on hands fathering and being more responsible for the care taking of their children. Do blended families, single parent families and same sex families’ couples with no children mean that families are breaking down? Or are they just continuing to change based on economic factors as they have done in the past? Change and progress or demise of the perfect family and anarchy? A lot of questions but as to whether there will be anarchy or a lack of basic values if the notion of family as we now know it is no more, well only time can tell.

Will the war that is taking place at the moment and the huge resistance by many common people help us to see ourselves as a global family? That we are all of us interconnected. That one society doesn’t just make up the body but the whole world does. What implication does this have?

In Australia people are basically defining their own families. They do this on four main dimensions.(Bulbeck 1998)

The relationship to the person.
The purpose or activity concerned.
Particular circumstances in their case.
Their perceptions of the nature of their obligations.

However they still are striving to be defined as a Family. To be seen as a family or part of a family is something that will be important to our society for a very long time to come. So as stated throughout this paper it is not so much a question of is family important but of the fact that it is very important and to what extent we will now as a society go to in the future in order to define our families, just so that we can all no matter if we are, gay, straight, childless, have 2 dogs, live with step parents foster parents etc call ourselves part of a family.