Key Terms

Question 1

What is a household?

Answer 1

Either one person living alone or a group of people whose live at the same address and share living arrangements.

Most families live in a household but no all households are family e.g students that live together.

2014 - 28% of households consisted of people living alone.

Question 2

What is monogamy?

Answer 2

Two individuals in a relationship.

Found in Europe, USA and most Christian cultures.

Question 3

What is serial monogamy?

Answer 3

A series of monogamous marriages.

Found in Europe, USA, where there are high rates of divorce and remarriage.

Question 4

What is arranged marriage?

Answer 4

Marriages arranged by pre td to match their children with partners of a similar background and status.

Found in the Indian sun-continent and Muslim, Sikh and Hindu minority ethnic groups in Britain.

Question 5

What is civil partnership?

Answer 5

Gives legal recognition to the relationships of same-sex couples, giving them equal treatment to married couples.

2014 - gay and lesbian couples were legally enabled to marry on the same basis as different sex couples.

Question 6

What is polygamy?

Answer 6

Marriage to more than one partner at a time.

Question 7

What is polygyny?

Answer 7

One husband with two or more wives.

Found in Islamic countries e.g Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Question 8

What is polyandry?

Answer 8

One wife with two or more husbands.

Found in Tibet, among the Todas of southern India.

Question 9

What is the nuclear family?

Answer 9

Two generations: parents and children living in the same household.

Question 10

What is the extended family?

Answer 10

All kin including and beyond the nuclear family.

Question 11

What is the classic extended family?

Answer 11

An extended family sharing the same household or living near each other.

Question 12

What is the modified extended family?

Answer 12

An extended family living apart but keeping in touch by phone, letters, social media.

Question 13

What is a beanpole family?

Answer 13

A multi-generation extended family, long and thin, with few aunts, uncles and cousins.

Question 14

What is a patriarchal family?

Answer 14

Authority held by males.

Question 15

What is a matriarchal family?

Answer 15

Authority held by females.

Question 16

What is a symmetrical family?

Answer 16

Authority and household takes shared between male and female partners.

Question 17

What is a reconstituted family, step family, or blended family?

Answer 17

One or both partners previously married, with children of previous relationships.

Question 18

What is a lone parent family?

Answer 18

Lone prentice with dependent children, most commonly after divorce or separation.

Question 19

What are gay and lesbian families?

Answer 19

Same-sex couple living together with children.

Question 20

What is a single person household?

Answer 20

And individual living alone.

Question 21

What is the family?

Answer 21

A group of people who are related by kinship ties: blood, marriage, civil partnership or adoption.

Family is one of the most important social institutions, found in all known societies.

It is a basic unit of social organisation, and plays a key role in socialising children into the culture of their society.

Question 22

What is a dependency culture?

Answer 22

A set of values and beliefs, and a way of life, centred on dependence on others, particularly benefits from the welfare state.

Question 23

What is the underclass?

Answer 23

A social group at the bottom of the social class hierarchy, whose members are in some ways different from, and cut off or excluded from the rest of society.

Question 24

What are ideological state apparatuses?

Answer 24

Agencies which swerve to spread the ideology, and justify the power, of the dominant social class.