definitions of the family

Question 1

definition of a household

Answer 1

an inhabited residence, may be a person living alone or a group of people living together who may or may not be related

Question 2

Murdock - definition of the family

Answer 2

‘a social group characterised by a common residence, economic cooperation and reproduction. it includes adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship and one or more children, own or adopted, of the sexually cohabiting adults’

Question 3

common definition of family

Answer 3

a group of people who are related to each other by blood or marriage

Question 4

Murdock - the family is universal

Answer 4

looked at 250 societies of varying sizes and structures and found that, although diverse, each contained a basic nucleus of a husband, wife and children, although there were variations in different societies as extensions of this nucleus
- eg polygyny is common in part of Africa where men often have more than one wife

Question 5

Gough - the family is not universal

Answer 5

argued family does not exist in some cultures, using the Nayar tribe as an example, where husbands and wives had no economic or sexual obligations to one another

Question 6

Cheal - solutions to defining the family (personal life perspective)

Answer 6

• family is impossible to define so abandon the idea
• all families are essentially extensions or reductions of nuclear families
• ask people what they think families are and study them from an insider perspective